Public-private partnerships have the potential to generate $1.6 trillion, says PayerMax

PayerMax highlighted the importance of public-private partnerships in accelerating the digital economy at Seamless Middle East 2022.

Sianna Wu, Senior Vice President, MEA of PayerMax, highlighted the role of digital payments in the Middle Eastern countries’ digitized economy vision in a keynote address.

Wu said that consumers’ fast-evolving purchase habits, consumer behaviors and expectations are defined by the creator economy — where individual personality, reputation and self-actualization via the world’s largest online platforms anchor their daily demands of technology, and payment methods. Digital payment systems act as a fundamental infrastructure to support the development and accelerate the maturity of such emerging digital economies by making payments easier and convenient and, therefore, facilitating consumption to stimulate economic growth.

The 100% digitized economy is expected to add $1.6 trillion to MENA’s GDP and enable a 46 percent increase in GDP per capita. The digital payments industry will play an important role in the digital economy by supporting regional and national agendas for a cashless society while providing transparency, efficiency, and convenience.

Wu believes that public-private partnerships are the way to go as digital payments become the norm. She outlined three partnership pillars that will define and future-proof the digital payment landscape, as well as cause behavioral paradigm shifts at scale – public-private partnerships, omni-method payments, and collaboration to foster trust.

Global payment companies can achieve borderless growth by globalizing and scaling local payment methods, which fuels the three-sided ecosystem of merchants and users to transact in a safe, robust, and compliant environment.

MENA and Gulf countries, on the other hand, have one of the world’s highest rates of smart phone penetration, far outpacing the growth of bank account penetration. As a result, payment companies must collaborate with and support private-sector alternative payment methods that ensure maximum financial inclusion. To secure society’s digital future, any merchant or payment company enabling the ecosystem in the region must collaborate with alternative payment institutions.

Wu concluded by emphasizing the importance of payment companies, creator economy merchants, providers, and regulators in encouraging consumers to use cashless payments. Partners can lower the barrier to trial for first-time digital payment users by collaborating as an ecosystem to promote highly recognized and trusted payment institutions in the region, such as trusted local banks, locally issued debit cards, or telco-operated wallets.

PayerMax presented its unified omni-method payment solution and partnership program to ecosystem and digital payments innovators at Seamless Middle East 2022, demonstrating the platform’s ability to offer enhanced speed, flexibility, and scale.