Page 181 - The Digital Financial Services (DFS) Ecosystem

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Ecosystem

4.2.7 Float

If the merchant services provider makes funds available to a merchant before collecting them from the
payments system, there is a cost of float to the provider.

4.2.8 Customer Service

The merchant services provider needs to be able to respond to and resolve inquiries and problems relating
to the service – these may be operational, technical, or related to fraud.

4.2.9 Marketing

The merchant services provider may choose to take actions to promote the use of its products by the merchant
community and/or their customers.

4.3 Electronic Commerce Platforms

The advent of electronic commerce platforms is of particular interest to the question of merchant payments
economic models. As noted before, merchants and payments acceptors are willing to "pay to be paid" if the
new payment method brings them significantly more revenue (new customers or more revenue from existing
customers). New platforms, including social platforms, may accomplish this for many types of merchants.
In addition, payments may become "embedded" in various forms of electronic commerce platforms. The
merchant decides to sell on the platform, and pays some type of commission or fee to the platform, that is
not explicitly a fee for the payment, but which covers the platform’s cost in providing the payment. These new
platforms are expected to become important in all of the different identified segments.
The two table below demonstrates how, on a segment by segment basis, how new commerce platforms might
have an effect on the segment. The first table shows, for each segment, what the current environment for
selling – in person and remotely – might look like.

Table 2 – New Commerce Platforms by Segment

Selling: Current Environment
Segment
POS (Face to Face) Remote (eCommerce, mCommerce)
M0 Cash is the norm Some use of mobile Minimal
P2P eMoney on feature phones but con-
strained due to costs
M1 Cash is the norm. Some use of mobile Low/minimal; could be accepting phoned-in orders
Sole Prop eMoneys on feature phones but usage for delivery
discouraged or surcharged, reducing
usage
M2 Has booth or shack with dedicated fea- May have small ecommerce element now or in
Small Shop ture phone (others may be working in near term
store) Probably not serving BOP today with remote sales
but could in future
M3 Likely to have a b2b component selling May be joining ecommerce platforms of agri-
Small Farmer to coops/stores today (lower case "b’s") cultural coops; may also be receiving subsidies
but still mostly cash on delivery electronically or otherwise
M4 Multiple tills staffed by multiple employ- Urban stores in particular may have limited ecom-
Mid Size Retailer ees. More likely to accept eMoney merce capabilities incl. shopping carts
transactions today, but still predomi-
nately cash. May extend small amounts
of credit to customers

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