Insights and Perspectives from Arkwright

Arkwright and Arkwright Digital analyzed 200 retail account openings and credit card applications at European banks, assessing current performance, trends, and optimization opportunities. They pinpointed best practices and areas for improvement in the onboarding process.

This whitepaper provides an overview of Europe’s domestic mobile payment landscape, analysing current trends, key success factors of best practices, and forecasting the competitive dynamics up to 2030. It aims to equip stakeholders with the knowledge to navigate the evolving mobile payment landscape on a national and regional level, and monitor the critical strategic drivers in the market.

Ahead of MPE 2024, the premier European merchant acquiring and payments acceptance conference, we have had the privilege to partner, once again, with Merchant Payments Ecosystem (MPE) on a joint research project. Overall, the success of the payments industry is closely intertwined with the success of the retail community it serves. During Q4 2023, MPE invited 1,711 merchants within its community to participate in the survey, with research completed through online questionnaires and a sample of deep-dive interviews. Not only does the survey provide a snapshot of the European retailing industry, but it also points to potential focus areas for the improvement of merchant acquiring and acceptance value propositions alike.

Electronic payment developments and deployments have been undertaken for many years. The SADC payments infrastructure has been developing for over 50 years, yet there has been limited progress regarding financial inclusion measured in terms of access and usage to digital payments, indicated by the limited penetration of card adoption and merchant terminalization. The analysis points to some of the challenges in realizing such infrastructure.

The merchant acquiring industry is subject to significant and ongoing evolution and, due to various factors, is facing a comprehensive reconfiguration. The emergence of online channels, new business models, such as marketplaces, and the overall ongoing shifts in the acquiring value chain have led to the development of a variety of business models focusing on defined sections of the acquiring transaction lifecycle.

Beyond Super-Apps: An analysis of business-to-business (B2B) cases. Following the first Arkwright’s “From Platforms to Ecosystems” report, this latest further analyzes the building blocks and the evolution of a platform-based ecosystem (PBE) business model. This second report expands on the frameworks that can be used to map and design an ecosystem value proposition, rather than analyzing the applicability and value of these models, which was covered in the first report.

Buy now pay later (BNPL) has become an important part of consumers' purchase decisions and payment behaviour, and the industry has reached a critical stage of development. As it appears to be approaching maturity, a careful analysis of the industry reveals both opportunities and risks. Furthermore, competition will increase with the direct entrance of big techs such as Apple and Block.

The use of Electronic Identification (eID) varies across Europe. This paper explains the reasons for the different usage behavior of eIDs in Europe and develops future scenarios against the background of current market and regulatory developments.

BNPL is a global phenomenon of growing relevance within the consumer credit industry. While the product features of the underlying financing solutions are identical compared to incumbents’ offerings, the integration at the POS, the short-term nature of the product and the merchant subsidization are making it appealing to consumers to pay for impulse purchases.

By developing a controlling tool capable of modelling around 98% of Visa’s scheme fees, Arkwright found strong lock-in effects, significant economies of scale and derived guidelines for strategic.

For several years, Arkwright has supported a major European media client as it has both optimized existing print titles and moved into new activities such as commuter papers..

While supporting banks and new entrants with the development of Open Banking strategies in Europe, Arkwright has mapped the providers landscape across the value chain for over three years…

Economic activity has been severely impacted by business closures as well as diminished consumer purchasing power due to furlough and job losses. As businesses start to reopen, commerce will return.

Following up on Arkwright’s report “Open Banking Industry Dynamics – A European Perspective” from March 2020, this report further examines the evolution of the European Banking industry from a supply perspective.

Report reveals banks as the key to digital identity success. Digital identity is also an opportunity to solve banking’s existential crisis

“Platform” and “ecosystem” are two commonly used business buzzwords describing business models that investors and board members around the world seek to emulate. These types of businesses benefit from higher price-to-earnings on account of their superior performance compared to so-called linear business models.

Developments and Challenges Associated with Central Bank Issued Digital Currencies – the Case of Sweden’s Proposed e-Krona

The European mobile payment landscape has been evolving over the last fifteen years and mobile payments now prevail in Northern European countries, while the crowded market moves towards consolidation.