The Latin American market is one of the fastest growing on the globe when it comes to gaming, therefore payment firms in the region are proving pivotal as the user experience takes centre stage.
With a focus on eradicating friction, OKTO has stepped up to the plate in the region, and our Founder & CEO Filippos Antonopoulos shared with SBC Leaders why the market holds such an allure for the group and how it is standing out to players and operators.
SBC: OKTO’s payment platform and technology is driving payment innovation for big brands in Europe. Now you are entering Brazil and Latin America. Can you tell us why this market is attractive for OKTO?
FA: Across LatAm, as in the rest of the world, we’ve seen the evolution from cash-centric societies to more and more dynamic digital payments markets. This trend accelerated during the pandemic, coupled with the state’s ongoing efforts to drive financial inclusion.
Brazil’s economy and population, paired with the rapid evolution of the payments industry, championed by the introduction of pix, make it one of the most attractive marketplaces. Similar trends with similar digital successes are being witnessed across all major Latin American economies, including but not limited to Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Chile. However, success in the intensely competitive Brazilian payments market will still require cutting-edge innovation and deep localisation.
SBC: Digital Payments are growing fast in Brazil, being an attractive market for more and more payment providers. What services are you offering and how can the OKTO offering further accelerate digital payments adoption in Brazil?
FA: Wherever we operate we do so in partnership with the local industry in order to deliver payment solutions to meet the specific needs of businesses and consumers in the omnichannel gambling, leisure, and entertainment sectors. This strategy is working extremely well across Europe and now in Brazil.
OKTO’s payment platform offers choices and convenience that are important markers of connected economy payments that handle anything from cross-border transactions to real-time payments – pix-in & out, boleto, as well as the innovative eVoucher solution – OKTO.CASH. Wherever and whatever the solution we offer is, reliable interconnectedness is at the core, achieving the highest rates in pay-in and out along with the seamless real-time payment experience that consumers crave.
SBC: With so many players in the market, what would you say are the key differentiators for your Real-time Payments including pix & OKTO.CASH?
FA: I’ll double down on what I previously said. Zero mistakes and minimum friction at all business and consumer touchpoints. Brazilian consumers will quickly shift their payments to faster, more exciting methods or even will change the e-commerce platform that they are using. The excellent customer payment experience, the real-time nature of payment methods along with no failures in the completion of transactions are the perfect blend of our solutions.
Brands must support consumers with the right tools, reducing friction and increasing security to drive conversions and loyalty. OKTO spends significantly on actually co-operating its payment solutions, by actively handling responsible gaming, chargebacks, dropped transactions, on top of already boasting the highest success (conversion) rates in the market today.
By successfully innovating across the entire supply chain, we are able to drive down the cost of any operator, without compromising quality of service. And, of course, we make sure that all funds across all payment methods are aggregated and therefore combined into a single liquidity pool that makes deposits and withdrawals fast and easy to manage.
SBC: Can you tell us about the adoption of OKTO’s solution in Brazil? How has the payment journey been embraced in the region? How vital is the OKTO offering to ensure that consumer desires are met as the payment journey becomes increasingly digitised?
FA: The many advances that are occurring on what seems a daily basis are delivering previously unthinkable flexibility and speed across all our solutions. We see at OKTO the opportunities and recognise the challenges, and we certainly know the most important work we do is to strive to meet our customers’ and their customers’ needs on a daily basis and protect their security while ensuring seamless payment experiences. The very high success rate in deposits and payouts speaks for itself about how our payment journey is embraced by the Brazilian players.
What is essential for us is to remain focused on innovation and entrepreneurship. We are not in the business of merely competing with other payment and technology companies for new capabilities. Instead, we share a goal to ensure that the fundamentals of payments remain reliable, transparent and secure, so consumers and merchants feel safe and confident in line with the rules and technology.
Our mission is to deliver a payment platform focused on security, reliability, innovation and the seamless integration of a variety of global and local payment forms and factors. In this way, we support all payment transactions in their ability to remain frictionless for consumers and in real-time, meeting the different demands of various end-users’ generations.
SBC: Lastly, could you share some insights into the deals OKTO did with operators and casinos such as Kaizen, Codere, Gausselman, and the Hippodrome. Do you anticipate the same with operators in Brazil and South America, following the lead of the big European players?
It’s a fantastic sign of confidence from brands that are not only established as leading European and global operators, but are also widely-recognised as industry trendsetters.
UK brands of Gauselmann Group were the first adopters of our cashless solution, being the first in Europe that launched instant cashless payments directly on gaming machines to meet their customers’ demands. Hippodrome was the first in the casino side introducing OKTO to its visitors via a fully-embedded solution in the Hippodrome app, being always in the front line of digitalisation.
On the online & omnichannel side, Codere undertook an extensive due diligence process when choosing OKTO and our omnichannel partnership is a testament to the effectiveness of the award-winning technology and compliance that lies behind our solution.
Kaizen was the first to have ‘phygital’ payment experiences with OKTO.CASH via our partnership, and our cooperation is based on our common belief that a digitised, seamless, and secure payment experience forms an integral part of players’ overall experience.
The speed of change and the adoption of the digital methods of OKTO we are witnessing in Europe and the UK has never been greater or more exciting. It is taking place in every region and in every industry, we are involved in – and Latin America is certainly not an exception.
