The first edition of our innovative event dedicated to payment performance was held on Wednesday, 11 October.
We had invited 30 high-flying traders such as Deezer, ESW and Veepee to our premises for the morning, to discuss subjects key to online payments.
How do we define payment performance? What are the trends in this area? In this article, you can find out everything about the Performance Club!
Payment performance by Payplug
As our Sales SVP Benjamin Tuloup stated:
“Just like the theory of marginal gains, it’s our ambition to optimise each stage of the payment journey to heighten our merchants’ performance.”
Therefore, we define performance by our ability to boost our retailers’ profits over the whole payment chain and in particular in the French market. How? In particular thanks to our expertise in combatting fraud and our direct contact with the Groupe BPCE and the CB card network.
Let’s have a closer look at what that means regarding fraud, as well as the acceptance and authorisation of payments:
Optimised fraud management
In five years, the rate of fraud among online payments has fallen by 33% in France1 and Payments Services Directive 2 (PSD2) has played a role in obtaining this result. Despite everything, the consequences of fraud remain too high: nearly one billion euros in damages in 2022, of which 35% was generated by card payments1.
New fraudulent behaviour is emerging, subverting the use of 3-D Secure and thus obliging all players in the ecosystem to adapt in the face of these risks.
Controlling fraud has therefore become an on-going challenge for merchants in order to pre-empt any financial risks and also to open the way to more frictionless payments.
In this way, we are adopting a dedicated strategy for sellers wishing to optimise their frictionless path. Thanks to a fraud analysis carried out over the entire payment chain, we have the benefit of an overview conducive to pulling the right levers in order to maximise our merchants' performance.
Frictionless payment paths
Subject to reaching a minimum fraud rate, Payplug offers traders the opportunity to take on two programs:
- 1. FastPass, a unique connection protocol which guarantees up to 98% of frictionless requests accepted on bank cards issued by the Groupe BPCE² (ie. 20% of French traffic)3;
- 2. Low Risk Merchant Program (LRMP), offered by CB, which allows more than 95% of frictionless requests to be accepted via other French banks4 (other than BPCE).
Maximisation of payment authorisations
Following authentication, Payplug offers redundancy systems maximising the chances of success regarding payment authorisation.
Thanks to our “Retry E-RSB” system, we can replay transactions refused by the issuing bank without generating any extra costs. In this way, we can recover on average 4% of rejected authorisations².
Performance, delivered simply
Owing to our many integrated payment service providers, deploying our solution does not require any technical development.
Merchants can benefit from our expertise thanks to a single API integration via orchestrators. In the same way, payment service providers benefit from our white-label solution.
Understanding the processes involved in strong authentication and simplifying the validation of transactions are key issues today for developing your e-commerce business.
Jérôme Duclos, VP Country Director France at ESW
Use case Allopneus: the result of 8 years’ collaboration
Maxime Benjac, e-commerce Digital Director at Allopneus and Pedro Rodrigues, Customer Success Manager at Payplug, looked back on the success of a collaboration which perfectly illustrates our definition of online payment performance.
A French brand specialising in online tyre sales, Allopneus optimised the acceptance of its payments under 250€ thanks to support from Payplug. For this, the trader was able to benefit from several solutions:
| Fraud Premium | LRMP | FastPass | |
| The principle: | Dedicated support and state-of-the-art analytical tools to limit fraud and optimise frictionless payments. | A program offered by CB to boost acceptance of frictionless requests on the Carte Bancaire network. | Our program which maximises acceptance of frictionless requests on cards issued by the Groupe BPCE. |
| Results since implementing these solutions: | +13 points in frictionless requests². | +3 points in net acceptance on CB transactions². | +4 points in net acceptance on Groupe BPCE transactions². |
These results confirm that the Payplug approach is right for Allopneus.
Maxime Banjac, E-commerce Digital Director at Allopneus
The big payment trends decrypted by our experts
The morning was also punctuated by five themed workshops which allowed the brands present to discuss key problems with their peers:
Is fraud really behind us?
“Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) has intensified the complexity of payment” - Anissa Haie, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Payplug
PSD2 has been able to prove its efficiency in many respects, particularly with strong authentication which is mandatory for all transactions (except where exempt). Even so, recourse to 3-D Secure has not turned out to be sufficient to fully combat fraud.
There are three observations to keep in mind:
- 1. The notion of the transfer of responsibility raises new challenges. Prior to PSD2, a merchants used to evaluate their level of fraud from the chargebacks received. Today, as the issuing bank largely accepts liability, the rate of retailers’’ chargebacks is reduced. Despite everything, traders’ fraud counters continue to run, bringing with them a progressive lack of confidence from issuers in the traders’ choices.
- 2. Discussions between players in this chain are essential to efficiently combat fraud. Without that, traders cannot efficiently adapt their strategy: cases of friendly fraud are a perfect example of this.
- 3. As well as pre-empting attempts at fraud and chargebacks, total fraud management allows traders to open the path towards more frictionless payments.
Is payment orchestration an appropriate solution for everyone?
In the logic of a multi-PSP strategy, orchestrators allow merchants to:
- Reduce their costs by avoiding multiple integrations and the direct management of several PSPs;
- Facilitate their international expansion;
- Benefit from a localised payment performance, taking advantage of the qualities of each PSP.
In addition, the value of orchestration also lies in the integration of purchasers into the payment strategy. Traders need to be able to exchange with the PSP to boost their payment performance.
As acquirers, we have a responsibility towards merchants. They have to be able to contact us directly.
Bénédicte Brie, Head of Partnerships at Payplug
Even if it demonstrates undeniable advantages, orchestration is not the solution to every payment management problem. Sellers should clearly define their needs to implement an appropriate strategy.
What are the trends in the marketplace context?
Originally, marketplaces were envisaged as growth drivers for launching a new business. Today, there are countless numbers of e-commerce websites whose business model is now highly dependent on their marketplace.
That said, brands are seeking to optimise their operational efficiency through specialising roles. Just like e-commerce leaders, payment is separate from account keeping and the pay-in / pay-out payment model is therefore gaining popularity in marketplaces.
What does that look like? At acquisition level, marketplaces maximise acceptance of payments by calling on several PSPs (pay-in). To distribute funds to vendors, marketplaces simplify the management of their accounts by using a single PSP partner (pay-out).
However, just like orchestration, the strategy to adopt depends on the needs of each company.
Conclusion
“The fact of being able to meet one’s peers and discuss the various problems we all face is of structural importance for our company development.” - Ludwig Dumortier, Head of Strategic Project Management Office at Atlas For Men
Thanks to all the participants for having brought to life this first edition of the Performance Club.
With 100% of the participants wishing to relive the experience, we can’t wait to organise the next event!
Would you like specific advice for improving your payment performance? Get in touch with our teams:
1. Source: OSMP 2022 Annual Report 2. Payplug data 2023 3. 2022 data - BPCE Payment Service 4. CB data 2023
