Retailers have no choice but to keep pace with rapidly evolving tender types that bring with them massive cost and complexity considerations and most importantly, added security and compliance risk.

While this is certainly true for tier one or enterprise retailers, mid-market retailers often don’t have entire departments dedicated to security and compliance adding to the pressure, because while they may not be as big with as many resources as the enterprise retailers, they are often competing for the same consumers meaning they can’t be left in the dust.

Some consumers still prefer to pay with cash while many others enjoy inserting or tapping their debit or credit cards.

Some savvy consumers opt to tap their smartphones with the likes of Apple Pay or Google Pay, while others still prefer scanning a QR code or using the fairly new interbank instant payment app PayShap.

Retailers need to cater for these ever-evolving tender types, including vouchers, mobile wallets and cryptocurrency.

Ever-increasing payment options, which brings increased attack surfaces, shines the spotlight on security. A security breach comes with an obvious financial risk, but there are also reputational, compliance and legal risks to consider.

Smaller companies often cannot take on the financial burden of having to invest in an array of different security and compliance obligations.

This opens them up to vulnerabilities which they simply cannot control. A partner, who brings enterprise experience and solutions to the mid-market segment, effectively levels the playing field because a one-stop solution that’s encrypted end to end enables smaller retailers to serve customers as effectively and safely as their tier one counterparts.

With a significant proportion of payments still being conducted by cards, the first thing retailers need to understand is that there are Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) requirements based on their footprint and volume.

Effective partners come in and initiate risk descoping exercises, which effectively removes or minimises risks by implementing solutions such as point-to-point encryption for cards.

Naturally, cash is still highly prevalent in South Africa, meaning that retailers need clearly defined systems and processes for how they manage cash.

Technology plays an important role here, where reconciliation software ensures that retailers have financial certainty and a single source of truth for all the tender types they accept, and not just card payments.

The card space is already highly regulated, but with increasing options for alternative payments, such as SnapScan, PayShap, and even Cryptocurrency, regulators will mandate security mechanisms and best practice.

Retailers should appreciate that these are new and different technologies, and as such they come with new and different challenges.

Cyber criminals evolve at breakneck speed, and in any organisation there are vulnerabilities in code that can be exploited.

It is non-negotiable to build robust in-house capability to stay ahead of trends or partner with specialists who can. For example, while not directly related to payments, South Africa is now one of the most targeted countries in the world for ransomware.

Yet, despite needing to address vulnerabilities across all attack surfaces, the biggest risk for any organisation is its people, followed by processes that fail.

Retailers should proactively invest heavily in staff training and education, as well as reactive security in the form of audits and controls, which – if effective – can help it identify problems quickly.

Retailers also need to stay on top of preventative controls and measures to prevent any unauthorised individuals accessing their systems.

It is too late if a breach is detected only after the nefarious actor has entered the environment.

An example of this would be workflows to terminate unauthorised access during onboarding and offboarding of staff.

Another effective security strategy, which is made easy with modern, best-of-beed in-person payment solutions, is segregating duties to ensure that one individual never has complete control over a process.

It is evident that every time someone taps their smartphone or enters a voucher code, there are a host of highly complex systems and processes that are triggered, including encryption, payment rails, switching, settlement and reconciliation, among more. Security needs to be woven into every step.

While this really has been the source of many sleepless nights for those in charge of IT and security at mid-market retailers, the evolution of technology means this no longer has to be the case.

As long as a smaller retailer sources a partner with a long, proven track record in the enterprise space that can bring the same level of tier one security and functionality to smaller businesses in simple one-stop solutions, it has all but future-proofed itself and can confidently punch above its weight.

In the world of business, especially within the e-commerce sphere, the adage ‘the customer is king’ has never rung truer. Today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape requires businesses to provide effortless, seamless, and most importantly, frictionless experiences to customers.

Central to this is the payment process, which, if optimally managed, can significantly boost customer loyalty and drive business success.

Defining the frictionless experience

But what exactly constitutes a ‘frictionless’ payment experience?

In essence, it is a payment process designed to provide a high conversion and approval rate by reducing complexity across all available payment methods – be it card payments or alternative options like SnapScan or Instant EFT.

The goal is to develop an engaging, intuitive payment gateway that is easy for customers to navigate. Simplification is key in this regard – the fewer the steps, the smoother the transaction. However, the importance of creating such a system extends beyond just customer convenience.

