Focus on payments performance to boost revenue over next two years

Within some sectors, the potential impact of improved payments performance is even greater. 89% of payments leaders in the travel sector and 88% within retail expect to see revenue increases of up to 10% because of increased performance.

The steps needed to improve performance across all areas of payments infrastructures include: minimising the number of steps in the payment user journey across multiple touchpoints, cited by 93% of payments leaders as having a significant impact on performance.

This is followed by action to reassure customers around security and encryption on payment pages (92%), consolidating international payment providers (88%), incentivising payments teams around improved efficiency (88%) and optimising Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) to increase authorisation rates (87%).

New technology is also seen as an important catalyst for improved payments performance, as more than three quarters (78%) of payments leaders believe that deploying AI within payments systems will drive improved performance.

When it comes to measuring and evaluating payments performance, the most widely used metric is growth rates (deployed by 64% of organisations), followed by operational costs (46%), acceptance rates (43%), impact in revenue and profitability (39%) and conversion rates (37%). Other metrics include instances of fraud or impact of fraud and customer satisfaction.

However, the research reveals a disconnect between the organisational drive for greater payments performance and the objectives and focus of those individuals responsible for delivering it. Remarkably, only one in seven payments leaders (14%) has personal and team KPIs that are fully aligned to the KPIs of the wider business and to broader commercial objectives.

The research revealed different priorities in driving payments performance across industries. Within the retail sector, there was a relatively strong emphasis on upskilling payments teams and aligning team objectives and incentives to overall payments performance. Within travel and gaming, the focus was weighted towards minimising steps in the customer journey across multiple touchpoints and, within gambling, there was an inclination towards A/B testing to fine-tune payment page design.

Payments leaders within Forex (foreign exchange) reported the highest expectation levels around the impact of AI on payments performance. The research done by emerchantpay, an online payment service provider, is included in the Performance Pulse white paper.