Looking ahead • B2B
Striving to be known as the niche payments player in the Mexican market, PayNways seeks to consolidate its offerings and position itself as a fintech partner for banks and other institutions.
What opportunities in the market motived you to enter the Mexican payments industry?
We did our research and used our experience in the banking sector to identify three particular areas to enter. There are three main developments that motivated us to enter Mexico. One is the start of the fintech initiative by the government, which shows Mexico is moving toward digital payments and opening up the economy. Second, in 2019, the central bank introduced CODI payments to enable those at the bottom of the pyramid to participate in the payments ecosystem. Moreover, the National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) recently published its open banking resolution. All these pushed us to enter the digital payments area in Mexico, where we are now working with a few players.
How do you plan to break down the complexity of payment systems for businesses in Mexico?
The important thing is to break down the complexity and provide a simple offering to any player in the entire spectrum of the payment cycle. That is our key differentiator. We are always looking at how we can make the process easier for an end customer who has a mobile to handle electronic payments without training. We are bringing automation by experience so that we do not increase the number of people required to do the same operations but refine it and make it into a consistent approach. The contributing factor in Mexico is that there is a mature payments system here; not every country has the level of real-time payments like Mexico. This is why everyone is looking at Mexico as the main driver for the entire Latin American market. Mexico is now moving forward by changing the players and system and introducing new fintech and banking regulations to open up the market and attract new players. Moreover, the central bank is open to moving things to the cloud. Once you open such opportunities to the private sector, agility will come automatically.
In what ways has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your business model and how have you adapted?
We were semi-digital in terms of presence, so it has not impacted us as much. That said, it did impact our business. We had to push back some of the agreements and slow down our expansion plans. We have to wait and see how different regions and countries will cope with the pandemic. We decided it was better to take this time to strengthen our product and offering. We have introduced a number of digital payment offerings such as digital wallets. Moreover, with the number of cyber attacks increasing, we decided to work on the security of our payment processes. We started these initiatives to bring more stability and scalability.
What is your advice to what business leaders should be focusing on and investing in during these times of uncertainty?
First of all, as a responsible business leader, the first and foremost responsibility is to keep everyone safe and reassure them by engaging them in initiatives and activities. These are the key areas where we as business leaders should act. This will be our focus for the next few months until we receive news about a vaccine. Everyone is trying to figure out a way to fight the virus. One thing is for sure: if something similar in the future happens, people will be better prepared to face it.
What are your objectives and goals for the rest of the year?
Our goal is to be known as the niche payments player in the Mexico market as we expand globally. We are evaluating our strategy on how to launch ourselves as a fintech with offering we can have within the Mexican market. We are trying to position our products according to CNBV’s open banking regulations. In the near future, we plan to consolidate our offering and offer ourselves as a fintech partner for banks and other institutions. ✖
Mexico is driving digital payments in Latin America
Central bank introduced CODI payments in 2019