The world of electronic payments is changing fast and there are now opportunities for new entrants on a market which was until now very closed.

The world of electronic payments is changing fast. This is happening both from technological advances (mobile payment, Internet payment, contactless payment / NFC, IP everywhere, etc), and from a regulatory point of view with, for example, the composition of the SEPA (Single European Payment Area). This means that there are now opportunities for new entrants on a market which was until now very closed. These include:

•  Internet giants, e.g. Google who launched Google CheckOut, eBay who purchased Paypal
•  Banks, who must protect their legacy business, and are multiplying initiatives with, e.g., the launch of C2C payment by SMS (Movo / Caisse d’Epargne, FR), or contactless mobile payment pilot MotesPay (French Bank Association, FR)
•  Telecom companies, either fixed/mobile/broadband/integrated which have all shown their interest in this field, e.g. providing “pay on your bill” services, pre-paid platforms, etc, and are moving towards new payment fields like IP Point of Sales Acquiring or contact-less mobile payment

Towards quintuple-play
Until now, Telecom companies focused on providing payment means to buy their own content and services. But now, Telecom companies can take the opportunity to expand their service portfolio beyond voice and data and increase their revenue stream by providing their customer with payment services, moving towards what one could call “quintuple play” service, the payment function being then an additional offer of so-called “quadruple play” package (Internet, telephony, TV, mobile)

Those services could address both corporate or private, individual customers, for B2C, B2B or C2C markets: “paypal” like payment, internet payment, contactless payment, wallet, IP Point of Sales Acquiring etc. This could be achieved by developing partnership with banks, or going one step further, becoming bank themselves, like retailers did few years ago (S2P/Carrefour, FR), issuing cards, managing accounts, etc.

The mobile handset, personal and universal object, plays a key part in the battle that has begun. And further, the banks could agree to launch their own Telecom offering while becoming MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operators), renting the network of a mobile operator and buying wholesale minutes from them in order to keep the control of the SIM card, or in other words, the customer.

Laurent Bailly
Telecom & Media Offerings Manager, Atos Worldline
After holding the position of Online Banking & eCommerce Manager in Caisse d’Epargne, one of the main French banks, Laurent joined Atos Worldline in 2000 to manage R&D projects and to lead Atos Worldline’s Online Services Offerings portfolio. He is currently the Offering Manager for BU Telecom-Utilities-Media. Laurent is a graduate in computing science from Polytech’Lille, and in sales and marketing management from the ESSEC business school, Paris.