In the recent past, the consumer has clearly comprehended the capabilities and the necessity of going digital. If a classroom can come to a laptop, if a 2000 page novel can be read on a phone, and if your car can park itself, we most certainly can and should move on from cheques and cash to digital payment.
In our quest to bring to your desk, an ardently curated list of profound companies in the financial services segment, we crossed paths with Limonetik, a disruptive B2B payment platform providing High Standard Quality payment services to gateways, acquirers and Tier 1 international merchants and marketplaces (B2B & B2C).
In the following interview with Christophe Bourbier, Limonetik’s CEO, we get a brief yet reassuring glimpse of the industry and its future. Christophe also provides us with insight into his company and its vision for the near future.
Below are the highlights of the interview:
Please introduce Limonetik to our readers, also about its foundational history, and services.
Originally created to offer a prepaid payment card usable on the Internet and to dematerialize gift cards and loyalty cards, Limonetik changed course in 2014 following its second fundraising. The goal: become a global payment facilitator.
Besides, the Marketplace model has spread around the world, accounting for 30% of B2C international payment; it has highlighted all the complexity of a transaction including multiple parties (financial, regulation, logistic). But the Marketplace model is now the trend. All retailers would like to be the “new Amazon” which has just announced an increase of 81% in Italy of its sales during the last weeks of the Covid.
The norm is to build packaged all-in-one full-service payment solution. But all-in-one Full-service solutions can’t manage the multiplicity and heterogeneity of every payment scenario. That’s why at Limonetik we decided to create value with one of the most customizable full-service platforms. We decomplexify the process for merchants explaining them where the money comes from and dispatching everyone commission at the end of the day. We understood the complexity and the difficulty of globalization and omni-channel challenges. Our goal is to support retailers and also PSPs, Gateways, Acquirers, Banks, in those difficulties.
To do so, we propose to connect with 250 payment methods over 170 countries managing different currencies. We manage payment complexity, for online as well as in-store shopping, like payment method processing, reconciliation, bookkeeping, fees handling, payout. And above all, the integration is through one single API. The back-office enables companies to monitor payment accounts and payment
transactions. Companies trust us as payment experts. From 2018 to 2019, our transaction volume has increased to 44%.
What is your opinion on the current scenario of digital payments?
The world has been completely disrupted by the digitalization, ewalletization, mobilization, uberization & internationalization. Now, the merchant wants to integrate the best payment methods so the customer doesn’t even realize he is paying and wants to dispatch instantly all its partners commission. And the more diversified payment methods are, the more complicated it is to receive money for merchants.
Even though a unification of payments methods would ease merchant’s business, it is not possible with really diversified international payment landscape and the constant arrival of new payment methods. Chinese, for example, don’t pay with Visa. They prefer actors like WeChatPay or AliPay. In Africa, people has shift from cash to mobile payment without the credit/debit Card step.
In this new world of global consumption, the traditional payment service providers need the agility of Startups to be time to market and propose innovative solutions to their clients. Our goal is to help the ecosystem to easily embrace the New World Of Payments and its issues.
What are factors that contribute to your company’s success and why?
The evolution of the current market is the key to our success. Cards are no longer the primary payment methods for consumers over the world: only 23% of the online transactions are made by bank cards globally.
Every country has developed several local payment methods: more than 400 hundred identified. Plus, Marketplaces is becoming the norm: it will absorb 70% of the 2024 B2C international payments. And the norm is to build packaged all-in-one full-service payment solution. But All-in-one full-service solutions can’t manage the multiplicity and heterogeneity of every payment scenario.
That’s why we created a customizable full-service payment solution. Each month we integrate new payment methods to our payment methods catalogue that includes today more than 250 international payment methods. Plus we enable marketplaces payment flows and make them possible and compliant with regulation.
Why should customers choose Limonetik as their preferred payment partner? How do you distinguish your offerings from your competitors?
The competition in the payments segment occurs between all-in-one full-service payment solutions to meet merchants and marketplaces needs. Agnostic, Limonetik is the only actor that can connect and enhance a full-service solution by using the existing PSP of the client. Limonetik helps the PSP to build
and/or enrich a unique payment value chain for the end merchants/marketplaces. Limonetik is agnostic of the gateway, the acquirer, the front-end solution or the payment method.
To meet client’s specific needs, Limonetik is focused to provide a high-level of support with the capacity to adjust its legal, technical, financial, risk & compliance solutions. We are fully compliant with PSD 2. Limonetik is also certified PCI DSS level 1, GDPR compliant and two-factors authentication (2FA) is active for every payment account of the company.
What can be expected from your company in the coming years?
One of our main development for the future is to become more and more international. To do so we are currently developing our compliance abroad.
When Quality is Assured
Limonetik has been awarded the following:
- Best payment solution provider FRANCE 2020 by Global banking and finance review
- Insights Success in the 10 Payment & Card Solution Providers 2018
- Thanks to Limonetik Gourming won the “Trophées de la Transformation Numérique”
The Guiding Mind
Graduated with a master’s in business and international relations from San Diego University, Christophe Bourbier, CEO is a born entrepreneur and an executive with over 20 years of experience in competitive and disruptive strategy. Competitor at heart, captivated by international affairs, Christophe, before he founded Limonetik, had created different companies in High Tech and Communications. In 2008, he co-founded Limonetik with the aim to market the digital gift card.
Christophe quickly realized that the company was too far ahead of its time and decided to evolve the offer by moving from dematerialized gift cards to dematerialized payment. After several fundraisers and product evolution, Limonetik’s strategy paid off. By placing the company in indirect sales (i.e. through PSPs and acquirers such as Ingenico, Worldline, Computop, ACI), Christophe has secured a place for Limonetik in a highly technical environment that is less competitive than players in direct sales such as Stripe, for example.