- The pandemic has only reinforced those expectations and accelerated the digital transformation of the payments industry – which is now at a critical point in that journey. In this webinar, Marion King joins a panel of industry leaders for a discussion about how to navigate that transition.
- The pandemic has driven a huge increase in digital payments and stronger collaboration across the ecosystem: a sharp rise in online buying has driven a significant shift over the past 18 months. Information sharing across the industry – for instance, in areas like fraud prevention – has never been greater.
- Technologies like Open Banking and digital identification, and messaging standards like ISO20022, are crucial for the future of payments: these will go a long way towards ensuring global payments are fast, safe, secure, reliable, and drive new data-enabled capabilities. But they need to be balanced with effective regulation and embraced through early preparation.
- Managing the transition will be the greatest challenge, but should be achievable with greater industry collaboration: the way in which the ecosystem manages the transition to a digital-first, globally interoperable payments landscape will be essential for improving inclusion and avoiding a two-speed sector.
The pandemic has led to big changes in how people and businesses buy and accelerated commercial disruption already well underway – including in the payments space. In 2020, over 90% of all adults in the UK made at least one transaction online, a huge shift from previous years as lockdowns forced consumers onto their digital devices and off the high street.
But this sharp rise in digital payments is agitating important trade-offs fuelling the payments industry – between convenience and privacy, infrastructure resilience and agility, rapid technological innovation and fraud – and raising new questions about the balance between customer demand, technology, and regulation in a globalised world.
Though much progress has been made developing a faster, safer, more reliable, and globally interoperable payments landscape, more work needs to be done. Technologies and standards like Open Banking and ISO20022, and new initiatives and innovation around digital identities, will undoubtedly unlock new capabilities for financial service providers and businesses alike, but they are only part of the solution. Early preparation and greater industry collaboration, particularly around how to manage the transition to a digital-first payments ecosystem that more effectively balances those trade-offs mentioned earlier, are essential.
In the webinar below, watch NatWest’s Director of Payments Marion King as she and a panel of industry leaders explore how the ecosystem is rising to meet the challenges driven by changing customer demands, technology, and regulation, and make payments future fit:
- Nick Kerigan, Head of Innovation Execution, SWIFT
- Gerard Lemos, Independent Chairman, UK Finance’s Payments Products & Services Board
- Tony Craddock, Director General, Emerging Payments Association
