💼 Why the Big Players Lose, and How the Underdogs Come Out on Top

💼 Why the Big Players Lose, and How the Underdogs Come Out on Top
 
Forbes Russia recently published an article by Pavel Bilenko titled “The Strong Lose: How Technological Progress Teaches Us to Adapt in Time.”

It provides a detailed account of a paradigm shift in which a large company’s past technological superiority no longer guarantees future value. Such a company may have a technically perfect product, but it may not deliver the results the customer needs.

This gives us reason to draw some parallels: in the payments industry, success rarely goes to the company with the most complex platform, the most integrations, or the longest list of countries.

Success goes to the company that understands faster what customers are actually willing to pay for.

For one client, the value lies in high conversion rates.
For another, it’s stable payouts.
For a third, it’s a quick launch without a license or a separate legal entity.

A technically sophisticated solution may lose out to a simpler one if it doesn’t solve a merchant’s specific problem as well.

That’s exactly why market leaders sometimes miss the next wave. They keep improving what they already know how to do: making routing, back-end systems, and reporting more complex, and adding new layers of anti-fraud measures. But at that moment, the market may want something completely different: requests will focus on local methods, T+0 settlements, backup infrastructure for payments, working with “non-standard” 🏴‍☠ verticals, or launching in just a few days.

The biggest mistake is to judge a new solution by the standards of the old model.

– P2P once seemed less reliable than traditional acquiring.
– Settlement in crypto is less “bank-like.”
– Small local providers seem less reputable than an international PSP.

But under certain conditions, it is precisely these technologies that have given the market speed, accessibility, and flexibility.

That said, not every new technology is the future. New platforms, AI-powered anti-fraud solutions, and orchestration tools still need to prove themselves in the market. The real indicator isn’t a presentation or a high-profile partnership, but rather revenue growth, merchant retention, reduced losses, and end users’ willingness to pay.

Therefore, the role of a PSP is not to predict a single future, but to identify its own mistakes more quickly:

– run small-scale tests;
– give product teams autonomy;
– not hide losses from underperforming initiatives;
– allow for the cannibalization of older products;
– listen to more than just large clients.

In our industry, it’s not the “weak” who lose out. Those who lose out are those whose past strength cause them to ignore changing demands for too long, and those who are willing to sacrifice the ability to quickly find information, test hypotheses, and innovate.

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