At the 2024 State of Inclusive Instant Payment Systems (SIIPS) report launch, stakeholders from across Africa, supported by the World Bank and UN Economic Commission for Africa, highlighted a critical opportunity: while instant payment systems have established robust payment rails across the continent, the merchant payment landscape remains fragmented and underutilized for SME financial inclusion. Despite 400 million Africans remaining financially excluded, current IIPS implementations focus primarily on person-to-person transfers rather than the merchant payment innovations that could unlock embedded finance, alternative credit scoring, and B2B payment solutions essential for SME growth.
The Philippines provides a compelling case study of this merchant payment evolution, where digital payments now account for 57.4% of transaction volume in 2024, with merchant payments representing 66.4% of all digital transactions. QR Ph adoption surged 148.7% year-on-year, demonstrating how standardized payment infrastructure can rapidly scale merchant acceptance. However, most IIPS implementations across emerging markets remain underutilized for the advanced merchant services that SMEs desperately need—real-time cash flow analytics, transaction-based credit scoring, automated working capital solutions, and integrated B2B payment platforms that could address the persistent $5.2 trillion SME financing gap.
This roundtable will focus on "Merchant-Centric IIPS": the strategic evolution of instant payment systems from basic transaction processing to comprehensive merchant service platforms that leverage payment data for financial inclusion. Rather than treating merchant payments as a simple add-on to P2P systems, participants will explore how transaction patterns, merchant behavior analytics, and payment flow data can enable real-time creditworthiness assessment, automated micro-lending decisions, and sophisticated B2B payment solutions that transform how SMEs access and manage working capital.
