Top 20 Fintech Startups In The Middle East 2018
March, 2018: PayTabs recognized as #1 on the top 20 Fintech Startups to watch in 2018 by Forbes Middle East.
Top Fintech influencer in the Middle East 2018
March, 2018: PayTabs CEO and founder Abdulaziz Al Jouf recognized as top Fintech influencer in the Middle East
5 Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions about Payment Gateways
If you are a business with an online presence, you surely know how payment gateways can make it easy for you to receive payments from customers based anywhere in the world. This is a merchant service that acts as a virtual equivalent of a Point of Sale in a physical store. In simple words, without a payment gateway, your business wouldn’t run at all as this service allows the payment processing of debit and credit cards in the online world!
Luckily, with a payment gateway like PayTabs which is easy to integrate with your website or mobile app, you can expect fast and secure payments without any glitch. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have questions about payment gateways. So, here are 5 most asked questions with their answers:
1) How does a payment gateway function?
When your customer purchases a product online, a payment gateway like PayTabs contacts your store’s acquiring bank. This bank is the one that will receive payments. The acquiring bank in turn contacts the bank which has issued the customer’s credit card or debit card. If there is enough money on the customer’s card to pay for the purchased item, the issuing bank will allow the transaction. The payment gateway will then be able to gather the money from the issuing bank of the customer, and all of this will happen in seconds!
2) How much does a payment gateway charge?
The kind of fees you have to pay will vary from one payment gateway to another. This will usually cover your setup fees, monthly fees and qualified rate that is charged per transaction. Support and reporting fees might also be included. So, go with a reliable and affordable gateway like PayTabs and avoid hidden charges.
3) What is a merchant account and why do I need it?
If you wish to receive payments from customer’s debit or credit card for every purchase made, you definitely need a merchant account. It is a specialized bank account that carries the fund you receive from customers for a specific time period, before sending it to your traditional account. You need it because without a merchant account, you cannot process payments. A merchant account will work with the payment gateway to facilitate easy transactions, so that the gateway deposits all payments into this account.
4) How to choose a payment gateway?
Though there are many payment gateways available these days, not all can be trusted equally. But with PayTabs, you will get all that your business needs with ease. This gateway is highly secure, and lets you accept payments in 168 currencies. Plus, merchants can use it even if they don’t have websites. PayTabs also provide regular financial reports and lets you maintain all customers and transactions from a single dashboard. This can help immensely when it comes to keeping a tab on the progress of your business.
5) Is the payment gateway secure enough?
A payment gateway must be very secure since it stores and transfers a lot of customer details and online frauds and identity thefts are very common these days. So, choosing a gateway that complies with PCI DSS requirements is ideal. It should feature advanced tools like intrusion detection, firewalls, and secure credit card data storage to avoid the risk of frauds. PCI DSS is also known as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and it ensures that all businesses store, process and accept card information in a very secure manner. So, choose a gateway like PayTabs, and rest assured that you have minimized the risk of frauds almost completely.
Now that you know what a payment gateway is essentially all about, choose the right one and make your business a huge success!
The importance of knowing your customer
Whenever we are given a chance to describe our customer, the first thing we think of is demographic traits. 22 – 55, single, female living in a particular location. But is a statistical summation good enough to make business decisions? While this was true for the early days of eCommerce, things are different today.
Thanks to social networking sites, we are also privy to behavioral trails like their interests, hobbies and shopping patterns. That’s as far as the data available goes. But what about interpreting that data? How can we understand what is driving this person behind the computer to buy or not buy our products?
Several companies create an inside-out customer-first culture for their business. It’s a difficult trait but here are some points to help you get started:
- Map your customer’s journey
Your customer may visit your store and buy the product online or shop from your app. To do this, they may have either watched your TV commercial, heard about you on the radio, read about you in the papers or seen a social recommendation from a friend. In the era of omni-channel marketing, you’ll have to cross align channels with the phase your customer is in to see if each channel is working optimally.
The steps in the sales funnel for eCommerce include Discover, Explore, Gain Interest, Purchase intent, actual purchase and after sales support. When a customer reads about you on social media, they could be any one of the above phases. You’ll have to step back to see if your social messages are catering to customers in each segment equally.
