e-payments

Making Payments Easier in Asia

Making Payments Easier in Asia

Digital payments are at the centre of digital trade expansion and serve as a key enabling factor for digital commerce. Firms will not provide goods or services if they cannot be paid. Payment services, therefore, are a critical component of the online services ecosystem that allows consumers to conveniently make purchases for goods and services from merchants globally and for firms to sell around the world far more easily and cheaply than ever before. Cross-border digital payments, in particular, are instrumental for the development of the regional economy and the growth and resilience of micro, small and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) looking to thrive in a post-Covid pandemic environment. New innovations within the e-payments space, like e-wallets and blockchain, and initiatives by governments aimed at fostering increased use of digital payments, will likely improve access and lower the costs of cross-border transactions, especially for MSMEs. However, most of this innovation has taken place in the domestic space, where payments are experiencing improvements in terms of speed and convenience. Conversely, cross-border e-payments remain slow, costly and opaque, and difficult to manage. A lack of access as well as regulatory and payment network interoperability means that payments remain one of the most challenging issues for MSMEs hoping to engage in cross-border e-commerce in the region. As governments in the region continue to promote initiatives that improve access and use of digital payments, the challenges of managing cross-border transactions are often under-appreciated by policymakers. MSME merchants and financial service providers continue to struggle to develop and sell their products and services across borders.

Digital Trade in the Asia-Pacific: 8 Issues for 2021 and Beyond

Digital Trade in the Asia-Pacific: 8 Issues for 2021 and Beyond

In the earliest days, the digital economy flourished with extremely limited regulatory oversight. While this might sound like an ideal environment for companies, most prefer to operate within a set of clearly defined basic rules. The alternative can be sudden and unanticipated regulatory and legal changes that can upend business models overnight. As the portions of the economy driven by digital technology have continued to expand and as digital connectivity has increased, governments have increasingly been grappling with the appropriate ways to allow digital trade to grow while restraining harms that might flow to consumers and businesses. Effective management of the regulatory and policy environment to facilitate digital trade will become one of the most important aspects of trade policy in 2021 and beyond. The Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns and trade disruption have up-ended many longstanding business models. Firms are rapidly shifting to develop or expand digital capabilities to manage highly altered supply and demand pressures. The adjustment to digital tools applies to both large and small firms and has increasingly filtered to include citizens around the globe. An online presence can make the difference for companies between survival and extinction. Despite the growing importance of digital trade, the ability of governments to tackle a range of issues of relevance to managing the online environment still lags behind the speed of innovation for firms. Domestic-level regulatory and legal adjustments to better accommodate digital trade can be complicated. Negotiations between governments to ensure greater consistency in policy frameworks are often time-consuming to complete. By the time policy settings adjust, the commercial environment could appear quite different. Headed into 2021 and beyond, there are at least eight topics that are likely to be on the radar for government officials working on digital trade. The Asian Trade Centre, with generous support from the Hinrich Foundation, has launched a series of papers, Asia in the Digital Economy, to more carefully examine new and emerging issues in digital trade in 2021.

E-Commerce from Remote Locations

The promise of e-commerce and digital trade is that it can empower individuals and firms from anywhere to find customers, suppliers, and engage in trade globally.  It has enabled the tiniest companies to become “micro-multinationals.”  A first customer can literally be found across the world.  But this promise is sometimes harder to implement than it first appears. In Fiji and other Pacific island states, the potential seems to remain largely just that—a promise rather than a reality. Why this might be so is a bit puzzling.