Digital Engagement Blog

Square, PayPal, Google, Visa and Facebook Share Insights

As we wrap up 2016 and prepare for the New Year, banks and insurance companies should consider several of the key takeaways from the recent Money20/20 conference.  This event is billed as the preeminent global payments show with more than 11,000 attendees from 4,500 companies in the banking, payments, retail and loyalty industries.

This year’s keynote speeches from industry leaders such as Square, PayPal, Google, Visa and Facebook highlighted trends to keep in mind to address the changing landscape for businesses and consumers in the future. Here are our five takeaways:

Market consolidation and change are unavoidable

In the last several years, digital disruption and innovation, cloud computing and mobile-first banking have created a dramatic shift in the market yielding significant collaboration and partnerships between banks and fintech innovators. Banks are acquiring fintechs, fintechs are merging, and social and mobile companies are adding payments to their services – all in an effort to directly and efficiently reach consumers.

Consumer protection is a key component of infrastructure innovation

Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), discussed innovation in consumer financial services and the “enormous potential to improve the financial lives of consumers.””

The CFPB is working to ensure that the evolution of fintech and payments products and services is geared towards empowering consumers with improved credit access, loan servicing, complaint processes, and “building web-based tools to help people make financial decisions.”

Security and fraud prevention continue to be critical priorities

Just over a year since the transition to EMV chip cards, investment in anti-fraud and data security measures were top of mind for all players in the retail and payment ecosystems at Money20/20. While card-based fraud has declined 50 percent, card-not-present fraud has increased 12 percent. With the holiday shopping season fast approaching, it’s especially critical for brands to ensure that consumer payments and personal data are secure.

Payments have expanded beyond transactional necessity

Payments are now a retail and branding strategy, rather than just a means to an end. “Payments are moving to a point of influence, not just a point of paying,” said Talbott Roche, CEO of Blackhawk Network, in her keynote presentation at Money 20/20.

She continued to say “Payment solutions can solve a bigger issue that all companies face: how do we create deeper and more engaged connections between consumers and brands?” Organizations should consider the importance of payments to their branded value strategy.

Blockchain isn’t going away

While many companies are still confused about blockchain-based services and how to approach digital currency, leaders at Money20/20 acknowledge that organizations must address the ongoing development of blockchain services – rather than ignore it – and its inevitable impact on the future of financial services.

Companies are considering multiple blockchains and cryptocurrencies for transactional efficiency and banks are contemplating blockchain for international payments. We can also anticipate seeing Bitcoin- and blockchain-based stock “exchanges.”

Although the usability of bitcoin and blockchain is still a significant obstacle for bankers and consumers to embrace and financial governance is still unsettled, blockchain presents a huge opportunity.

“Every 20 years, something really cool comes along, and this is it,” said Jamie Smith of The BitFury Group.

Summary

Financial services are going through major shifts and changes as they progress through their digital transform.   We outlined five takeaways from the show that are indicators of this transformation-

• Merging of banks and tech companies is required for success
• Consumer protection should be part of your product offering
• Security and fraud prevention are critical (always)
• Your brand strategy (yes, brand strategy) needs to include payments
• Blockchain is real... and disruptive

These five takeaways help address the question of "how do we create deeper and more engaged connections between consumers and brands?"