Business
What’s next for Payments?
Source: Finance Derivative
Ron de Bos, Director Product Management – Payments, at Digital River
The rapid evolution of payments continues to grow. Consumer behaviour and expectations are seeing their biggest shift in a decade, fueled by the pandemic, digital payment methods and mobile wallets.
These developments bring with them innovation and opportunity, but they also create their own unique challenges for businesses. We reflect on how these challenges will likely manifest over the course of the year, and what the payment landscape could look like beyond 2022.
Pick-and-mix payments as standard
The pandemic heightened customer expectations for payments, accelerating the thirst for an expanded suite of payment methods. Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) and digital wallets, to name two, have exploded. Instant payments and e-money payments will account for more than 25% of global non-cash transactions by 2025, with cards continuing to stagnate, and cash further diminishing.
To meet shopper expectations, more existing payment providers are partnering with BNPL providers (e.g., Square with Afterpay). Brands themselves also transforming payment schemes, offering additional local payment methods through a digital wallet, like Alipay+. Following current trends, 2022 will also see the rise of so-called super-apps, which offer a variety of services for shoppers, such as those unveiled in recent months by PayPal and Klarna.
By the end of this year, e-commerce merchants who have not embraced a blend of expanded digital payments will be left behind, as this becomes the base standard. Next year, differentiation and growth will result from the exploration and adoption of next-generation payments, including invisible, biometric, and cryptocurrency methods that will rapidly gain traction.
Digital currency: playing the long game
Cryptocurrency is already entering the ecommerce industry, but the challenge of volatility remains, which will slow customer adoption. Providers must decide when the right moment is to step in and support it. There’s no definitive answer to this yet, however in the next 12 months, providers should begin preparing for the digital currencies in terms of infrastructure and process readiness.
We’re also seeing Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) emerging globally, which could open a new chapter in the current payments landscape over the next year. While it will be seen as more mainstream and trustworthy than other digital currencies, broader political context may hinder its progression, so it’s a case of ‘watch this space’.
Responding to evolving compliance, regulation, and cybersecurity challenges
The change from a cash-based economy to a digital payment ecosystem forces the industry to protect sensitive data and mitigate cyber risks. Over the next year, this means providers must reinvest in automation and advanced analytics to build consumer confidence for online payments. Similarly, B2B payments becoming a top priority means ecommerce providers must demonstrate rigorous compliance and security.
The popularity of contactless payments has also prompted the need for a robust digital identity infrastructure in the payment industry. Across the world, governments are launching national identify initiatives, and local providers are introducing solutions. Alongside innovations in open banking this will present cybersecurity challenges. Shared and integrated digital I.D schemes that facilitate payment authentication systems which customers can access anytime, anywhere, and on any device, will open incredible opportunities. It also means security must be watertight.
An evolving payment landscape inevitably heralds regulatory evolution. In the next year, expect to see more local regulatory changes like that of India central bank’s tightened regulation around data storage and recurring payments. We are expecting more regulatory changes in the UK, particularly around safeguarding customer funds and customer communications, as well as anti-money laundering controls and governance practices. In addition, there will be changes to buy now, pay later (BNPL) solutions, which are now being used widely. Where payments are missed, consumers could end up paying penalties or high interest rates. The FCA has recently finalised changes to guidance on safeguarding, and firms will need to ensure they adhere to this. And, with BNPL gaining even further traction, new protections for consumers and compliance requirements for processors will be introduced by regulators around the globe, especially in Europe and Australia.
The next step
It goes without saying that providers and brands need to be on top of any regulatory shifts and technological changes as the payment industry becomes ever-more complicated. As a result, the number of brands outsourcing global compliance solutions will continue to rise. From data privacy laws and export rules to tax compliance, crypto to automation, payments will continue to be one of the most complex obstacles vendors face. Increasingly, e-commerce merchants will be looking for expert partners to help them navigate the complexity.
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Business
Enhancing the eCommerce customer experience through the power of multiple payment options
Source: Finance derivative
Spokesperson: John Harris, Senior Vice President, Travel & eCommerce, emerchantpay
Today’s consumers have higher expectations from brands than ever before. In fact, more than half of consumers (54%) will not return to a brand after just one bad experience. This is due in part to shoppers becoming accustomed to the convenience of the digital era, where they can purchase items at the click of a button from the comfort of their own homes.
To remain competitive in a rapidly evolving market, and prevent customers turning elsewhere, eCommerce merchants must deliver outstanding customer journeys and a seamless overall customer experience (CX). This includes a hassle-free online purchasing process, with payment options that align with customers individual preferences. Consequently, merchants that only offer traditional payment methods risk falling behind.
