Global Carrier Billing Summit recap – today: “Unearthing Potential in Physical Goods”

In September, the Global Carrier Billing Summit took place online and in London.

In their Panel discussion, Peter Garside and James Williams shared some interesting insights into market potential and existing obstacles of physical goods in general, as well as the specific situation in the UK.

You find my key takeaways from their session below – including a few questions, that came to mind when listening.

Did you attend the #GCBSummit? Are we missing something in this summary?

The top 6 takeaways from their session

+ physical goods is not available for DCB as payment method in UK due to regulation, whereas other European countries allow physical goods ⇾ market fragmented across Europe
+ technology is not the problem, vendors have set up initial showcases even decades ago
+ Japan and South Korea, for example, allow DCB as well for high-value items, even a fridge can be paid with DCB – we do not seem to be anywhere near that here in Europe 😀
+ a reason for wider acceptance could be the large post-paid share in these countries
+ in Scandinavia, DCB is widely accepted e.g. in public transport because the introduction was driven strongly by the urge to get rid of cash / coins
+ micro-insurance as a potential #DCB niche has the downside of complicated regulation
 

From these takeaways, we are now wondering

+ Is (financial) regulation preventing innovation and new markets for DCB at larger scale? Or, is maybe politics running behind reality regarding user acceptance and experience?
+ What are the reasons for such regulation for DCB in specific compared to other payment methods?
+ And is such a fragmented market (i.e. different DCB (un)availability and rules across European countries) a potential barrier for merchants to use DCB?

What do you think?

Leave us a comment below!