- Listen to uncover insights
Survey tools have evolved over the years to go beyond the simple Google form. Instead, they now pop up at the right stage in a customer’s journey to gather valuable feedback. The only caveat is that you need to be able to ask the right questions.
If you ask your customer what they think of a new product line you’ve launched, you’ll probably get many answers that you want to hear depending on how you’ve framed the question. Instead, if you actually look for purchase patterns and interpret analytical data, you’ll get to know what your customers are actually doing. Listening to these patterns will allow you to tweak your product offering.
- Leave assumptions in the hallway
Even if your eCommerce business is successful, there is always room for improvement. There is always the issue of cart abandonment. You’ll still have to figure why only a fraction of your traffic goes on to become your customer and what happens to the rest.
The only real way to get your answers is to speak to the customer. You’ll have to zero in on a group, go in without fixed questions and let them do the talking while you walk away with insights that can be converted into action points.
- Go beyond heat maps
The analytics heat maps from your eCommerce website tends to show you a rough picture of where your customers are looking. But what does it tell you about their real time navigational choices? How are they examining products and charting their decision making journey. Which part of the cart is throwing people off? Are the taxes or shipping charges coming as a surprise? Are people unable to use their coupon code? Is your payment gateway (link) working as it promised?
To know answers to such questions observe how customers work in a focus group rather than just historic data.
Conclusion: After connecting data points with individual behaviour, the ongoing thing that you need to do is keep talking to your customers and check for feedback. The proactive approach to understanding your customer will be the difference between you and your nearest competitor.
PayTabs Wins Best Global Online Payments Solution of the year
Every once in a while there comes a brand that disrupts the old way of working and replaces drudgery with excitement. Most entrepreneurs behind such brands have been told that their ideas are implausible. And yet, here they are, not only revolutionizing our lives but also empowering businesses, generating jobs, skilling workforce and changing perceptions. Such brands were recognized and awarded at the World Payment Congress on 14th February 2018.
The World Payment Congress recognizes players in the fintech industry who are working to create the next level of possibilities in payments. Globally, 35% internet users buy online from outside their home country. The cross-border market value is expected to surge to 994B in 2020. With a 27% YoY growth in eCommerce, India offers huge profits and potential opportunities to players worldwide.
For entrepreneurs who are looking to sell outside India, having a single payment interface across countries and currencies was a must. It had to be easy to use for merchants and hence a lot depended upon the global appeal of a clean and easy to use UX. Besides, changing times required the latest and most secure way to conduct transactions. All these requirements pushed PayTabs to create a new system that could change the way transactions were conducted internationally, especially by Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
Keeping their focus on SMEs proved to be a game changing strategy for PayTabs. They leveled the playing field between larger enterprises and SMEs thus creating a Blue Ocean for themselves and their customers. In addition to developing features that were in clear demand, PayTabs also understood several latent needs that existed in the market. They allow users to create and send online invoices, use API plugins to integrate with your website and even create an online store. They also allow instant global activation and don’t require an on ground local establishment.
PayTabs agility is demonstrated by the fact that they are quick to recognize local payment preferences and adapt their system to mimic these effectively. This ensures that people don’t have to step out of their comfort zone to use PayTabs. This also became a governing factor on why merchants adopted PayTabs with ease.
On receiving the award, PayTabs CEO Abdulaziz Al Jouf said, “At Paytabs, we are honored to accept the Best Global Online Payments Solution of the year award. Coming from World Payment Congress, this prestigious award is a recognition of the hard work from the entire team, without whom we couldn’t have grown to where we are today. We are thankful to our customers who’ve walked with us through the years, put their trust in our brand. We would also extend our gratitude to all our partners who made it possible for us to extend this solution to 17 countries. We look forward to making PayTabs a brand that people can use to build their businesses in the coming years.”
For PayTabs, the award is yet another feather in our cap. It validates our efforts in providing seamless B2B solutions in multiple currencies across multiple markets. It gives PayTabs added credibility as a service provider. If you would like to take your business to a global audience, do check this out to see how PayTabs can help you.
