Payment and e-Money Institutions Displace Banks in Online-Payments

July 29, 2011 - PRLog -- More and more private-equity investors and non-financial service providers are on the jump to enter the payment market. Especially online payments are very popular among these new competitors. Although banks loose a three-digit number in market revenues each year, at least in Germany, they do not have appropriate answers to this evolution.

This is the result of the recently published study „The Evolution of Payment and e-Money Institutions” of m3 management consulting.

Private-equity investors and non-financial service providers not only invest in online payments. Thanks to the unified Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), money remittance, foreign exchange or card based services turn out to be attractive business segments as well. “Even heavyweights out of the retail, logistics or telecommunication sector are among the investors”, states Hubertus von Poser, associate partner of m3.

Remarkable is, that most innovations, like mobile payment solutions or electronic wallets for example are started by non-financial service companies.

„Having this in mind, the passive behaviour of most banks is not comprehensible“, remarks Alexander Hüsgen, one of the authors of the study. Banks should rethink their payments strategy and identify relevant fields of action, especially with regards to electronic payments, mobile payments or card based solutions.

The study reveals that as of May 2011, 341 payment and e-money institutions were registered within the EU, more than 50% of them in Great Britain. Next countries were Germany, the Netherlands and Czech Republic. The authors expect a strong increase in registrations in the near future. Especially countries with a high number of payment transactions as well as Eastern European countries are expected to attract more and more payment providers.

The study is available on the website of m3 management consulting at http://www.m3maco.com

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m3 management consulting GmbH is a cross-industry, product-neutral management consultancy company that is characterized by strong business ethics and a holistic perspective. We work with our clients on a partnership-like basis to find innovative solutions and accompany our clients from the definition of a strategy to the implementation of the solution. We operate within an international network of specialists and strategic partners and support our clients in sustainably enhancing their performance.