Offering a variety of payment options is not just about convenience. It also directly impacts customer satisfaction and loyalty. For online retailers looking to improve their CX, expanding their payment offerings is essential. In doing so, they can cater to a broader customer base, increasing loyalty and ultimately driving revenue.
The demand for diverse payments across eCommerce markets
A key factor driving the need for diverse payments is the rapid rate at which the UK eCommerce market is growing. At the end of last year, there were nearly 60 million eCommerce users across the nation. This is anticipated to increase to over 62 million in 2025. As the market expands, so does competition. And with significantly more online brands available, customer loyalty is waning.
For instance, if a customer does not receive a quick and seamless experience from one retailer, they can easily find an alternative merchant to meet their demands. In fact, 44% of UK consumers stop a purchase if their favourite payment method is not available – highlighting the importance of a diverse payment offering. This demonstrates that consumers demand flexibility in payment options as part of a frictionless experience.
Another reason merchants need to expand their payment offerings is to enable better global transactions. The ability to sell products to customers worldwide is a major benefit of eCommerce and can drive huge business success. However, there are challenges to be considered. For example, different countries often have preferred local payment methods and, in some regions, consumers may lack access to certain solutions. Therefore, offering a variety of payment options can help retailers meet the needs of all users and ensure a quality experience, no matter their location. By adapting to local payment preferences, merchants can create a consistent experience for global customers, supporting both satisfaction and loyalty.
How do different payment solutions help improve CX?
There are a range of Alternative Payment Methods (APMs) gaining traction across the eCommerce industry. One key example is Open Banking. This solution streamlines online shopping by enabling direct bank-to-bank transfers. This approach speeds up the checkout process significantly – transactions can be completed in seconds, with no need for consumers to enter their card details. With real-time processing, funds move instantly from the customer’s account. This provides consumers better clarity on their financial situation and can aid their budget management.
Additionally, the direct connection between banks, coupled with robust bank-level authentication measures, significantly reduces the risk of fraud for users. In brief, Open Banking offers a faster, more transparent and secure way for consumers to make online purchases, significantly enhancing the overall CX.
Digital wallets, such as Apple Pay, are another payment method that can help optimise CX. Digital wallets store a user’s credit or debit card details in an app, encrypting sensitive details for security during transactions. Then, consumers can pay for their products and services using their smart device. Digital wallets allow for quick payments, streamlining the online checkout process by saving time and reducing friction during transactions as they are not required to input card details. Typically, users can also access their digital wallets across various devices, making it easy to make payments from smartphones, tablets or smartwatches.
By incorporating solutions like these, merchants can significantly enhance the CX through faster, more secure, and convenient payment options. However, integrating these APMs seamlessly often requires the expertise of a trusted payment service provider (PSP). PSPs enable merchants to quickly adopt diverse payment solutions that cater to customer preferences globally. In fact, for 32% of payments leaders, the ability to offer a range of global payment options is the key reason for seeking a PSP partner. When partnering with a trusted PSP, eCommerce businesses are better equipped to meet consumer demand for alternative payments. This gives them a competitive edge as they can deliver seamless and flexible experiences that customers expect.
Ultimately, the flexibility and convenience of multiple payment options reduces friction in the purchasing process for consumers. This leads to a better overall CX and increased satisfaction. And the happier a consumer is with their experience with a brand, the more likely they are to become a loyal customer. For merchants, this can result in higher conversion rates, reduced cart abandonment and improved customer retention. As all this helps brands to gain a competitive edge in the increasingly crowded eCommerce landscape, offering multiple payment options is an obvious win-win.
Business
Why Compliance is The Achilles Heel Stunting Growth for Financial Services Firms
Jamie Hoyle, VP of Product at MirrorWeb
“Computer says no” or rather “Compliance says no” is an all too common phrase in Financial Services. In fact, compliance in general has been causing a headache for these institutions for decades now – forcing them to grapple with the rising complexities of regulatory change. This is largely due to the evolving landscape, impacted by both regional and global legislation, as well as the emergence of new technologies, such as AI.
To make matters worse, according to UK Finance, the collective annual price tag for UK banks and financial services firms to comply with regulation has hit a staggering £38.4billion! To put that into perspective that is equivalent to nearly three-quarters of the UK government’s spend on defence.
Bottom line? Compliance is complex and costly – and many businesses are now struggling to keep up with the rapid evolution and innovation within the compliance market.
