Pierre Lion, Sales Director - MangoPay

The French based e-money issuer MangoPay offers us some insight into its e-money services and reflects on the future of payment processing as a whole. Our interview with Sales Director, Pierre Lion, has shined an interesting light on Ecommerce Payments Payments One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonl One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonl Read this Term, specifically within Crowdfunding Crowdfunding Crowdfunding is defined as funding of a project via raising smaller denominations of money across a large body of number of people.New businesses that need access to more capital may also conduct crowdfunding. Generally, crowdfunding is performed through an online community, social media, or crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and RocketHub. Depending upon which jurisdiction an investor resides within will dictate the sort of restrictions that are applied to the crowdfunding pro Crowdfunding is defined as funding of a project via raising smaller denominations of money across a large body of number of people.New businesses that need access to more capital may also conduct crowdfunding. Generally, crowdfunding is performed through an online community, social media, or crowdfunding websites such as Kickstarter, GoFundMe, and RocketHub. Depending upon which jurisdiction an investor resides within will dictate the sort of restrictions that are applied to the crowdfunding pro Read this Term and marketplace platforms, and should assist you in your own payment considerations.

Payment Magnates: Tell us a little bit about MangoPay

Pierre Lion: MangoPay is an “all-inclusive” payment solution dedicated to marketplaces, crowdfunding platforms and services for collaborative consumption. With a single contract (no PSP or bank required) you can accept payments, manage money for third parties and automatically collect your fees. The developer-friendly API is available for online, mobile and tablets all over Europe and supports multiple currencies.

When Leetchi.com – Europe’s leading service for group payments – was created in 2010, a payment solution as easy as MangoPay did not exist. The bigger Leetchi.com grew, the more features we developed and we soon realised that the API we created could be very helpful for other platforms with similar needs - like crowdfunding platforms or marketplaces. In December 2012, we obtained our licence from the CSSF in Luxemburg and became an authorised e-money issuer: This enabled us to finally offer MangoPay to other platforms. Already more than 100 platforms are using our solution amongst them is Ulule, La Fourchette, Cookening, PayPlug, Vestiaire Collective ...

PM: You mention on your Website that your customers will not have PCI requirements, using your service. Can you elaborate on this?

PL: By collaborating with MangoPay, our clients are actually externalising the payment brick and the hassle of managing it. The platforms do not have to store, manage or have any access to risky banking information. Our e-money issuer licence combined with the know-how of the PSP we work with, guarantees that this sensitive data is secured and that we respect all payment regulations and security requirements.

PM: What is MangoPay’s E-Money all about?

PL: Thanks to our e-money system, we enable our clients to legally and technically handle C2C payments on their platforms. To give an example: Vinted, one of Europe’s largest marketplaces for pre-loved fashion, uses our solution to create one e-wallet per seller, one e-wallet per buyer and one e-wallet for Vinted in order to collect their fees. This way, the money is secured in the seller’s escrow e-wallets while the products are shipped and the platform does not need to store the funds of the seller on its bank account (as this would be illegal).

The big advantage is that we created a white-label solution, meaning that the end users of our clients do not open any MangoPay e-wallets and are not redirected to a MangoPay payment page. They always stay on the platform and the e-wallets are attributed automatically when users make a payment or when they accept payments on the platform.

PM: How does third party payment work within E-Wallet?

PL: This is very simple. The seller or project owner has an e-wallet to accept payments on the platform. Their e-wallets are linked to their bank accounts. The platform has its own e-wallet, where it collects its fees. This e-wallet is linked to the platform’s bank account in order to withdraw funds.

PM: What type of e-merchant would most benefit and why?

PL: We target all platforms that handle third party payments, so our main targets are marketplaces, crowd-funding platforms and more largely all platforms for the sharing economy (i.e. for sharing cars or apartments).

PM: What do you see in the future of payment processing?

PL: The evolution of payment processing is led by two kinds of actors that are setting up the base for tomorrow’s payment:

- The "mass- market" solutions (i.e. PSP, banks, PayPal…): they offer simple solutions and support multiple currencies and multiple channels for international merchants.

- The “specialist” solutions (e-money issuers like MangoPay, Amazon, Hi-Pay…) who bet on what will be the next big thing in e-commerce: marketplaces, crowdfunding, renting platforms, collaborative economy.