During the previous 18 months, we have seen a massive rise of contactless and shift to eCommerce payments. Do you think that the digital payment revolution will continue post covid and change consumer payments?

The use of contactless technology and the increasing share that eCommerce takes of total retail spend have been trends that started well before the pandemic. The pandemic only accelerated this trend. But the pandemic has also done is to open up these payment forms to parts of the population or generations that were naturally reluctant to adopt those. People were forced to use these and as a consequence changed their purchasing and payment behaviours. Post-pandemic some of that change might be lost again as some of us crave to go back to the old days but this won’t change the overall trend.

What do you think are the types of payment rails that will be growing?

In previous years I have been very positive about the potential of Open Banking but there is a growing sense that whilst Open Banking will play a major role in future

years, Open Banking based payments may be less so. Unless there is a real value add for end users i.e. consumers merchants should benefit from lower costs and faster settlement anyway – it will struggle to gain momentum. That then raises the question about the role of Accountto-Account payments. EPI, the European Payment Initiative, is also meant to be A2A based. I think the industry will follow with interest whether any of these initiatives will drive growth in A2A volumes.

What do you see as a key card acquiring trend in the upcoming 12 months?

A very important consequence of the pandemic has been the accelerated adoption of digital payment acceptance technology in the SME and microbusiness segment. It is the segment that is very well served by the likes of Stripe, Square and Adyen, and may be less so by the traditional acquiring banks. Growth in this segment and the need to combine payments with other value added services will stay with us. In this context I will look with interest at how Square is continuing the creation of a super-app. At last year’s virtual event Mastercard presented research on the growing use of mobile wallets. Will Square make a big play for it in the next 12-18 months?

COMPANIES & TRENDS to watch & trends to follow If you could share your three tips on the most promising: – merchant payments companies (rising stars) with high potential to change/shape the market and

As stated earlier, I will be following closely what Square does in developing its super-app.

Not sure to what extent it will change the competitive landscape, but the rise of the corporate acquirer will be interesting to watch. Citibank, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan are just three examples that are re-entering the merchant acquiring space with a proposition that is closely integrated with its corporate banking / treasury services offering. Initially this is targeted at corporate banking customers but how will this impact other acquirers serving the large international tier 1 clients?

Merchant Payments Ecosystem 2021/2022 – after the Pandemic

Payments companies must anticipate what’s next-now.

Change in payments has gone into overdrive, and will only get faster. From digital disruption and the race to innovate to regulatory requirements and customer demands, traditional payments players are being squeezed from all sides. The pressure will not let up.Android is known to deliver a seamless software experience to its users and it’s no wonder, with 86.6% market share as of 2019, Android is the dominant smartphone operating system worldwide, way ahead of its rival iOS at 13.4% as per International Data Corporation (IDC).Today Banks/Acquirer are in need of Smart Android POS which are cost effective and also offer an ecosystem with White label merchant Payment application with in built mini cash register and inventory management along with ready adopters to integrate to multiple switches on different ISO8583/Nexo protocols along with a Multi POS Terminal Management system with DUKPT Remote Key Injection as SaaS which is PCIPIN Certified.

What are current trends in merchant payments?

Trend in Payments is WLA Standard https://wla-payment.org and LCR Least Cost Routing kernel support apart from SOFTPOS and Dynamic QR Sound Box.

What can we expect in 12 months? What will Merchant Payments Ecosystem and Point of Sale look like after the pandemic?

One trend that will impact merchant payments in 2021 is the rising data-awareness required in every business activity. More specifically, data linked to merchants’ activity needs to be transformed into useful and actionable analytics and this is where FEITIAN is working on Future AI /ML based Technology to be incorporated into their Terminal Management system for real time analytics

.A second trend to emphasise is the expansion of the portfolio of available payment solutions, driving users away from plastic cards and other traditional means of payments. Among all the innovative ideas available, one that will probably be very impactful is digital wallets with QR and NFC payment Terminals and Android based Unattended Terminals for Vending and Kiosk.

What do you think are the types of payment rails that will be growing?

QR , NFC and Face ID Payments are the real future which are upcoming trends.

Do we see a divergence or convergence of Payment Technologies across Europe?

Convergence of Payment Technologies with the adoption of new technologies will be in place in future also merchants are now wanting to use POS for different VAS services rather than focusing on multiple traditional POS and different solutions for their day to day operational & payment needs.

Are Digital and physical POS converging at a higher rate?

Sure! Digital Payments Like QR, NFC ,SoftPOS are all converging as with new innovations and adaption of new technologies . Now we at FEITIAN are working hard on brining innovative solutions for merchant retail POS with Cloud POS and Payment as a service for market acceptance building on the roads of AI/ML based Analytics on TMS and Dynamic GUI based Merchant Cashier applications.

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