On June 23, hundreds of guests from across North America, UK, Europe, APAC, and Brazil attended Capco’s inaugural Capco Money: Virtual Payments and Innovation conference. Attendees heard from global industry leaders on trends spanning innovation in payments, cloud-native payments technology, how B2B payments will change with emerging crypto currency solutions, and the booming P2P market. Focusing on all aspects of the value lifecycle with the end customer in mind, speakers highlighted the importance and multifaceted nature of innovation in today’s payments landscape.
During the two-hour session, the speakers included:
Debbie Gamble, Chief Innovation Officer, Interac Canada
“If Data is the New Oil, Trust is the New Currency”
Nick Middleton, Enterprise Program Director, Form3 UK
“Moving from Legacy Infrastructure to Cloud Native Payments Technology”
Professor Philipp Sandner, Head of the BlockChain Centre Frankfurt/Frankfurt School of Finance and Management
“The impact and potential of Crypto Currencies in B2B payments”
Daniela Hawkins, Managing Principal, Capco USA
“The Booming P2P Market”
Diving into some of the presentations’ key points, Debbie Gamble highlighted the symbiotic relationship between the gathering of rich customer data and the building of a meaningful experience and lasting customer relationship. “Focus on creating a true value exchange to establish a deeper and longer lasting relationship with customers,” she said.
Trust plays a vital role given the speed of change and innovation. Throughout the value exchange, the customer is asked to tacitly acknowledge that the swapping of rich data will result in an effective experience. To build this trust, it is important the customer feels in control of their experience, and that companies act transparently in adhering to ever-changing (and often slow to catch up) standards and regulations. After all, the goal of growth and innovation is prosperity – for all.
Nick Middleton kicked off his presentation with a striking simile. “Payments are like sewers; nobody notices them until they break,” he said. Legacy payments infrastructure – even if it is cloud enabled – poses a long-term disadvantage to companies which likely find themselves falling behind already. Whether due to a culture of complacency, poor organizational structure, or lack of resources, refusing to make the transformative shift to cloud-native will have detrimental effects on an organization’s long-term health. Moving to multi-tenant cloud-native solutions enables exponential benefits: cost efficiencies, in-house DevSecOps teams, rapid development and enhancements, and the replacement of client license fees with single transaction fees. These qualities offer companies the ability to scale quickly and cost-effectively, while never looking back. That is not to say cloud-native transformation does not come with significant complexities, and organizations must consider the downstream re-architecture required to support cloud-native builds, while regulators must continue working with FIs to understand the different geographic considerations.
Shifting to the future of cryptocurrencies, Dr. Philipp Sandner stressed that the “finance sector will be disrupted, and they will need to transform themselves to adopt this technology otherwise they may fail.” Though cryptocurrency and B2B payments have yet to intersect much, blockchain technology will soon enable the large-scale worldwide movement of assets between businesses. The accelerator for this shift is the development of digital currencies. Across domains (industrial, capital markets, remittances, machine economy, etc.) digital currencies back payment tokens to support asset transfers on platforms, such as Ethereum. This provides B2B payment solutions that reduce cost, time, and resources when exchanging information. Governments are taking notice, too. With the U.S., China, and Europe racing to release their own digital currencies, it is clear the future of B2B payments will run on blockchain.
Last, but certainly not least, Capco’s own Daniela Hawkins brought to focus the democratization of finance in the past decade as evidenced by the boom in the peer-to-peer (P2P) market. Players across the board (fintechs, banks, and governments) have all backed their own P2P solutions, and have seen a rapid increase in transaction volume. Leading the adoption of this movement, Daniela Hawkins stated that the “younger generation has done away with cash and transferred to P2P.” Additionally, increased P2P volumes have converged with the emergence of real-time payments, and with that, a significant increase in fraud risk. Due to vulnerable controls and outdated authentication methods, fraudsters have used scams and social engineering to attack financial institutions and support money laundering and terrorist funding. It has become imperative for companies to leverage new technology such as active/passive authentication, biometrics, and customer education to mitigate P2P fraud risk for the customer.
Offering world-class insights on disruptive innovation and trends, Capco Money offered a unique and global perspective on upcoming trends in digital payments. We’d like extend a special thank you to the wonderful speakers who made the event so effective, as well as to everyone who attended. For those who were not able to attend, you can find the recording here. We look forward to seeing you all at the next Capco Money conference!