Latin America, Where Cash is King

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Latin America has long been classified as an emerging market and with a total population of around 600M, the new business potential is obvious. Unquestionably the payments space continues to gather momentum within the Latin American markets but in doing so also presents challenges to international merchants actively targeting this region. As the areas covers around 25 countries, each local payment ecosystem will differ accordingly. It is therefore essential that merchants have a clear understanding on local purchasing habits which, if acted upon, will assist in transforming previously poor acceptance rates that, in the past, have been the bane of many a payments manager.

Local Payment Acceptance.

Put simply, indigenous payment methods are king, especially when it comes to fighting fraud. Local providers in comparison to the larger global payment operators will be able to offer enhanced customer validation by having access to local databases. Consequently, there are a multitude of local card and cash based e-commerce payment systems available across the continent that remain the automatic consumer preference at the point of checkout. Even though (for the moment at least) most credit cards issued by local banks aren’t enabled for cross border purchases, this is changing – Visa/Mastercard usage continues on an upward trajectory, albeit at a slow pace. As much as this trend is encouraging we must still remember that as many as 70% of the Latin American population still don’t have a bank account, therefore offering players viable alternative payment options remains key for any merchant or gaming operator that has designs on cracking these lucrative markets.

Lateral Payment Solutions can keep merchants ahead of the game via our single payment gateway integration.

Lateral Payment Solutions Adds Bitcoin Acceptance to its Alternative Payment Platform.

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Latpay are now offering merchants the ability to accept Bitcoin via our Alternative Payment Gateway. The solution is aimed at a wide range of sectors including retail, online gambling and binary options; this allows vendors and operators to accept Bitcoin payments at the point of checkout via a fast and simple interface.
Diversify payment acceptance options by offering a crypto currency.

Diversify payment acceptance options by offering a crypto currency.

Ian Vidamour, Director at Latpay commented: “In light of recent purchasing trends and analysis, we’ve been considering adding a cryptocurrency option to our Gateway for a number of months. In view of our findings and in keeping with an ongoing commitment to offer our merchant base more diverse online payment solutions, we’re thrilled to be able to offer Bitcoin as an additional payment acceptance option.”

A Lateral Approach to Enhanced Security and Flexibility

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Lateral Payment Solution’s presence at ICE Totally Gaming once again reaffirms its longstanding position as the “one stop” Level One payment provider within the iGaming sector.
The last 12 months have seen many gaming operators face increasing challenges within the payment sphere, not least in the area of PCI compliance and specifically in the management and the storing of sensitive card data. High profile security breaches in recent months have reinforced the view that failure to have the correct systems in place can have disastrous consequences for an E-commerce business.

Ian Vidamour, Director at Lateral Payment Solutions said: “We fully understand that achieving the highest level of compliance is a costly and unwelcome distraction to many of our clients. Some feel that their expertise and resource should be more focussed on the core objective of increasing revenues. The Lateral Payment Solutions Data Tokenisation solution removes this storage burden and allows the de-scoping of the cardholder data within the merchant environment. This makes it easier to attain full PCI compliance, which is becoming a prerequisite to banks within the Lateral Payments Global Acquirer Platform.”

The Lateral Payments Global Acquirer Platform provides merchants with secure and certified connectivity to around 90 leading acquiring banks across 30 countries. This allows operators to seamlessly route transactions across multiple acquirers. Ian goes on to say: “The recent enhancement of our bank switching software has given clients even greater flexibility and more control within their payment processing infrastructure. Along with our extensive range of local payment options, we want to provide our clients with all the tools possible to succeed in a sector where deposit acceptance rates continue to be scrutinized.”

Lateral Payments was established in London back in 2001 to serve the complex and very specific payment processing requirements of the iGaming sector. Other services within their portfolio include Merchant Account set up, comprehensive Alternative Payment options such as E-Wallet and Prepaid systems as well as real-time KYC Verification. Connectivity to multiple pay-out solutions like Wire Transfers, SEPA, BACS, and Faster Payments are also available.
For more information on alternative payments, head over to our dedicated page here.

Breaking Down the Barriers to International E-Commerce

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2016 is set to become another year of note within the ever-growing Alternative Payment (AP) sector. Recent figures suggest that APs currently account for €180bn of accepted e-commerce transactions globally, which is around one-quarter of the worlds transaction share.
Put simply, alternative payments are defined as any method of acceptance that’s non-debit or credit card related. Broadly speaking, they encompass digital wallets, bank to bank and prepaid solutions. And it is these payment channels that are set to increase their share of the online payments sector by outstripping credit card penetration within the next two years.

More Payment Options Increase Checkout ConversionMore Payment Options Increase Checkout Conversion

One of the biggest challenges E-commerce retailers of all sizes face is being able to successfully expand sales activities into overseas markets. Undoubtedly one of the cornerstones of any market expansion strategy is not only to understand country-specific regulations but also to be well acquainted with local payment practices. It is no longer sufficient to only offer Visa/Mastercard at the point of checkout. International customers have local preferences and therefore, in a bid to improve the overall customer experience, merchants must understand what payment methods are readily available to offer via their website.
By having these additional payment acceptance options in place, retailers instantly add more appeal to their site. As a result, they can expect to not only drive revenues through increased checkout converions, but also reduce cart abandonment at the same time.