With 2024 beginning to draw to a close, it is clear that the stakes have really never been higher when it comes to financial compliance. As financial institutions continue to navigate an increasingly dispersed workforce and the widespread use of multi-channel communications, compliance should be seen as a critical part of their growth strategy.
The Impact of a Dispersed Workforce and Multi-Channel Communications
It is a well-known fact that since 2020 there has been a shift towards more hybrid or remote working models globally: “Shall we have a quick Slack Huddle, Teams call or WhatsApp chat?”.
Our workforces are now often dispersed, and naturally this has impacted the way a workforce communicates. These days, communication within an organisation is extremely varied, and more and more businesses operate with a multi-channel communication strategy – and the financial services industry is no exception.
With this shift to remote and hybrid work models, a whole new set of compliance challenges has been born. Employees increasingly rely on a patchwork of communication channels, from messaging apps to personal devices, to get their day-to-day jobs done.
This has caused a major compliance headache, blurring the lines between personal and professional communications at work – and FS (Financial Services) firms need to find a way to strike a balance between enabling employee productivity and maintaining the robust compliance frameworks that financial regulators require.
These regulators are already coming down hard on multi-channel communication compliance, with the US Department of Justice formally incorporating off-channel communications policies into its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are also flexing their authority, having slapped huge fines on FS firms that fail to meet record-keeping and multi-channel communication compliance standards – leading to a $2.5 billion communications compliance crisis within the wider financial landscape.
The state of play can’t be understated here.
It is a big crisis. A crisis that has involved 16 major Wall Street firms, including household names such as HSBC and Goldman Sachs, being fined a collective $1.1 billion in September 2022 alone. All for non-compliance related to off-channel communications. In August 2023, additional fines totalling $392 million were dished out to 26 firms for similar infractions.
These fines were all a result of regulators finding evidence of these firms using personal devices and messaging apps, like WhatsApp, to conduct business-related communications. Off-record and unmonitored. Bank of America, in particular, has faced legal challenges related to its “longstanding practice” of utilising off-channel communications.
What does all of this mean? There is increasing pressure on FS firms to adapt to the evolving regulatory environment – reinforcing a real need for robust compliance strategies to survive. But how can FS firms maintain a comprehensive record of all of these multi-channel interactions and stay on top of critical and evolving regulatory compliance requirements?
The Harsh Reality of Non-Compliance – The True Costs in 2024
There are consequences to every business decision, good or bad. And for FS firms, the consequence of poor compliance is…a hefty growth stunting fine. Last year alone, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission imposed $2.7 billion in penalties on financial institutions for record-keeping failures; and the impact of these fines extends far beyond the immediate financial hit.
In a world where “perception is reality”, any reputational damage can be devastating, breaking down those hard-fought-for customer relationships, in addition to overall investor confidence. An example of this is Capital One; when it was slapped with a $390 million fine by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for anti-money laundering violations – a blow that has undoubtedly left a lasting mark on the bank’s standing reputation in the industry.
The more worrying consequence is the impact on overall operations. Non-compliance can lead to sanctions that actually restrict FS firms’ operational capabilities, hindering their growth strategies and their ability to compete in the market. In the UK, we’ve already seen Ofgem impose a £5.4 million settlement on Morgan Stanley for traders’ use of WhatsApp to discuss energy trades. This is a not-so-subtle message that regulators are taking a hard stance on off-channel communications.
FS firms take note. The message is clear. Prioritising and investing in compliance is no longer just a box to be ticked; it’s a strategic choice that can ultimately make or break a financial firms’ future.
How Technology Can Bring FS Firms into the New Era of Compliance
Fortunately, the financial services industry is not without a solution to its compliance conundrum. Technology is its saving grace – a solution helping to maintain regulatory adherence and navigate the complexities of a dispersed workforce and multi-channel communications.
One of the key areas where compliance-enhancing technology can make a significant impact is communication monitoring and archiving. How does this work? Compliance-enhancing technology enables FS firms to automate the process of sifting through the seemingly evergrowing volume of digital communication data, flagging potential risks in real-time and freeing up compliance teams to focus on more strategic and rewarding tasks, such as:
- Developing and implementing more effective compliance strategies,
- Conducting in-depth risk analysis
- Collaborating with other departments to ensure a comprehensive approach to compliance across the organisation.
These compliance-enhancing technologies can also enable FS firms to increase the effectiveness of compliance training and awareness by ensuring that employees understand the importance of using approved communication channels and the consequences of non-compliance. Put simply, by using technology to do the grunt work, FS firms can focus on embedding compliance into the fabric of the organisation – fostering a culture of accountability and responsibility, and further mitigating the risk of regulatory breaches.
