Paymentology, a payment technology solutions provider, has recently entered the Middle East’s US$200 billion digital payments market by setting up its regional office in Dubai.
This will help the United Kingdom-based fintech solutions provider to offer more advanced digital and smart payments solutions to the banks, financial services providers, retailers and those process bulk transactions on a regular basis.
The Middle East and North Africa region accounts for four million unique online shoppers. In the last three years, e-commerce transactions jumped ten-fold or 1000% from US$20 billion in 2017 to a whopping $200 billion in 2020, according to a latest report.
Paymentology’s entry in the Middle East market comes at a time when demand for contactless and non-cash transactions have increased after Covid-19, prompting businesses and financial institutions to shift towards the digital and smart payment solutions.
“The Middle East region has a huge potential for growth in the financial technology and digital payments market and our entry in the region is well-timed,” said Shane O’Hara, CEO of Paymentology. “In order to penetrate the market, we decided to set up an office in the UAE – the most advanced country in the region in terms of technology adoption.
“This move enables us now to understand the ground reality and develop our growth strategy. We have already started to meet potential partners and customers to offer our innovative products that will change the way people make payments and the way financial institutions process those payments – seamlessly and in a very secured manner – that ensures data security of the clients.”
Covid-19 has accelerated the need for digitisation. With online purchases rising, consumers are now demanding customer-centric and flexible solutions. This coupled with a lack of trust and an ever-evolving regulatory landscape, banks and financial institutions need to act fast to ensure compliance and deliver with operational agility. Paymentology’s platform enables its clients to be as agile and flexible as consumers demand.
The number of non-cash transactions surged nearly 14% from 2018-2019 to reach 708.5 billion transactions worldwide, the highest growth rate recorded in the past decade.
Global payments revenues recorded 6% growth to a whopping $1.9 trillion in 2018, according to McKinsey and Company’s Global Payments Report 2019. Europe, Middle East and Africa represented US$300 billion.
According to data gathered by LearnBonds, the worldwide digital payments market will jump to a record $4.7 trillion transaction value this year, with a 15.3% year-over-year growth rate. This rising trend is set to continue in the following years, with the entire market reaching $6.7 trillion by 2023.
O’Hara said: “With nearly half of the population below the age of 25, we see a huge growth potential in the digital payments market, especially in a few years’ time when most of these tech-savvy young men and women start their career as professionals and businesspersons. They are not going to stand in a queue and wait for their numbers to make payments – that’s going to be history.
“And we are here on the ground to help payment processors to migrate their payments technology to the next level that is safe, secure and more effective.”
