eKupi to stop accepting payments via PayPal.
eKupi, the largest internet store in the Adriatic region, is planning to compete against PayPal with its own electronic wallet. The member of the M SAN Group, which is the most significant player in the Croatian IT industry, and the largest Croatian online retailer will enter the major fintech race that will commence on 13 January next year, when the PSD2 EU directive comes into force. Payment services of Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba and eBay will be able to enter the Croatian market. Particularly considerable interest is expected for micro-transaction services provided to tourists, reports Poslovni.hr on December 14, 2017.
Plamenko Barišić, CEO of King ICT, said the goal of eKupi was to offer a robust locally-developed micropayment solution. There are several fintech players in the Croatian market which are currently working on improving their market positions, such as myPOS, AgentCASH, Abit, Trilix and Infobip. The M SAN group is involved in the industry with its Corvus Info company, which offers CorvusPay service and collaborates with eKupi.
“eKupi has a good market position to offer its digital wallet service. That is why it does not offer anymore the payment option through PayPal as it did before. We have developed good relations with all card companies and offered users the option to pay in instalments with bank cards,” said Barišić.
eKupi has more than 310,000 registered customers. Each month, it is visited by 1.8 million users and has 750,000 subscribers to the newsletter. Last year, the company generated a turnover of 187 million kunas, and in the coming years, the target is to increase it to 700 or 800 million kunas.
In addition to banks and major global card companies, the potentially most significant competitor to M SAN in the local market has so far been mStart, an IT and fintech company owned by Agrokor, which is the first company in Croatia to develop an independent e-payment system, which processes all payment transactions for Konzum.
Asked whether King ICT would be interested in acquiring the company, Barišić dismissed the possibility. “There are more interesting things about possible takeovers taking place in Croatia right now. In the case of mStart and Agrokor, we are all really waiting to see how the situation will develop,” said Barišić.
The European Commission insists that all EU members must implement the PSD2 directive in mid-January and thus abolish the monopoly of banks in payment transactions. Croatian commercial banks and the Croatian National Bank will not be able to prevent this.
Translated from Poslovni.hr.
