Given that there is a wide range of payment events taking place in Europe already, could you explain why initiating a new payment-related event in Germany might be of benefit to the target audience?
Miriam Wohlfarth: Because there is not a great deal of payment events in Germany. From our perspective, they tend to be events established by service providers and do not focus so much on retailers’ needs.
André M. Bajorat: Until now, no payment event in Germany has been organised from within the industry itself. They have mostly been sponsored events with a focus on sales.
Miriam Wohlfarth: Our plan was to provide a forum for merchants to allow them to get together in a relaxed atmosphere. Payment experts are often left to their own devices in their workplaces. There is nobody with whom they can sit around the table and exchange ideas. The concept of Payment Exchange came into being at the MRC in the USA. Whilst there, it became clear to us that there is no event in Germany where specific cases and topics are discussed. We hope that Payment Exchange will allow merchants to share and discuss examples of best practice with other participants.
André M. Bajorat: As neutral market observers, we, the members of the “rat pack”, have noticed that payment events have, until now, tended to be organised by service providers or the media. These are, of course, useful as an initial introduction to the subject of payment, but allow little scope for further questions or an exchange of ideas and information. Payment Exchange is our initiative to establish an innovative format. Our role models are events with the same mindset like Money 20/20 or the Exec I/O. The structure of ecommerce events in Germany remains quite “old school”. Until now, no event has facilitated a professional exchange of ideas between merchants and payment experts. Payment Exchange is set to change all this and bring relevance to proceedings.
Which topics are frequently mentioned by payment and ecommerce experts when sharing and exchanging knowledge?
Miriam Wohlfarth: Discussions on ecommerce always follow the same pattern: pretty pictures, quality texts, favourable conversion rates. The topic of payment solutions is simply overlooked. In the run-up to Payment Exchange, we asked large retailers what they see as the most pressing issues for their business and used their answers to set the event agenda. The most commonly raised issue was regulation. For good reason: in Germany, the regulatory framework surrounding payment processes is quite different to that of other countries. In addition, open invoice and direct debit are popular payment methods, which is not necessarily the case elsewhere. The SEPA switchover, for example, had a quite different significance for Germany than for neighbouring countries. A retailer has little interest in hearing about new laws; an explanation of what it means for them in concrete terms would be of much greater use.
André M. Bajorat: International conferences are important and helpful. In Europe, there is a great variety of different regulations and systems. Merchants must be aware of their particularities. It is not possible for international conferences to provide comprehensive detail on such topics in the way than an event which focuses specifically on German characteristics can.
Miriam Wohlfarth: Clearly, this does not just apply to legal regulations, but to all aspects of payment processing too. In addition to legal issues, Payment Exchange will also deal with the subjects of fraud and technology. Because Germany has such a broad mix of payment options - and credit cards play a comparatively minor role in Germany - other questions come to the fore when it comes to fraud, like: How do I verify a customer’s creditworthiness for invoicing? How do I deal with chargebacks on direct debits?
How does the German ecommerce market differ to that of France and the UK?
Miriam Wohlfarth: The greatest difference is that the payment methods used for ecommerce transactions in Germany are different to those in other European countries. While credit cards are used for almost 90% of online payments in France and the UK, they are practically irrelevant in Germany. Conversely, direct debit and invoicing are very popular payment methods. In turn, this means that international payment events are almost exclusively focused on credit cards. This information is of little use to German merchants.
Could you tell us a little about the agenda and speakers for the event?
André M. Bajorat: In broad terms, our agenda is focused on Germany’s payment market. We do not approach this topic from a service provider’s point of view, as their intention is merely to generate business at the event, but rather from the perspective of merchants. Participants helped to set the agenda, which allows us to ensure its relevance.
Miriam Wohlfarth: Speakers at the event will be retailers. These include Adidas, Otto, Sixt, and Zalando. Representatives from all industries will be present, including long-established and newer retailers operating in the digital and physical goods, travel and food sectors. Industry interest was so high that we are now looking forward to an exciting inaugural event which will lay the foundation for many more Payment Exchanges in the future.
About Miriam Wohlfarth
Miriam Wohlfarth is Managing Director and co-founder of RatePAY, with responsibility for the divisions marketing and sales. She has been working in the e-payment sector for 15 years. Prior to founding RatePAY, she was country manager Germany of Ogone Before joining Ogone (Ingenico Payment Services), Miriam Wohlfarth was mainly in charge of establishing the online payment business of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and for its payment service company, Bibit, in Germany.
About André M. Bajorat
André M. Bajorat is an entrepreneur, consultant, speaker, business-angel, and is active as mentor in German startup- and FinTech-environment. Currently, he is active as CEO at figo.io and as partner at KI-Finance, as well as being in the advisory board of FinLeap and Cringle.
About Rat Pack
Rat Pack” is a team of five people with quite different professional backgrounds and skills, working in the FinTech industry: André M. Bajorat, Maik Klotz, Rafael Otero, Jochen Siegert and Kilian Thalhammer. They talk, write and discuss about the development of the German banking sector. With banks and about banks. They love what they do.
About RatePAY
RatePAY is a payment service provider offering local DACH payment methods with a payment guarantee for merchants. The company provides e-payment solutions to online shops, taking over the complete payment process for online merchants, while bearing the full risk of any default payments. RatePAY GmbH, based in Berlin, was founded in December 2009 and is a member of the Otto Group.
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