Which reliable and low-cost methods can businesses in Pakistan use to get paid online?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot10/Nov/20111 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 10/Nov/2011
Emerging markets like India cannot be ignored (with respect to market size).
Economic regions such as South Asia & South East Asia are now all warming up to Square-like services and product rollouts. I personally do not see Square entering the South Asia or South East Asian market anytime soon. They have enough opportunity and competition within their own US plateau right now, that if and when they will expand, Canada and Europe are likely to be their next candidate countries, and that's a big if, because European markets are themselves rolling out Square-cloned services.
Chinese payment systems have not traditionally extended into Indian borders (I cannot cite a single example, please do provide with one should you be aware of it).
Even the likes of Alipay (http://global.alipay.com/ospay/h...) have not ventured into India, though I suspect, that might be about to change.
Companies like Obopay (www.obopay.com) can instantly offer this product in the market tomorrow. Banks like ICICI are strong contenders for such service rollouts. The Governor of Reserve Bank of India has even argued that Indian companies need to roll out their own autonomous networks for payments, rather than rely on the likes of Visa/Mastercard, et. al. so your thinking of rolling out your very own Square clone, is not far off, but might actually be welcomed.
iBoxPay, I have no credible information, if they will actually like to seek traction into the domestic Indian merchant services market. China is large enough of a wired economy for them to handle, and if expansion comes into play, then there are other more potent markets (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong) that might be considered over India.
The iPhone/iPod/iPad market size and adoption rate is extremely important for any of the larger players to consider when rolling out a service in India. Do remember, i-anything is significantly priced (vis-a-vis a merchant point of view) when compared with local merchant terminals as provided by the local acquiring banks, which are given away for free.
Rolling out a Square clone is not too difficult. The hardware is the least of your problems. There are literally 10s if not 100s of manufacturers in China and Taiwan who are making hardware card readers for the iPad/iPhone/iPod. Sourcing such hardware is not difficult at all. That would be the least of your problems.
What you need is to partner up with a bank. I say bank due to many reasons (all having to do with compliance and risk handling primarily).
The software is the main issue here.
You will need to write code from scratch for the front-end (the handheld) which is not that difficult, since it is just a whole lot of screens, but this interaction with the handheld (read: communication) needs to go to the back-end servers which will be both your accounting server and gateway server.
The accounting server takes care of reports, signups, settings, profiles, charges, chargebacks, margins, payouts, etc. which is not to difficult to program in the land known for its software genius and skills.
The payment gateway server is the core here. You will need to connect to all the payment systems (read: merchant gateways) and ATM gateway switches to be able to do both Credit/Debit transaction routing as well as ability to pay via ATM card.
As a self-standing Private Limited company, you may not be able to gain the trust and traction with the various payment providers. However, if you have tied up with a bank, the task becomes interestingly more easy.
Square uses a third party on which they have built their eco-system to interface with all the payment providers. They did not have to worry about the intricacies involved in the back-end connectivity to the likes of Authorize.net, Bank of America, FirstData, etc. Yes, there is a middle layer involved at Square (to the best of my knowledge, and this could change in the future, until Square takes care of this themselves directly and does not rely on the 3rd party system).
Getting the payment gateway certified and working would represent the largest time-segment in a Square-clone rollout, and possible the biggest obstacle. This is contingent on the fact that integration means, connecting to them all. In India there are many different payment gateways and you're looking at a lot of paperwork, back-and-forth and then the integration / testing and certification before you can roll it out.
If your partner bank's core banking system allows your to connect to it - via API / XML and the core banking system itself has a payment gateway that is already in place for the traditional terminals, then you're in luck. This way, you will not need any new certification, etc. You just need to ensure the development payment gateway server is able to parse transactions to the core banking software, as if the transaction were coming in from a regular POS / Card reader terminal.
The above, needless to say is a heuristic view of the overall approach that for example I would take in your economy. Many small but critical details omitted, but the gist of it remains the same.
Economic regions such as South Asia & South East Asia are now all warming up to Square-like services and product rollouts. I personally do not see Square entering the South Asia or South East Asian market anytime soon. They have enough opportunity and competition within their own US plateau right now, that if and when they will expand, Canada and Europe are likely to be their next candidate countries, and that's a big if, because European markets are themselves rolling out Square-cloned services.
Chinese payment systems have not traditionally extended into Indian borders (I cannot cite a single example, please do provide with one should you be aware of it).
Even the likes of Alipay (http://global.alipay.com/ospay/h...) have not ventured into India, though I suspect, that might be about to change.
Companies like Obopay (www.obopay.com) can instantly offer this product in the market tomorrow. Banks like ICICI are strong contenders for such service rollouts. The Governor of Reserve Bank of India has even argued that Indian companies need to roll out their own autonomous networks for payments, rather than rely on the likes of Visa/Mastercard, et. al. so your thinking of rolling out your very own Square clone, is not far off, but might actually be welcomed.
iBoxPay, I have no credible information, if they will actually like to seek traction into the domestic Indian merchant services market. China is large enough of a wired economy for them to handle, and if expansion comes into play, then there are other more potent markets (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong) that might be considered over India.
The iPhone/iPod/iPad market size and adoption rate is extremely important for any of the larger players to consider when rolling out a service in India. Do remember, i-anything is significantly priced (vis-a-vis a merchant point of view) when compared with local merchant terminals as provided by the local acquiring banks, which are given away for free.
Rolling out a Square clone is not too difficult. The hardware is the least of your problems. There are literally 10s if not 100s of manufacturers in China and Taiwan who are making hardware card readers for the iPad/iPhone/iPod. Sourcing such hardware is not difficult at all. That would be the least of your problems.
What you need is to partner up with a bank. I say bank due to many reasons (all having to do with compliance and risk handling primarily).
The software is the main issue here.
You will need to write code from scratch for the front-end (the handheld) which is not that difficult, since it is just a whole lot of screens, but this interaction with the handheld (read: communication) needs to go to the back-end servers which will be both your accounting server and gateway server.
The accounting server takes care of reports, signups, settings, profiles, charges, chargebacks, margins, payouts, etc. which is not to difficult to program in the land known for its software genius and skills.
The payment gateway server is the core here. You will need to connect to all the payment systems (read: merchant gateways) and ATM gateway switches to be able to do both Credit/Debit transaction routing as well as ability to pay via ATM card.
As a self-standing Private Limited company, you may not be able to gain the trust and traction with the various payment providers. However, if you have tied up with a bank, the task becomes interestingly more easy.
Square uses a third party on which they have built their eco-system to interface with all the payment providers. They did not have to worry about the intricacies involved in the back-end connectivity to the likes of Authorize.net, Bank of America, FirstData, etc. Yes, there is a middle layer involved at Square (to the best of my knowledge, and this could change in the future, until Square takes care of this themselves directly and does not rely on the 3rd party system).
Getting the payment gateway certified and working would represent the largest time-segment in a Square-clone rollout, and possible the biggest obstacle. This is contingent on the fact that integration means, connecting to them all. In India there are many different payment gateways and you're looking at a lot of paperwork, back-and-forth and then the integration / testing and certification before you can roll it out.
If your partner bank's core banking system allows your to connect to it - via API / XML and the core banking system itself has a payment gateway that is already in place for the traditional terminals, then you're in luck. This way, you will not need any new certification, etc. You just need to ensure the development payment gateway server is able to parse transactions to the core banking software, as if the transaction were coming in from a regular POS / Card reader terminal.
The above, needless to say is a heuristic view of the overall approach that for example I would take in your economy. Many small but critical details omitted, but the gist of it remains the same.