Payment processing business Amazon Payment Services has set up its first global FinTech lab at the DIFC Innovation Hub to support regional start-ups and companies driving innovation in digital payments.
The initiative aims to increase FinTech adoption in the region by providing a forum for discussions on digital payments and addressing challenges customers face in making payments, the company said yesterday.
"The region is going from a frontier stage to an emerging stage of financial technology. Through the Amazon FinTech Lab, we work with innovators and visionaries to turn exciting new ideas and concepts into transformational and disruptive forces in FinTech," managing director Omar Soudodi told The National.
We are looking to support innovations that will help make the payment experience easier, secure and more affordable for customers
“We are looking to support innovation that will help make the payment experience easier, secure and more affordable for customers.”
The digital payments business is booming, with the Covid-19 pandemic encouraging more businesses to use new technology.
Globally, digital payments are set to grow to $8.26 trillion in 2024, from $4.4tn last year, according to research company Statista.
The UAE is among the countries leading this adoption. Two thirds of people expect the country to become fully cashless by 2030, according to a poll by Standard Chartered.
A report by US-based TechSci Research also found the UAE mobile wallet market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 24 per cent to $2.3 billion by 2022.
The DIFC Innovation Hub, which opened last month, is a global FinTech centre that has attracted hundreds of FinTech start-ups from around the world.
The 7,432-square-metre establishment is on Gate Avenue within the new Dubai Future District.
“We welcome Amazon Payment Services’s first FinTech lab in the world at the Innovation Hub in DIFC,” said Arif Amiri, chief executive of the DIFC Authority.
“We are looking forward to working together to drive the future of finance.”
The Amazon FinTech Lab will organise workshops for start-ups and other organisations in different industries such as e-commerce, insurance and travel to understand any payment issues they face.
It is also looking to partner with regulators, payment technology companies such as Visa and Mastercard and payment processors.
“We will also mentor and co-create with FinTech companies,” said Mr Soudodi.
"We will be publishing an agenda of activities that will be organised under the Amazon FinTech Lab."
The lab recently had a co-creation session with Value, an Egyptian FinTech company, to make transactions cheaper for customers in Egypt and beyond, he said.
There are currently more than 300 FinTechs in the GCC tackling cash digitisation challenges, among others.
The next few years will be an “exciting time” for FinTech companies in the region, according to Mr Soudodi.
The global payments industry is evolving and has reached a point where customers can make frictionless payments using voice or biometric palm prints, even without a device, he said.
The alternatives
• Founded in 2014, Telr is a payment aggregator and gateway with an office in Silicon Oasis. It’s e-commerce entry plan costs Dh349 monthly (plus VAT). QR codes direct customers to an online payment page and merchants can generate payments through messaging apps.
• Business Bay’s Pallapay claims 40,000-plus active merchants who can invoice customers and receive payment by card. Fees range from 1.99 per cent plus Dh1 per transaction depending on payment method and location, such as online or via UAE mobile.
• Tap started in May 2013 in Kuwait, allowing Middle East businesses to bill, accept, receive and make payments online “easier, faster and smoother” via goSell and goCollect. It supports more than 10,000 merchants. Monthly fees range from US$65-100, plus card charges of 2.75-3.75 per cent and Dh1.2 per sale.
• 2checkout’s “all-in-one payment gateway and merchant account” accepts payments in 200-plus markets for 2.4-3.9 per cent, plus a Dh1.2-Dh1.8 currency conversion charge. The US provider processes online shop and mobile transactions and has 17,000-plus active digital commerce users.
• PayPal is probably the best-known online goods payment method - usually used for eBay purchases - but can be used to receive funds, providing everyone’s signed up. Costs from 2.9 per cent plus Dh1.2 per transaction.
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