PAY S A F E C A R D
SPONSORED EDITORIAL
PAYMENTS FOCUS
years in the standard format of a prepaid voucher – what was the thought and idea behind the development of my paysafecard? What advantages will it bring to both gaming operators and to the customers who use it? JB: As I mentioned previously, new sector verticals were a core driving force behind this development; however, the second part of the strategy was to engage more with customers. Paysafecard is by its nature an anonymous payment method; by anonymous, we mean that the customer is not required to register with us and thus direct interaction with our customers has been limited. The thought behind this was to give customers the ability to register a proper account with us and to conveniently and securely manage paysafecard PIN balances. We know, for example, that many of our customers who deposit with egaming operators continue to play while on vacation or ‘on the move’ – this is now an even easier way for people to continue to easily pay using paysafecard, simply by using their account which has their balance securely stored. We also see this feature as truly advantageous to current trends in the egaming market. In sports betting, we’re all aware of the huge growth in in-play betting. My paysafecard enables consumers to load up their balance early on, and then make quick frequent deposits. In addition, from an operator perspective, my paysafecard will allow for pay-outs; so operators will have the ability to offer customers the option to withdraw funds to their my paysafecard account. Lastly, we believe that the ability to hold a paysafecard balance will offer far greater opportunities to cross sell between other sectors, which will be for the bene?t of our egaming partners especially in a market where CPA is increasing. eGR: What’s the driver behind your geographical expansion? Do you think the European market has become saturated? Where do you see the most growth originating? JB: From our own experience we don’t believe that the market is saturated at all as we have seen continued growth across all areas of our business. The egaming market continues to grow as a younger generation, or the ‘iPod’ generation, begin to engage in egaming and social gaming. However, we should not forget that cash remains the predominant payment method in Europe and, with many media stories around internet security breaches and identity fraud, it is no wonder that more internetsavvy consumers out there continue to opt for paysafecard. Geographical expansion is a key part of our overall business strategy. As a business, we want to enter new markets and we see a huge opportunity in emerging markets, especially where online payments can be difficult and risky. Exposure to fraud and chargebacks can be high in some markets, but the revenue potential is equally high, so the question is: how do operators manage this? The advantage of paysafecard and my paysafecard
The egaming market continues to grow as a younger generation, or the ‘iPod’ generation, begin to engage in egaming and social gaming
is that it is cash-based. Cash is universal and effectively available to everyone, meaning our partners are able to securely accept payments online without exposure to chargebacks. We sometimes hear talk of a cashless society, that soon cash will be replaced by electronic means of payment only, but our business has been growing year after year by 20-25%; so where is the cashless society? This opportunity for mutual growth with our partners is greatly increased in less developed markets; hence geographical expansion remains a core part of our strategy here at paysafecard. eGR: You have spoken in eGR previously about mobile and how paysafecard had prepared for this growth. How has this fared against your previous successes and expectations? JB: We’ve seen that mobile transactions have been growing and this is coming through various devices, operating systems and mobile models. From our perspective, we had very high hopes for mobile, and to a certain degree those high hopes have been absolutely justi?ed. However, we believe that there is still a way to go for mobile; especially with games like poker, social games and bingo, which have only started recently. We think it’s going to take another two or three years at least to have the same kind of variety and services on a mobile device as there is on the internet. From the gaming operator perspective, mobile is primarily just a new distribution channel of the same product, whether it is poker or sports betting. It is important that operators do not ignore the fact that the same problems exist on mobile distribution as they do on web distribution with inaccessible routes to banking methods and security fears. I think from an operator perspective it is ???'F?BF?&V?6RF?BF?W&R&R???V??Rv?F?6?'G???W2v???fRF?R6?RfV'2&?WBW'6?????FW&?WB6V7W&?G?2F?W?F?v?F?F?RvV"?v?F?&Vv&G2F?w&?wF??vR?fR6VV?6??F??VVBw&?wF?7&?72??&??R?W7V6?????F?R7?'G2&WGF??r76R2????bF?R7W7F??W'2??F?RvV"&RW6??r??&??R?F?W&R&R?6?7W7F??W'2v??&??&??W6RF?V?"6?'G???R?"F&?WB2F?V?"6?&R?Ff?&?F???g&???wwr?Vw&?v???R?6???c??