Beyond the First Generation

 The payments market in general, not only mobile, was dominated by first generation banks typically servicing the needs merchants had over a decade ago. With the arrival of mobile as a serious and fast growing new channel, a new, very specific type of solution was needed to manage payments for merchants. In 2006, when PCI Compliance finally came on the scene, it was a game changer for merchants.

Merchants trusted the first generation because that is what they knew, or rather they were the only game in town. But with the compliance mandate and the advent of mobile, merchants were finding it hard to manage the process. First generation providers like RBS and Chase created their payment platforms when PCI Compliance did not exist, the mobile channel was dominated by WAP and online conversion was an untouched subject.

According to Prins, the international online payments market in general was dominated by payment companies founded during the first tech bubble in the '90s. But Adyen was well versed in the space by that time and the core team that exists today had founded an internet payment company in 1997 called Bibit Global Payments which was acquired by RBS in 2004. Adyen’s

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international team has been together in some form or another for over a decade.

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“As is the case with technology, the market changed from five years ago and every e-commerce company is now considering to fully outsource anything that triggers PCI Compliance with a nod towards maximizing conversion,” said Prins. “Adyen was founded on the notion that we would innovate within the global payments space with a totally new next generation payments system, running today's software and hardware standards."

“Our agenda is not only to support the traditional web with the best possible solution, but also on mobile, connected TV and POS,” says Prins.  “Imagine you're a global online retailer and now you can follow your customer on any device with their payment credentials stored in the cloud. Wouldn’t this change the way you want to do business?”

With Adyen, it always comes back to the merchants. The key trends are the localized payment needs of emerging new countries/markets like Brazil and the disruptive sales channels like mobile and connected TV, which have made their way into the e-commerce space.

Adyen isn’t waiting for the future to come, they are already looking at the next wave of devices merchants will use - tablets, swipe and handheld devices and the highly evolving market of set-top-boxes (STBs) for the IPTV market.

Prins says the IPTV space is particularly interesting. “We see a lot of traction with the tier one broadcasters such as RTL Group with The Voice as well as content owners such as national sports leagues. It’s clear to us that once consumers turn off the large screen in their living room, they will continue to watch that content on their tablet in their bedroom or a Smartphone on their morning commute,” said Prins.  “The consumer is now using the tablet or Smartphone as a second screen for background information, social media, etc. Depending on the preferred business model - subscription, pay per view, SMS billing or one click pay - all of these methods are already supported by Adyen on multiple devices.”

But according to Jardenberg, this is all a numbers game: “Apple will disrupt the card/bank/payments market as they did with the music business.  In short, mobile payments will take off when iPhone5 hits the market with NFC.”

Will Adyen be ready? According to Prins, they already are.