Payments providers are more focused on streamlining and automating the validation of bank and payment information to reduce payment failures, according to Accuity’s 2018 Payments Industry Report.
Accuity surveyed over 100 financial institutions and payment providers, revealing that against a backdrop of growing and increasingly complex cross-border payment volumes, the majority said they provide customers with the validation of key payments data elements before remittance, and many have invested significantly to automate this process.
Moreover, over one-third of respondents claimed that their customers expected their payments provider to complete such validations on their behalf, and bear the costs of payments failure.
The report found that almost 50 percent are adopting technology to automate payments validation at the point of on-boarding.
A further 90 percent cite a payments failure rate under 5 percent, yet costs of failed payments have increased with more than a third reporting an average fee of more than $30 per transaction failure.
Driven by competitive pressures of the current market, 93 percent of firms cited maintaining their reputation and relationships with customers as a top priority in 2018.
Some 87 percent of respondents stated that minimising the risk and exposure of failed payments was a key priority, as this would enable them to build greater trust with customers.
Sarkis Akmakjian, senior director at Accuity, said: “In the digital, real-time economy, customers now insist that payment providers send payments at a lower cost, into more markets, and with greater certainty.”
He added: “The findings demonstrate that the industry is responding to this challenge by embracing technology that facilitates pre-validation services and seamless payment processing.”
Akmakjian concluded: “The significant shift towards automation is key to meeting the dual-fold challenge of keeping up with the pace of regulation, while simultaneously winning customer satisfaction.”
