The payments landscape is not only one of the most dynamic, characterized by constant change over the past years, but it is also steadily expanding its reach and breadth in a remarkably speedy way. Let’s take a look.
Ever-changing customer requirements, new service offerings, innovative propositions, new entrants, consolidation, novel business models and shifting dynamics both on the B2C (retail) and the B2B wholesale side are some of the factors influencing the expansion and transformation of payments – both happening at the same time.
Technological innovations have been a huge game changer over the past years: not only have payments become a technology business (referring mostly to the architecture and infrastructure sophistication) but they are also – again with the help of tech – becoming invisible and are increasingly found in the background, seamlessly integrated in the check-out process or in other products that may often go beyond banking what we cal embedded finance
Hence, there is a clear evolutionary path – mostly on the B2C side but also on the B2B side – that goes from traditional payment means to faster payments and from there to easier payments (with consumer digital payments being a benchmark here).
Making accurate predictions on where the next evolution will take us is hard, however it can be said that – with a high level of certainly – future payments will look much more versatile, open and seamless and will be dominated by specialized players that rely on economies of scale but at the same time are agile enough to swiftly adapt their business model to evolving customer requirements.
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