The payment journey for igaming players continues to develop at a rapid rate as trust remains at the core of what a player desires.
At the CasinoBeats Summit in Malta, the evolution of payments was explored in significant depth, with innovation from that side of a gambling business cited as pivotal to player engagement for gambling businesses.
Having recently moved into the digital currency world, Veiko Krünberg, CEO at XGateway, emphasised that we are still in the early days of crypto. However, he believes that blockchain technology will be fundamental for the igaming world in the near future.
Enrico Giancaterina, Executive Managing Director at Funtech Games, asserted that shifting from fiat currencies can provide avenues for payments in less developed markets, away from Europe and North America.
Krünberg urged operators to take note of oncoming developments and payment journeys that are steadily growing into the mainstream and being adopted by a larger number of players.
‘Teething problems within the sector are improving at dramatic speed’ according to Krünberg, who was keen to state his belief that the benefits of Decentralised Finance (DeFi) are going to fuel the way it is embraced by igaming players and operators.
He added that as alternative payment avenues continue to grow “we have never seen Visa doing as much marketing as they are now”. This is because the payments giant is “feeling the pressure” from the evolution of the payment space and new transactional journeys.
The panel was moderated by Sergio Muscat, Founder at Oxygia Consulting, who underlined his belief that trust continues to be crucial within the payment sector
Ian Perrygrove, Chief Risk Officer at Kwiff, outlined that smart companies must recognise that every part of an operation holds importance, and payments is very much included in this given that it is where money comes in and out.
In terms of the adoption of new avenues, he added that consumers like what they can trust and this serves to benefit Visa and Mastercard in many markets.
Nonetheless, he underlined his belief that in igaming it is not about if you grow, but is instead about the pace at which you grow – it simply has to be done at an exponential rate in order to keep up.
The potential for whether we could see a more mainstream shift to alternative payment methods continued to rage on, as Sean Spiteri, Head of Payment Solutions at PressEnter, stressed that humans are habitual creatures and tend to stick to what they know.
The trust factor is no more vital than in the case of a consumer’s finances. That being said, what it will ‘boil down to is simplicity and speed’ when it comes to the adoption of new payment methods.
The panel also analysed the pivotal role that crypto could play when it comes to the future of payments, as the transparency it provides will be seen as a crucial asset for igaming players.