Innovation drastically reduces five-day payment process to five-minutes

Manama, Mar. 11 (BNA): Evolving technology fueled by innovation and creating new realities across the banking and financial landscape such as ePayment channels which have drastically reduced the payment processing time from three to five days to 5-30 minutes, the Executive Director of Banking Supervision, Central Bank of Bahrain, has said. Khalid Hamad also highlighted at the opening of the ePay Summit in Manama the example of the payment alternative offered by crypto-assets i.e. SWIFT’s Global Payments Innovation or GPI which has reduced from 3-5 days to 5-30 minutes for most payments. The panelists in the first session were Chairman, Bahrain Bourse and Bahrain Clear Co, AbdulKareem Bucheery, President and Chief Executive Al Baraka Banking Group Chairman of Bahrain Association of Banks, Adnan Ahmed Yousif, Chief Executive Bahrain Bourse, Shaikh Khalifa bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and CEO KHCB, Sattam Al Gosaibi. “The target is to achieve real time or near real time payment. This service is enabling payments worth $ 300 billion a day – and achieved transfer of $ 40 trillion in 2018 – making it the biggest player by a margin. More than 3,500 banks, accounting for 85 per cent of SWIFT’s total payments traffic, have committed to adopting GPI,” said Hamad. “Payments and especially cross border payments are a favorite area for Fintech companies with a big question what are the prospects for e-payment companies when facing competition from fast and cost-effective service from a payment giant like SWIFT? Unless a Fintech company become a service provider or partner with the incumbent in a revenue sharing or some other mutually beneficial arrangement, it will be difficult to sustain itself on a standalone basis. This phenomenon is not limited to e-payment companies; in all other areas an incumbent ready to embrace new technology is generally more potent and can outrun the start-ups,” he said. When Internet arrived, it caused serious damage to the business model of intermediaries and middlemen, e.g. online travel booking flourished at the cost of travel agents, he added. “Fintech is expected to do the same in the financial sector by enabling the aggregator model. Nowhere is it more pronounced than in the insurance sector where the insurance broker faces serious competition from insurance aggregators. Think Uber and Airbnb that have become the largest taxi company and the largest accommodation provider without owning a single taxi or hotel. Should we expect something similar for insurance? What about banking services after the introduction of open banking?” E-Pay Summit is conceived as the meeting point for leading decision makers and influencers representing enterprises across the GCC from banking, e-commerce, retail and telecommunications. Over 2 days, they will share their latest strategies, challenges and innovative applications which are set to change the e-payment and digital banking landscape in 2019 and beyond. The summit supports the industry to enable policy and regulation, talent development, business opportunity and investment capital. By bringing together the most forward-thinking participants. The Summit aims at stimulating a debate through its fully researched, focused and thought-provoking agenda as it brought together a broad spectrum of stake holders in the banking and financial sector including regulators, bankers, service providers and last but not the least the end-users or customers. The key areas of discussions cover changes in fintech and e-commerce regulation, blockchain and the expectations of virtual currencies; learn about the threat of fraud and security breach with new payment methods; challenge the future of digital banking and learn about the latest innovations and learn about the new technologies disrupting the industry from AI to open APIs. The summit spreads over various sessions and deliberations over the two days will help the participants to understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in Bahrain and the GCC online banking and payments industry and hear how leading banks in the region are planning for long term success. The areas such as building business relations with global fintech start- ups, policy makers and investors and discussions over proven strategies for influencing customers' behaviour to drive loyalty will be other areas of interest for the participants.