Attributed to: Samina Hussain-Letch, Executive Director, Square UK

The entrepreneurial beauty and personal care sector in Britain amounts to a whopping 36 billion pounds, but the pressure of manual labour endured by business owners is an obstacle for converting revenue and growth.

Our recent industry study highlights that nearly half (43%) of British barbers, spas, nail salons, personal trainers, tattoo parlours, and piercing studios are not using digital platforms or tools to automate bookings, ultimately losing over a full working day each week to administrative tasks alone. This equates to approximately two months lost per year, to manual admin tasks for beauty and personal care businesses.

We’ve listed three ways beauty and personal care businesses can gain back revenue ahead of summer:

• Detoxing manual admin

Admin tasks are the equivalent to Pandora’s box for beauty and personal care businesses. The tasks may constitute using paper diaries to schedule appointments, manually rescheduling appointments, or taking bookings and sending reminders by message or phone call.

These seemingly minor chores can be a large time drain for businesses that rely on manual processes. The research found filing down time between client appointments to be one of the most difficult challenges, with 39% of the sector facing this over the last year, alone.

Businesses should identify how they could set timings to the specific duration of each service and still build in cleaning time after the appointment. Digital tools like an appointment booking software play a crucial role. By automating manual admin, owners can offer bookings with a wide booking window, allowing them to spend devoted time on each customer, resulting in the allowance to foster a loyal relationship that will keep them coming back, while giving their workforce time to clean up after the appointment.

• Tapping into the power of technology

The solution here may sound simple, but business owners should again lean on technology to transform manual labour.

With time back, salons can give their workforce time to speak to customers on what other services they can offer to expand business offerings.

With the integration of tech tools for beauty and personal care businesses, nearly half (48%) of business owners would like staff to treat themselves to finishing work on time, while identifying new training for their team. Adopting a technology solution can unlock efficient management for businesses as appointments can be booked online and reminders can be sent using the software.

With the research showing that 42% of consumers want to book appointments on the weekend or after hours, working with the software promises ease for customers that are looking to make reservations after businesses are closed for the day.  But how can beauty and personal care business owners look to drive up their revenue when switching to an appointment software?

• Driving up the revenue road

Our research also highlighted that only 1 in 5 of beauty and personal care businesses are automating marketing campaigns or inventory management. This sheds light that not all beauty and personal care businesses are optimising their toolset.

The time gained back from using automated appointment software allows businesses to think more strategically about marketing and pricing. Integration of an automated software readily links up with an online store that allows salons to not only manage inventory more effectively, but offer new products to clients on different channels of their choice.

With new offerings, businesses have extra opportunities and routes to drive up revenue. Selling products online is a sure-fire way of creating new business, as well as keeping their back end organised and offering consumers more options when it comes to buying products that are used within or after their appointment – as take home collateral.

Having an automated booking software for beauty and personal care businesses is a great way to unlock further revenue, train a workforce with time back, spend more time connecting with clientele and ensuring the business is driving bookings even while the salon is closed. It’s a win-win situation that will position businesses for success this year. Because as we all know, a business is only as successful as their customer satisfaction.

Source: Finance Derivative

By Delia Pedersoli, COO, MultiPay Global Solutions

In the ever-evolving landscape of retail, one trend stands out: the meteoric rise of alternative payment methods (APMs). In recent years, alternative payment methods (APMs) have surged in popularity, constituting nearly 5% of all UK transactions, according to the 2023 BRC Payments Survey.

Among these APMs, Pay By Bank is quickly emerging as a frontrunner, poised to revolutionise the entire payment experience. As consumers increasingly prioritise mobile payments and convenience, the attraction of Pay By Bank gains momentum, reshaping how we choose to shop and make transactions. Notably, UK Finance expects that remote banking payments processed via Faster Payments Service or cleared in-house are projected to rise to £5.7 billion by 2031, nearly doubling from current figures.

Requiring no additional downloads for the customer, Pay By Bank works by users simply selecting the option on the payment device at checkout to scan a uniquely generated QR code that automatically opens their mobile banking app to authorise the transaction. Once approved, funds instantly transfer from the customer’s bank account to the merchant.