Reducing customer pain

The rationale behind prioritising frictionless payments lies in the pain points and obstacles consumers often encounter during transactions. Declines or failures in the payment process are among the most significant issues consumers face.

Unclear reasons for such failures further exacerbate the situation, as often neither the payment gateway nor the merchant communicates the exact cause of failure to the consumer.

Not getting any feedback on payment failure results in friction – customers want to know why transactions failed. If they do not have this insight, they get a negative experience from the merchant resulting in potential for churn.

It is therefore crucial for merchants to have insights into their customers’ preferred payment methods and understand the challenges their customers face while transacting.

Optimising the environment

Informed by this, merchants can take significant steps towards streamlining their checkout processes, leading to enhanced customer experiences. Here are some key strategies to consider:

1. Optimise payments across digital devices: Today’s consumers are not bound by one medium. They shop across various devices – smartphones, laptops, and tablets, to name a few.

Therefore, businesses must ensure their e-commerce platforms are compatible and provide a consistent experience across all devices. The consistency extends from the visual rendering of their website or mobile app to the functionality of the payment system.

2. Provide multiple payment methods: A customer’s inability to use a preferred payment method can lead to cart abandonment. Businesses must balance customer preferences with available payment options to prevent such lost sales.

Offering a wide range of payment options can cater to diverse customer needs and ensure a frictionless checkout process.

3. Prioritise security measures: Managing online payments involves dealing with sensitive information, requiring robust security measures. While PCI-compliance is a must for businesses storing card information, achieving this can be a challenging and expensive task.

The right service provider can help manage these complexities, enabling businesses to strike the right balance between user-friendliness and security.

4. Personalise the payment experience: Personalisation is a growing trend across various business sectors, and payments are no exception. Features such as tokenization of user profiles can significantly streamline the payment process for recurring purchases, helping businesses foster customer loyalty and providing a truly frictionless payment experience.

5. Transparency and data analytics: Transparency is a key component of customer trust and satisfaction. Integrating data analytics into the payment process can offer both the merchant and the customer valuable insights.

By choosing a service provider that provides extensive data analytics, businesses can monitor transactions, understand consumer behaviour, and make necessary adjustments to further enrich the customer experience.

Choosing the best payment provider

Ultimately, creating a frictionless payment experience for consumers is not a task any merchant can achieve in isolation.

It requires choosing the right payment provider partner – one that is well-established, fully compliant with legislative and governance structures, with a history of innovation and a reputation for delivering frictionless payment experiences.

The right partner can provide merchants with access to critical analytics, enabling them to optimise their payment processes, provide customers with the transparency they desire, and ultimately, enhance the overall payment experience.

The ability to provide frictionless payment experiences is more than a boon for customer satisfaction – it has become an essential component of competitive advantage.

As businesses navigate the digital frontier, streamlining processes, enhancing security, personalising experiences, and prioritising transparency will ensure they don’t just keep pace with the evolving landscape, but thrive within it. After all, a satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.

The acquisition comes as Kobus Ehlers and Gerrit Greeff, Co-founders, exit Radar, their second startup, to SnapScan, their first.

While SnapScan makes it easy and safe to pay and receive payments in a store, online, at home, and on the go, using a simple snap rather than cards, cash, or time-consuming EFTs, Radar provides a solution for small and medium-sized enterprises to manage and grow their team via a single platform and a simple process.

For almost 10 years, Ehlers and Greeff have built various payments products leveraged by banks and SnapScan was the climax, becoming South Africa’s biggest mobile payments product prior to its acquisition by Standard Bank in 2016. 

They both built Radar alongside Richard Oakley in 2019 and Radar has now been acquired by Firepay, the company behind SnapScan and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard Bank, in a deal both parties said had the potential to unlock a variety of value-added offerings for SnapScan customers.

Ehlers says Firepay has been one of the original investors in Radar due to the close strategic fit between their offering and what they built at Radar. Both companies try to solve different problems facing the same SME customers. “As Radar started looking for a way to scale our distribution and take the product to the next level, it became evident that working closely with SnapScan would be a great way to achieve that.”

“There are some very exciting possibilities when you combine our product with the reach and experience of the SnapScan team. We look forward to seeing the product grow and improve the lives of small business employers in South Africa.” 

Marin Cundall, Firepay’s CEO, noted her delight in Radar joining the company. She said the focus is on providing the best experience for businesses and believes the acquisition will help in achieving the goal.