Payments

Arkwright traces its roots to the Nordics, renowned as the home of the world’s first cashless society. We have helped to shape the development of digital payments strategies and products, such as mobile payments and new acceptance solutions. Today, we are shaping business and operating models along the entire payment value chain worldwide, and all payment channels including cash collection.

With excellent industry experience, our partners offer comprehensive expertise in retail and corporate payments, open banking and digital convergence. They accompany our clients on their ongoing evolutionary journey through the payment and FinTech ecosystem, commercial business, government payments, financial inclusion and digital ID.

In addition to a fresh, cross-industry and global perspective on innovative developments, we have earned a reputation for improving performance based on tailored problem-solving as well as focused tools and frameworks, such as Scheme-Fee Management Optimisation, ATM Business Model Optimisation, Pre-delinquency Management and Digital ID Model Design.

Our clients include large international and medium-sized regional organisations right down to industry, institutional and start-up investors:                                                      

  • Banks and mono line issuers, account interfaces and third-party payment providers (AISPs / PISPs)
  • Payment schemes and account-to-account payments infrastructure
  • Merchant acquirers, aggregators, network service and online-payment service providers
  • Payment processors
  • Retailers and loyalty-scheme providers Governments and NGOs
  • Digital identity service providers (DISP)
  • Private equity and institutional investors
  • Suppliers to the payments and banking industries

Examples of typical projects:                                                

  • Growth and market entry, product and corporate strategies
  • Restructuring of payments businesses such as issuing, acquiring and processing
  • Conceptual preparation and management of complex migration projects
  • Efficiency improvement and digitalisation of core processes
  • Vendor selection for providers of identity services, aggregators, processors, service providers
  • Due diligence, business valuation and transaction support

Latest Industry Insights

Payments
August 1, 2021

Mobile Payment Landscape Europe - Will there be an API driven industry consolidation?

The European mobile payment landscape has been evolving over the last fifteenyears and mobile payments now prevail in Northern European countries, while thecrowded market moves towards consolidation.However, mobile payment providers are yet to offer services on a pan-Europeanlevel. The European Payment Initiative (EPI) aims to remedy this by building anew payment scheme from scratch.If its ambitions are fully achieved, it is likely to compete with all domestic mobilepayment solutions and the future of mobile payments in Europe will very muchdepend on how the EPI evolves.Hence, in this article, we analyse existing European mobile payments,1 considerhow EPI may affect the landscape, and present four possible scenarios that European mobile payments providers should consider.

The European mobile payment landscape has been evolving over the last fifteenyears and mobile payments now prevail in Northern European countries, while thecrowded market moves towards consolidation.However, mobile payment providers are yet to offer services on a pan-Europeanlevel. The European Payment Initiative (EPI) aims to remedy this by building anew payment scheme from scratch.If its ambitions are fully achieved, it is likely to compete with all domestic mobilepayment solutions and the future of mobile payments in Europe will very muchdepend on how the EPI evolves.Hence, in this article, we analyse existing European mobile payments,1 considerhow EPI may affect the landscape, and present four possible scenarios that European mobile payments providers should consider.

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Payments
June 25, 2022

BNPL Industry Dynamics

Buy now pay later (BNPL) has become an important part of consumers' purchase decisions and payment behaviour, and the industry has reached a critical stage of development. As it appears to be approaching maturity, a careful analysis of the industry reveals both opportunities and risks. Furthermore, competition will increase with the direct entrance of big techs such as Apple and Block. To succeed in the current environment, market players need to navigate increasing regulatory scrutiny, rising interest rates and an oversupply of BNPL credit that has been extended to consumers who, at times, have been to eager to spend. In a March 2022 paper, we discussed the characteristics of the BNPL business model. This research focuses on market structure developments, the reactions of BNPL players, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the industry, while providing a working hypothesis on the scaling and diversification efforts in play. Based on this analysis, we present the potential implications for business-to-consumer BNPL lenders, established financial players, technology providers and retailers alike.