A Win-Win For Customers And Merchants

With the rise of today’s ‘zero consumers’ – one that has zero boundaries between the channels they use to shop, zero loyalty to any particular brand and zero patience for bad service and experience – the ability for Pay By Bank to cater to these demands will only help retailers stand in good stead with shoppers. Without needing to go via a third-party app, shoppers can quickly and easy checkout in store by simply using their smartphone to bypass entering their card details or navigating cumbersome checkout procedures.

However, for the retailer, the advantages of Pay By Bank are even more compelling:

• Significant cost savings – by removing interchange and scheme fees, retailers pay minimal transaction costs every time Pay By Bank is used compared to credit and debit cards. These savings can either be taken as additional profit, used to drive growth elsewhere in the business or improve other aspects of operations and customer experience.
• Speed and accuracy – in today’s economy, it’s reassuring for retailers to have accurate and real-time visibility of revenue, with quicker access to reserves if its needed. With Pay By Bank, payments and refunds can flow seamlessly and almost simultaneously from the customer’s account to that of the retailer. With funds instantly transferred from the customer to the merchant, Pay By Bank also minimises exposure to fraud.
• Boosting loyalty – according to McKinsey, the rate of brand switching among consumers doubled from one-third in 2020 to half in 2022, with approximately 90% saying they’ll continue to do so in the future. This spells trouble for retailers. However, the streamlined process of Pay By Bank not only helps foster positive brand perception – combatting the ‘zero consumer’ trend – but also enables retailers to enhance customer understanding by integrating data insights into loyalty programs. Additionally, by consolidating payments from both in-store and online transactions, retailers can discern specific customer behaviours and preferences to tailor promotions.

Clearly, Pay By Bank serves as a multifaceted solution that not only meets the immediate requirements of retailers today but also lays the groundwork for future advancements in retail payment experiences. Choosing to collaborate with a technology partner able to build tailored payment solutions that can seamlessly integrate with existing systems provides merchants with a strategic advantage. Not only does it eliminate the need for substantial investments in new hardware or devices but ensures they can remain receptive to ongoing innovations within this dynamic landscape.

Where Is Pay By Bank Already Seeing Traction?

The rapid adoption of instant payments schemes such as Pay By Bank is already well underway in many parts of the world. In Europe, Sweden’s Swish platform stands out as a clear trailblazer that boasts over 8 million users processing an average of 10.21 transactions per customer in May 2023. Initially launched in 2012 as a peer-to-peer (P2P) mobile payment solution, Swish has since evolved to incorporate business transactions (P2B) and has now firmly embedded itself within Swedish payment culture.

As is evident from its early adoption, Pay by Bank presents an exciting and compelling opportunity for retailers to both supercharge customer experience and profits. In the not-too-distant future, the ability to make payments with such ease will be expected as standard by consumers. Those retailers who don’t prepare now will likely lose out. Staying one step ahead, especially in today’s economic climate, must be a priority.

Source: Finance Derivative

Dominik Samociuk, PhD, Head of Security at Future Processing

When more than 6 million articles of ancestry and genetic data were breached from 23 and Me’s secure database, companies were forced to confront and evaluate their own cybersecurity practices and data management. With approximately 2.39 million instances of cybercrime experienced across UK businesses last year, the time to act is now.

If even the most secure and unsuspecting businesses aren’t protected, then every business should consider themselves, and operate as a target. As we roll into 2024, it is unlikely there will be a reduction in cases like these. It is expected there will be an uptick in the methods and levels of sophistication employed by hackers to obtain sensitive data – something that continues to increase as a high-ticket commodity.

In the next two years, it is predicted that the cost of cyber damage will grow by 15% yearly, reaching a peak of $10.5 trillion in 2025. We won’t be saying goodbye to ransomware in 2024, but rather saying hello to an evolved, automated, adaptable, and more intelligent form of it. But what else is expected to take the security industry by storm in the near future?

Offensive vs. Defensive Use of AI in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is a symbiotic cycle for companies. From attack to defence, an organisation’s security experts must be constantly defensive against malicious attacks. In 2024, there will be a rise in the use of Generative AI with an alarming 70% of workers using ChatGPT not making their employers aware – opening the door for significant security issues, especially for outsourced tasks like coding. And while its uses are groundbreaking, Gen AI’s misuses, especially when it comes to cybersecurity, are cause for concern.

Cybersecurity breaches will come from more sophisticated sources this year. As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to surpass development expectations, systems that can analyse and replicate humans are now being employed. With platforms like LOVO AI, and Deepgram making their way into mainstream use – often for hoax or ruse purposes – sinister uses of these platforms are being employed by cybercriminals to trick unsuspecting victims into disclosing sensitive network information from their business or place of work.

