Wednesday, September 19th, 2018
The efforts of British payments platform PPRO Group have paid off. The aim has been to help larger companies in Atlanta engage with emerging e-commerce markets around the world. On July 16, PPRO announced that it had raised $50 million in a new investment round, led by payments giant PayPal.
Their overall goal is to bring its “alternative payments” solutions to more processors. With this investment, the PPRO’s U.S. growth will be driven out of Atlanta; the company originally set up shop there in a bid to serve the city’s industry heavyweights. During a recent visit to Atlanta, CEO Simon Black said that the London-based company already has plans to double its workforce in each of the next two years.
The Secret Behind the PPRO’s Explosive Growth
The PPRO provides merchants with the very best when it comes to options. Its payment processing clients offer merchants the ability to accept more than 200 non-traditional payment methods from all over the world. Even in places like Mexico and Indonesia, where credit card penetration is low.
The result? Less cart abandonment. Customers can choose how they wish to pay, rather than abandoning the shopping cart because Visa or MasterCard are the only available options. While alternative payments methods are still pretty foreign for Americans, PPRO says that they account for around half of global e-commerce sales – credit cards only account for 20 percent.
These alternative payment methods are not only becoming more and more common, they are preferred. Many of them are even standard in certain places.
- In China, WeChat Pay and Alipay are now a part of everyday life in major cities. Both options involve scanning QR codes with a mobile phone to complete transactions.
- In Mexico, convenience store chain Oxxo offers an online payment method that allows buyers to pay in cash when they pick up their item in-store.
- In Kenya, mobile money can be transferred directly via SMS through M-PESA and other popular platforms.
- Even in Europe, credit cards are not the go-to option. Dutch online shoppers, for example, prefer iDeal because it allows them to transfer funds directly from their bank account to the merchant.
Offering alternative payment options to American sellers is key; it could make the difference in closing a cross-border sale. According to CEO Simon Black, PPRO is positioning itself as an ally in simplifying the process and retaining business.
“We are a classic example of strategic outsourcing. We solve a real pain point. It’s speed-to-market: we reduce all the complexity and therefore the overhead,” he explained in an interview with Global Atlanta.
“We’ve created a platform integrating 200 different ways to pay, and the magic is that we can make all of that available in one connection.”
High Risk Merchant Accounts
What if my business is considered high-risk, you ask? Believe it or not, finding a provider willing to offer alternative payment options as a high-risk business is not as hard as you think. There are many providers that specialize in offering solutions to riskier industries. If you need more information on alternative payment options and high-risk merchant accounts, consider the long list of helpful reviews provided by the Best Payment Providers.
Topics discussed in this article:
- High Risk Merchant Accounts
- Payment Processors Global Reach