Daniel Mayhew is the UK Country Manager at Payoneer, a financial services provider that provides simple online money transfers and e-commerce payment services. The company is currently headquartered in New York, with a new office that recently opened in London.
Mayhew understands that whether you work for a corporate business or you’re a freelancer, getting paid is critical. Traditional payment methods have risks and limitations, and he fully believes that Payoneer has the answer to solving international payments, where customers can withdraw funds from anywhere, with low costs and in any currency. There are four million users on the Payoneer marketplace, ranging over 200 countries and spending in more than 150 currencies.
Are you looking to expand Payoneer to new geographies?
We’re seeing a globalisation trend all over the world so we’re not focusing on one single market. We have seen a growth in Asian markets, but also in the more mature markets – businesses are beginning to see the opportunities of transacting more internationally. If you look at the UK, Japan and US- they’re traditionally focused on their domestic markets, and can ignore the opportunity that exists abroad. Those markets are now driven by the opportunity of growth, and by competition from American economies, mature markets are showing a lot of promise for cross-border e-commerce.
I recently spoke to a multi-million-pound clothing manufacturer, and he’s been domestically focused for the last twenty years, had a great business with a healthy profit turnover, but now he’s really looking to take advantage of the global opportunity because it’s shifting that way so quickly.
A recent DHL shipping report states that cross-border e-commerce is growing at twice the rate of domestic commerce. You can’t ignore that, you’ve just got to be a part of it.
How does Payoneer go about addressing working capital for e-commerce sellers?
We are extremely focused on finding new and exciting ways and value-added products and services to serve our customers. We have millions of customers around the world, and we are laser focused on finding better ways to serve them. That’s not going to change. We’re going to drive new innovative products to market.
In March, we launched a new Early Payments service – this gives high volume e-commerce merchants the ability to receive payment for their sales within minutes, giving them crucial capital to drive their businesses forward. It’s a critical journey to give them more instant capital which will help them take their business forward.
We have an API into Wish, so we can see what you’ve sold in real-time, and we can give you up to 80% of your returns back sooner. This means the online seller can buy more inventory, so they can sell more, which means we can pay them faster, and repeat. The whole purpose is to help the online merchants grow their business quicker. That’s an example of an innovative product that we’ve been launching and there’s more to come. We won’t stop investing in that side of our business.
Do you have any payments predications for the year? Are there any technologies that you’re watching closely?
There are many trends and innovations happening all over the world. We are an extremely fluid and exciting cross-border ecosystem at Payoneer. I’m focused on the UK market, and I’m currently following the FX trends and all the currencies. There’s a big demand for our products in the UK, not just in the emerging markets but also in the mature markets.
2016 was a record breaking year for online e-commerce sales, and we can’t wait to see the results at the end of 2017.
The fintech space in the UK is booming- it’s constantly moving and there are a lot of service parties joining or enhancing their products, and their all eager to support the international payment requirements. I’m watching marketplaces closely as there are a lot of opportunities around fulfilment services, mobile optimising websites which all continue to grow at astonishing rates. Outside of marketplaces, you’ve also got these wonderful and eccentric payment methods and all the gateways that you can plug those into, and all the UI’s that you can plug the merchants into – it’s all within the payments ecosystem.
And of course, I’m following the political turmoil of Brexit and the Brexit vote. A lot of businesses in the UK are concerned with their relationships with businesses in the EU. The digital economy is modernistic, I think it’s time for UK manufacturers to start looking at international pioneers and how to step up successful marketplaces because it’s a great way to grow your business globally. Also, some of the UK marketplaces need to look beyond the EU and they need to find third parties globally. I genuinely believe the biggest opportunity for the UK right now is not here in the UK, it’s overseas – the global opportunity. I see that trend continuing for years.
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