Insights from the Market Leaders

We have held structured discussions with several market incumbents and leaders to understand their perspectives and experiences. The insights provided by these individuals from the payment industry in Kuwait have helped us provide a range of key considerations for both PSPs and banks to address this market opportunity. 

Payment Industry Landscape | Insights from the Market Leaders | Considerations to navigate changes

"The banks always considered digital payments as a key focus area but now COVID19 has given a sharp impetus to its growth.

To leverage this momentum and to capture the opportunity banks need to maneuver three key areas - security, regulation and data. Security to overcome the increased risk of fraud, regulation to navigate this segment esp. a level playing field vis-à-vis less regulated fintech players and data analysis for faster and efficient decision making."

"The COVID-19 situation is pushing the e-commerce/digital payments adoption forward, and many retailers have also embraced e-commerce technology immediately. We have witnessed more than 200% growth in the digital payments’ services request from partners during April and May 2020 compared to the same period last year.

E-commerce transactions also recorded growth as the market was either partially or fully closed recently."

“The path to customer centricity in financial services is inextricably linked to an organization’s digital capabilities, and its very survival will depend on its ability to pivot in lockstep with constantly shifting consumer behaviors in today’s digital world.”

“PSPs played a key role in driving digital payment adoption in Kuwait by launching convenient to use solutions like payment link to merchants of all sizes esp. SMEs.

Since the onset of COVID-19 crisis, PSPs have expedited on-boarding of new merchants onto digital payment platforms, despite working from home, thanks to agile and technology driven operations. PSPs will continue to play a key role in innovating new solutions for payments in Kuwait and may even add value to merchants beyond payments”.

"The pandemic has accelerated business digitization by a few years. Fintechs will have to continue adding value through technology and innovation to help the shift towards digital economy". 

"COVID19 is an exceptional event that accelerated digitalization of transactions and payments across sectors. This was also the case for the real estate sector that witnessed significant growth in online rent payments to maintain their rent collection in lockdown.

As a results, we have many successful landlords with 100% collection during full lockdown period. "

"Banks and fintech should interact closely to proactively identify solutions for the future. There should be a new way to envision the future of financial services. Regulator should play the role of an incubator with the banks playing the role of startups while the fintechs acting as the accelerators."

"The COVID-19 outbreak has given a further boost to card payments, by accelerating the adoption of e-commerce and digital payments. Consumers are compelled to carry out online transactions across sectors for their day-to-day needs during the lockdowns imposed by the government to control the spread of COVID-19.

Legacy offline businesses and SMEs are digitalizing their sales on a war footing to reach their consumers."