Billed as the ‘first and the last
payment conference you will need in 2014” certainly my expectations were
high and on many levels the Merchant Payments Ecosystem conference did deliver…
however there were a few omissions that could have improved it further.
The topics and seminars
revolved around merchant payments, multichannel retailing, customer experience,
mobile innovation, business models, loyalty, big data and technology. Some strong themes emerged and some of my
highlights and important nuggets included:
-Listening to the various talks, it’s
clear to see that the acquiring market is getting very fragmented across
Europe. Also there was little talk of
enhancing core profitability in acquiring ... perhaps this is not deemed sexy
enough?
-With too many offerings to choose from, mobile
POS is still very confusing, particularly for merchants. It’s simply not clear yet what will work and
where.
-I really think that the regulators of interchange
are living in a different universe!
Completely out of touch with the reality out there.
-In general, Bitcoin got a poor reception
- there’s very few believers out there. As I said before, time will tell on this one.
-Security solutions getting ever more
complex as criminals get more sophisticated.
-Emerging schemes are getting traction but
will be slow to deliver major changes internationally … if ever
-World Pay are very clear on
their global strategy and plans for further acquisition. Ron Kalifa gave a very
interesting talk.
-Private Equity and Venture Capital firms very
interested but how could they make sense of this landscape -it's hard enough
for industry players
It was interesting that issuers were not
well represented at the acquiring conference – I wonder do they not talk to
each other?! There could have been more input across the issuer / acquirer
divide.
Overall it was a great networking
opportunity and gave me a chance to take some time out and hear all about the
many diverse aspects of the payments market.
However there are so many different types of companies working here - I
wonder have we made the payments value chain too complex?
I was surprised that the Twitter
conversations were not more active. Good to get to meet some of the tweeters
over coffee too as well as online.
On a personal level, I was disappointed
that there was no mention of Dynamic Currency Conversion, perhaps it’s
considered too niche? (This is a topic
of interest to my business so please do get in touch to discuss further). Yet
the specialist DCC operators were working the audience during breaks etc.
I also felt there was a lack of merchants
on the podium –it would be good to hear more about what they actually want rather than the myriad of
solutions which we think they might
want. It would have been very
interesting to hear their views on payment costs, on all the activity in mobile
POS and on the drive for contactless.
Overall it was well worth attending in
terms of learning about new developments, getting a greater understanding of
the market challenges and networking with fellow industry colleagues.
For me there are three Ps I’ll be
watching with interest in the future: the product
–Zapp; the person- Rob Fernandez (great
presentation) and the market place
-Turkey!
