Dive Brief:
-
Amid the fierce competition among payment providers, failed payments have cost $118.5 billion in fees internationally and $33.7 billion in the Americas in 2020, according to a new report from Accuity, a LexisNexis subsidiary. In the Americas, nearly two-thirds (63%) of costs of failed payments stemmed from payment fees, followed by labor (27%) and attrition (10%).
-
More than two-thirds of payment processors said accuracy was most important to them, followed by speed (27%) and costs (5%), according to the July 14 report.
-
Respondents said top challenges they face during payment processing are reducing manual processes (49%), regulations (47%), balancing accuracy with speed (35%) and getting responses from banks regarding settlement instructions (29%), the report found.
Dive Insight:
At a time when consumers seek a frictionless payment experience, Accuity’s report suggests that failed payments take a toll on customer satisfaction. According to the report, 48% of respondents said failed payments had some impact on customer service and experience, while 37% reported a severe impact, and 15% said it had no impact.
Besides affecting customer experience, respondents also noted that failed payments disrupted their employees’ workflow and caused customer losses. Nearly 60% of respondents reported some or a severe impact on their ability to keep customers. Out of the organizations that reported more than 20,000 failed payments per day, 80% said they lost customers as a result. Plus, more than half (55%) of organizations said failed or broken payments had some impact on their staffers’ workload About 30% said they had a severe impact.
Accuity's research offers some insight into why customers may abandon financial services firms, echoing a broader trend of consumer dissatisfaction with payment providers. According to a December 2020 Accenture report, the percentage of consumers who said they trust online payments platforms to look after their financial well-being declined from 23% in 2018 to 17% in 2020.