Buy now pay later (BNPL) has become an important part of consumers' purchase decisions and payment behaviour, and the industry has reached a critical stage of development. As it appears to be approaching maturity, a careful analysis of the industry reveals both opportunities and risks. Furthermore, competition will increase with the direct entrance of big techs such as Apple and Block. To succeed in the current environment, market players need to navigate increasing regulatory scrutiny, rising interest rates and an oversupply of BNPL credit that has been extended to consumers who, at times, have been to eager to spend. In a March 2022 paper, we discussed the characteristics of the BNPL business model. This research focuses on market structure developments, the reactions of BNPL players, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the industry, while providing a working hypothesis on the scaling and diversification efforts in play. Based on this analysis, we present the potential implications for business-to-consumer BNPL lenders, established financial players, technology providers and retailers alike.

Read more
Payments
July 12, 2022

Platform-Based Ecosystems

Beyond Super-Apps: An analysis of business-to-business (B2B) cases. Following the first Arkwright’s “From Platforms to Ecosystems” report, this latest further analyzes the building blocks and the evolution of a platform-based ecosystem (PBE) business model. This second report expands on the frameworks that can be used to map and design an ecosystem value proposition, rather than analyzing the applicability and value of these models, which was covered in the first report. The previous report outlined numerous examples of successful platform-based ecosystems in the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) space, such as Grab, K-Plus and Line. While platform-based ecosystems are commonly associated with super-app value propositions, the model also has business-to-business (B2B) applications that have been pivotal within many industries. The bundling of products, services and enablers across company portfolios, along with a seamless and integrated digital solution that gives access to all of them, is the way to meet that demand. PBEs are highly-evolutionary business models, even if they don’t start their life in that form. PBEs benefit from enhanced visibility about the transactions that are taking place within a customer journey. This in turn means they keep evolving by attracting complementary solutions and further enriching the PBE value proposition. A PBE value proposition can be mapped through frameworks such as the Platform Ecosystem Timeline. This provides retail- and business-focused companies with a logical structure to evaluate their options once a target customer journey has been identified. Apart from the difference in nature of the transactions between B2C and B2B ecosystems, the illustrated examples in this, and the previous, report show that the building blocks, advantages and challenges of ecosystems are transferable across industries, target groups and customer journeys.

Beyond Super-Apps: An analysis of business-to-business (B2B) cases. Following the first Arkwright’s “From Platforms to Ecosystems” report, this latest further analyzes the building blocks and the evolution of a platform-based ecosystem (PBE) business model. This second report expands on the frameworks that can be used to map and design an ecosystem value proposition, rather than analyzing the applicability and value of these models, which was covered in the first report. The previous report outlined numerous examples of successful platform-based ecosystems in the business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) space, such as Grab, K-Plus and Line. While platform-based ecosystems are commonly associated with super-app value propositions, the model also has business-to-business (B2B) applications that have been pivotal within many industries. The bundling of products, services and enablers across company portfolios, along with a seamless and integrated digital solution that gives access to all of them, is the way to meet that demand. PBEs are highly-evolutionary business models, even if they don’t start their life in that form. PBEs benefit from enhanced visibility about the transactions that are taking place within a customer journey. This in turn means they keep evolving by attracting complementary solutions and further enriching the PBE value proposition. A PBE value proposition can be mapped through frameworks such as the Platform Ecosystem Timeline. This provides retail- and business-focused companies with a logical structure to evaluate their options once a target customer journey has been identified. Apart from the difference in nature of the transactions between B2C and B2B ecosystems, the illustrated examples in this, and the previous, report show that the building blocks, advantages and challenges of ecosystems are transferable across industries, target groups and customer journeys.

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Industry Professionals

Claes Green

Partner

Stockholm

Francesco Burelli

Partner

Hamburg

Frank Wunderlich

Partner

Hamburg

Jerrit de Vries

Partner

Hamburg

Malte Wolf

Partner

Hamburg

Steven Jacob

Partner

Hamburg

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