British struggle with payment systems

77 percent of British companies that trade abroad admit to significant challenges in handling multiple currencies and foreign cards. Chase Paymentech Europe Limited has announced results from a national survey today exploring the

challenges faced by UK firms in ‘Customer Not Present’ (CNP) payments. The survey conducted  by independent research company, Dynamic Markets, showed that 30 percent of the 200 businesses questioned had international growth plans within the next one-to-two years, but that most did not have the payment systems in place to properly support European customers.

Western European online retail sales are projected to grow 11 percent to reach £153 billion by 2014. On a regional level, several key European countries have seen record growth above the UK’s growth of 160 percent over the past few years:  examples include Spain at 199 percent and both France and Italy at 181 percent. This has triggered a rush of UK merchants aiming to develop new revenue streams via international expansion into lucrative European markets.

This, in turn, has lead to organisations looking to cross-border sales to build or increase their European customer base, however when questioned 79 percent of finance directors felt that their payment systems were not ready. Cross-border sales require merchants to present and settle in a wide number of Methods of Payments (MOPs). These include common options such as Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, American Express and Direct Debit but also regional offerings such as ELV in Germany and iDEAL in the Netherlands. Without the proper payment systems in place organisations are often required to work with multiple acquirers to trade in a range of markets or currencies. As well as adding administration cost and complexity, this process can also be a massive strain on IT systems and business processes.

Image: American Express