So what is the key takeaway here? Compliance may currently be every organisation’s Achilles heel – but using the right tech solution to bolster your compliance can act as a steel boot. The path to effective compliance requires FS firms to embrace technology as a strategic enabler. An enabler that not only mitigates the compliance risks posed by a dispersed workforce and multi-channel communications but also turns compliance into a competitive advantage.
Business
How to maintain efficiency without sacrificing authenticity with GenAI
Jason Morris, SEO Marketing Manager, Brew Digital
Content creation has been fundamentally and forever changed by GenAI tools. They offer a fast and efficient way of building content, in a matter of seconds, and a majority of businesses have been deploying it in some capacity for the last two years.
In particular, tools like ChatGPT, Copy.ai and Jasper have transformed copywriting, allowing businesses to quickly turn around high-quality content, social media content, blog posts and marketing copy, in a matter of minutes. It has also revolutionised our approach to SEO, helping with everything from optimising keywords to generating content that meets search engine standards.
However, the same capability that makes AI attractive – its speed in generating content – can result in copy that feel generic and impersonal, risking the intuition and creativity that are essential for compelling brand messaging. This is because AI, by nature, operates on probabilistic models that predict the most likely next word or phrase based on patterns in the data it has been trained on.
Large language models (LLMs), are excellent at identifying and replicating patterns, but lack the creativity and intuition that come from human experience. While this can be useful for producing factual or structured content, it often results in formulaic writing that lacks originality and depth. In areas like storytelling or thought leadership, where original insights are key, AI struggles to deliver the same level of nuance and emotional connection that human writers can achieve.
Inauthentic writing does not just risk disengaging brand audiences, either, and many search algorithms are now designed to detect web pages with AI-generated content and diminish its domain authority. This will inevitably lead to diminished visibility and a drop in organic traffic, and is exemplified by Google removing a staggering 40% of indexed web pages for failing to meet its E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) standards. This is a trend we can expect to see continue as GenAI created content becomes even more prevalent.
Thus, the challenge for brands in the age of AI is to harness the power of efficiency without losing the unique voice that sets them apart.
‘Bans’ are counter-intuitive
The first step in striking the balance between efficiency and authenticity is to establish blueprints for how AI can and should be used within a business setting. For companies keen to retain that human flair, limiting AI usage may seem attractive. However, staff will use GenAI for content creation regardless of whether or not their employers tell them not to. In fact, a blanket ban on GenAI will only lead to the bigger challenge of ‘Shadow AI’.
Recent research shows that 78% of knowledge workers use their own AI tools to complete work, yet 52% don’t disclose this to employers. This not only poses significant organisational risks like data breaches, compliance violations, and security threats, but it also means business leaders will never have full transparency over how much, and how often, GenAI is being used to create the messaging that’s being published for customer or public consumption.
So how should GenAI be used?
For businesses that regularly need to create high-volumes of detailed content, GenAI tools like Jasper can provide crucial support for building first drafts, generating ideas, and providing digestible summaries or even detecting mistakes across existing copy. This process of leaving the more time-consuming content creation tasks to AI frees up considerable time for content creators and enables them to focus on strategy and creativity.
Likewise, tools such as MarketMuse can analyse audience behaviour and preferences, audit existing content, suggest SEO optimisation, and identify gaps in coverage. These data-driven insights enable brands to create more tailored and engaging content, improving both reach and conversion rates.
Another significant advantage is consistency. Ensuring a uniform tone and style across various platforms is essential for cultivating a cohesive brand identity. AI tools play a crucial role here, by supporting content so that it aligns with established brand guidelines. By maintaining consistent messaging, businesses can strengthen their connection with their audience and foster long-term trust.
For businesses and content creators looking to use GenAI to create content which will be made public, it’s essential for them to review, refine and personalise outputs extremely carefully. This ensures that the final output remains true to the brand’s voice and offers genuine value to the audience.
GenAI is no substitute for human storytelling
While AI can support efficiency, human insight is essential for crafting content that truly resonates. This is especially true in storytelling and in complex strategies like seo consultancy, where aligning with audience expectations requires a thoughtful, hands-on approach.
Humans are still best equipped to connect with audiences on an emotional level. Storytelling, creativity, and real-life experience are areas where human writers hold a distinct advantage.
By blending AI’s efficiency with the creativity and empathy that only humans can bring, brands can produce content that is not only high-quality but also deeply engaging. AI tools, therefore, should complement human creativity, not replace it. Striking this balance allows businesses to maximise efficiency without sacrificing authenticity, creating content that resonates and builds long-term connections with audiences.