Payment Magnates has interviewed PayU Latam’s co-founder and business development director Martin Shrimpff. Considering the substantial presence of Colombia based PayU (payment processing provider) in Latin America and PayU Latam’s processing offerings to international merchants, the interview has provided great insight for e-merchants specifically with regards to what has been a hot topic on Payment Magnates recently about entering new markets. We hope that you are informed and inspired by Shrimpff words of advice.
Payment Magnates: Can you explain the main differences between PayU and PayU Latam to our audience?
Martin Shrimpff: PayU Latam is part of the PayU Group. PayU Latam focuses on offering payment solutions for International merchants that want to sell in Latin America. PayU Latam operates in 7 countries in Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Panama, Peru and Chile) and offers different payment methods like local credit cards, Local bank transfers and cash Payments . The big advantage is that an international merchant only has to do 1 integration to be able to see in Latam. The merchant does not need to have local presence in these countries, therefore it is not required to have a company or bank account in these countries. PayU Latama simply receives the payments and then wire transfers the money to Europe, the US or wherever the merchant is based.
PM: How would you describe PayU’s place in the e-commerce market? Payment method, Payment processor, third party accounts, direct merchant accounts?
MS: PayU Latam is a PSP (Payment processing provider). We offer different payment methods like local credit cards, Local bank transfers and cash payments. PayU Latam has over 60 different local payment methods in the 7 Latin American countries it operates in.
PM: How do you integrate in the overall scheme of an established merchant with his current processing habits in place?
MS: With PayU Latam you can integrate via Web Service so it is completely transparent for the end user. The Merchant has to identify from where the user is buying and if the user is from Latam the merchant then shows the user all the different payment options that PayU Latam has.
PM: Can you list the online industries PayU provides its services to?
MS: We provide our services to practically all types of merchants that want to sell online. Any type of Service or products is welcome. The only industries we do not accept are Adult sites, Gambling sites and Pharmaceuticals. We have over 130,000 clients which include, Blizzard, Riot, Amway, Groupon, Sony, Google, Direct TV.
PM: How do you deal with Chargebacks?
MS: We have a sophisticated antifraud Module that we developed over the last 10 years. Our Chargeback rates are about 0.5% which is low compared to the industry average in the region.
PM: What would be your best advices to online merchants in order to help them lower their chargeback exposure, especially in your area?
MS: The advice would be to use PayU Latam ;) . We are experts in the matter and we know about local fraud as we have local knowledge. We have offices and personal in each of the 7 countries that we operate in, so this gives us access to information that otherwise would be hard to obtain.
PM: Is Bitcoin as widely adopted in Latam as it seems from what we hear in Argentina for example? Do you have any plans on accepting Bitcoin?
MS: We have not looked into this yet, but it might be an interesting prospect.
PM: A lot of merchants in our audience are very interested in entering the Latam market. Could you describe the main differences between this market and the one they are used to (EU, Asia and US) What are the main payment methods there, what are the typical errors to avoid, the recommended strategies … Are there any Latam specific consumers shopping habits to take into account?
MS: Less than 10% of Latin Americans have a credit card. The internet penetration is of about 50%. This means that if you do not offer alternative payment methods you will only be tapping a very small portion of your potential market in the region. From PayU Latams experience about 60% of all transactions are done by either Bank Transfer or cash payments. This means the user goes onto an international site and when he is about to do the payment (with cash) our system generates a code. With this code the user can go to a local shop or pharmacy and do the payment there. We then inform the international merchant that the payment has been done and the merchant then delivers its product or service.
The other important factor to consider is to start accepting credit cards locally (even Visa and MasterCard emitted locally). We work with local acquirers in each country, this allows us to process local credit cards and obtain much higher approval rates than if the merchant was using an international credit card processor.
The local offer of sites for services, digital goods and products is still not that good. About 80% of all transactions are done to international merchants. This means there is a huge opportunity for International sites that are looking to sell in Latin America.
