Deepening understanding of payment providers and the future of fintech on the Crypto Confidence Podcast, with Chris Wessels from Paybase.
London, 25/1/19: At it’s finest, fintech is fundamentally a hygiene factor in ecommerce. The average consumer has little need to understand the complex sequence of events which springs into action behind the button, when they use an online retailer or marketplace. Yet a grasp of the mechanics can help us all become more aware consumers, and better placed to take active control of our finances and spending.
The Crypto Confidence podcast typically focuses on informed consumer understanding of blockchain and cryptocurrency issues. However for this episode, the hosts wanted to contextualise crypto in its proper place within the broader financial technology ecosystem, in order to support the show’s mission to thoroughly educate and empower non-technical listeners to better engage with their assets and spending.
Chris Wessels, the CTO Of Paybase, explained the tremendous difference between a simple shopping cart - where payment goes from shopper to the merchant via a simple gateway - compared with a marketplace scenario involving multiple buyers and sellers. Whilst the experience for the user might be similar, what has to happen behind the curtain is far more complex. “There are more challenging requirements for businesses operating in this space, for due diligence, funds custody, regulation, as well as dealing with international taxation and currency transfers - but it’s starting to beat traditional ecommerce, due to its convenience for users to access to multiple vendors in one place”, explains Wessels.
Despite being a provider of eMoney infrastructure with no immediate affiliation to digital currencies, Wessels was also keen to explore the hypothetical future role of blockchain and crypto in the future of ecommerce:
“Cryptocurrencies with no counterparty risk or collateral may evolve differently from stablecoins with less volatility, when it comes to buying within consumer marketplaces. The debates on everything from taxonomy to regulation continue, in this evolving space.
“Emoney is an entirely other category, which is particularly important for payment gateway providers - whether on a merchant marketplace or when transferring from one currency or account to another. This will always have to be denominated in sovereign currency, for the foreseeable future. But it could be tokenised on a blockchain, potentially. And interoperability of all kinds of digital payment has to be the future, for every type of transaction”.
The future, for all smart shoppers and consumers, is clearly going to be very exciting.
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The Crypto Confidence Podcast is brought to you by BlockSparks, and is designed to help people understand and participate in the world of cryptocurrency. BlockSparks is a boutique communications agency specialising in promoting blockchain and cryptocurrency projects. They offer a full suite of content, PR and marketing services and use their specialist knowledge of this niche, combined with many years experience in agency work, to provide their clients with a very focused service. Headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, BlockSparks runs on a virtual agency basis with key team members, who are all native English-speakers, located throughout Europe. They work with an international clientele who are mainly based in Asia, USA and Europe.
For further information, contact: [email protected] https://www.blocksparks.io/category/podcast/
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Paybase is the most flexible payments solution for platform businesses. Online marketplaces, gig/sharing economy platforms and cryptocurrency businesses are all being underserved by current payment providers. This is due to the rigid and uncompromising approach that exists within payments, which is causing many innovative firms to fail to reach market.
Paybase is changing this. Through offering both technical flexibility and operational agility, Paybase not only supports businesses with more sophisticated payment requirements, but improves them, preparing them for the challenges that inevitably come with growth. Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, Paybase has been recognised as one of the UK’s most disruptive businesses and a firm set to revolutionise the world of finance.
https://paybase.io/