Cybercriminals target the weakest part of any security operation – the people – by encouraging them to divulge personal and sensitive information that might be used to breach internal cybersecurity. Further, Generative AI platforms like ChatGPT can  be used to automate the production of malicious code introduced internally or externally to the network. On the other hand, AI is being used to strengthen cybersecurity in unlikely ways. Emulating a cinematic cyber-future, AI can be used for the detection of malware and abnormal system/ or user activity to alert human operators. It can then equip staff with the tools and resources needed to respond in these instances.

Fatally, like any revolutionary platform, AI produces hazards and opportunities for misuse and exploitation. Seeing a rise in alarming cases of abuse, cybersecurity experts must consider the effect these might have before moving forward with an adaptable strategy for the year.

Data Privacy, Passkeys, and Targeting Small Businesses

Cybercriminals using their expertise to target small businesses is expected to increase in 2024. By nature, small businesses are unlikely to operate at a level able to employ the resources needed to combat consistent cybersecurity threats that larger organisations face on a daily basis. Therefore, with areas of cybersecurity unaccounted for, cybercriminals are likely to increasingly exploit vulnerabilities within small business networks.

They may also exploit the embarrassment felt by small business owners on occasions like these. If their data is being held for ransom, a small business owner, without the legal resources needed to fight (or tidy up) a data breach is more likely to give in to the demands of an attacker to save face, often setting them back thousands of pounds. Regular custom, loyalty, trust, and reputation makes or breaks a small business. Even the smallest data breaches can, in one fell swoop, lay waste to all of these.

Unlikely to have dedicated cybersecurity teams in place, a small business will often employ less secure and inexpensive data management solutions – making them prime targets. Contrary to expectations, in 2024, we will not say goodbye to the employment of ransomware. In fact, these tools are likely to become more common for larger, well-insured companies due to gold-rush on data harvesting.

Additionally, changing passwords will become a thing of the past. With companies like Apple beta-testing passkeys in consumer devices and even Google describing them as ‘the beginning of the end of the password’, businesses will no doubt begin to adopt this more secure technology, stored on local devices, for any systems that hold sensitive data. Using passwordless forms of identification mitigates issues associated with cyber criminals’ common method of exploiting personal information for unauthorised access.

Generative AI’s Impact on Information Warfare and Elections

In 2024, more than sixty countries will see an election take place, and as politics barrel towards all-out war in many, it is more important than ever to safeguard cybersecurity to account for a tighter grip on fact-checked information and official government communications. It is likely that we will see a steep rise in Generative AI supported propaganda on social media.

In 2016, amidst the heat of a combative and unfriendly US Presidential election, republican candidate Donald Trump popularised the term ‘Fake News’, which eight years later continues to plague realms of the internet in relation to ongoing global events. It was estimated that 25% of tweets sampled during this time, related to the election, contained links to intentionally misleading or false news stories in an attempt to further a viewpoint’s popularity. Online trust comes hand-in-hand with security, without one the other cannot exist.

While in 2016, the contemporary use of AI was extremely limited in today’s terms, what becomes of striking concern is the access members of the public have to platforms where, at will, they can legitimise a controversial viewpoint, or ‘fake news’ by generating video or audio clips of political figures, or quotes and news articles with a simple request. The ability to generate convincing text and media can significantly influence public opinion and sway electoral processes, destabilising a country’s internal and external cybersecurity.

Of greatest concern is the unsuspecting public’s inability to identify news generated by AI. Cornell University found that people were tricked into finding new false articles generated by AI credible over two-thirds of the time. Further studies found that humans were unable to identify articles written by ChatGPT beyond a level of random chance. As Generative AI’s sophistication increases, it will become ever more difficult to identify what information is genuine and safeguard online security. This is critical as Generative AI can now be used as ammunition in information warfare through the spread of hateful, controversial, and false propaganda during election periods.

In conclusion, the near future, like 2023, will see a great shift in focus toward internal security. A network is at its most vulnerable when the people who run it aren’t aligned in their strategies and values. Advanced technologies, like AI and ransomware, will continue to be a rising issue for the industry, and not only destabilise networks externally, but internally, too, as employees are unaware of the effects using such platforms might have.