In the run-up to the major ICE London gaming event in April, Oliver Middleton, Director of Business Development Europe at EML (ASX: EML) (S&P/ASX 200) and Nick Raper, Director U.K. at Nuapay, sat down for an exclusive interview about the market-leading solution. They began by providing a comprehensive overview of the current gaming landscape.

(Oliver Middleton)
”The digital world has created a loyalty problem as customer churn is a significant issue. Gaming operators need to keep their customers engaged through compelling loyalty propositions that make everything seamless.

Historically, EML has supported gaming operators by providing a payment solution for a branded payment card that enables instant payouts. Typically, these instant payouts are winnings. Like muscle memory – the customer has a branded loyalty payment card, and the funds go onto the card instantly. They’ll likely use the card again to place another bet, which drives more revenue for the gaming operator. Our loyalty proposition creates revenue.

EML’s gaming proposition is far more holistic with our open banking capabilities. Not only does EML support instant payouts straight onto the winnings card, but we’ve also now got deposit functionality, making the EML gaming payment solution a holistic solution for gaming operators. With the open banking-based deposit functionality, customers can make instant payments, and gaming operators receive funds faster. Those funds are sent more securely, and the customer journey is seamless, creating a better value proposition. It’s also cheaper to initiate payments through open banking than debit and credit card acquiring.”

(Nick Raper)
”A major aspect hitting home with gaming operators and other merchants more broadly is the immediacy of payment and payout and what that means from both a merchant or operator perspective; in terms of having the funds in their account, certainty and security of the funds. Open banking helps operators reduce risk and hence their gaming yield by knowing there won’t be any chargebacks or associated fraud.

Two areas are significant issues for gaming operators at the moment.

One is around the whole affordability piece. Can a player actually afford to play – can they afford to bet the, let’s say, £500 top-up? Gaming regulators have more oversight to ensure operators do their affordability checks today, and open banking has an excellent opportunity to help assess affordability. Open banking streamlines the process of collecting and evaluating a customer’s data. It makes the process simpler, so when a player wants to increase limits or an operator needs to undertake enhanced due diligence, they don’t add unnecessary friction, sending a player away to bet with another operator instead.

The second area which is becoming a growing pain point with operators is their anti-money laundering (AML) and financial crime obligations. Operators need to demonstrate they’ve checked the player is who they say they are and that the funds they are playing with are their funds and have been earned from a legitimate source. Again, it all needs to be done seamlessly so that an operator doesn’t risk losing or churning a customer because of unnecessary friction.

The new solutions from EML leverage open banking to undertake account verification and source of funds checks in real-time. We have extra levels custom-built specifically for the gaming sector.”

Next, Oliver and Nick expanded on the appealing gaming product.

(Oliver Middleton)
”We now have more versatility on payouts to offer operators. We support card-based payouts for operators wanting to drive deeper engagement with their customers from a loyalty perspective. We also provide direct account to account payments for real-time payments back to other players.”

(Nick Raper)
”The new payout functionality is particularly useful when players use less traditional or higher risk pay-in methods. Payouts can be sent directly back to a player in real-time, automatically validating their account and details. It helps drive significant streamlining and efficiency in the back office process, reducing costs for operators and poor customer experience for players.”

Oliver and Nick elaborated on the main challenges they are addressing.

(Oliver Middleton)
”Payout cards are a loyalty proposition. Loyalty benefits transform into a revenue generator. It’s about a gaming operator understanding the loyalty and customer engagement benefits and seeing the revenue potential. The flexibility in our solution is far more diverse.”

(Nick Raper)
”It’s around the importance of engagement. Open banking payments with the payout cards, the affordability of embedding effortless, seamless experiences into the entire digital environment. Organisations need to think less transactionally and more about how you engage people? Make it easy for customers to move money in and out fully compliant. Thinking digitally within the ecosystem to make everything simpler for customers.”

Visiting ICE London, April 12 to 14? Book your meeting with Oliver, Nick and the team here: https://info.emlpayments.com/eu-gaming

Recently, EML congratulated one of its North American partners, AptPay, for launching its first digital payments gaming client in Canada. The inaugural gaming and gambling General Purpose Reloadable (GPR) programme runs with Aptpay’s new client Woodbine Entertainment, Canada’s largest horse racing operator and home of world-class horse racing.

EML’s in-person gambling and in-app gaming solutions help casinos go cashless. EML hopes to launch several new programmes with companies in Canada and the United States this year.