Challenges, France: Cognizant’s Vice President of Business Consulting Says Customer Knowledge is Key to the Future of Payments

“If they want to stay in the race alongside the alternative payment providers, stakeholders in the payments ecosystem must have a vision; otherwise they run the risk of being left behind at a time when consumers are looking more and more at alternative, more convenient and immediate means of making payments,” writes Philippe Mallet. Excerpts:

“In our report published in collaboration with the Financial Services Club and VocaLink, we analyze the situation of the main payment infrastructure in the world and how the market conditions change all that. It shows very clearly that the evolution of technology, including the rise of digital channels, has a significant impact. If payments by check are moving towards a probable loss, companies are now seeing an increase in the use of mobile phones and smartphones, social networking and collaboration. In addition, concerns about the security of cloud computing seem to be shrinking. In fact, the cloud is used by many forward-thinking companies.

While these mobile, digital, and social changes are mostly impacting the front end of retail payments, there is also an important role to be played in the back-end integration of new payment channels. Co-operation is now key and this involves all parties from banks, merchants and card issuers to payment processors, mobile operators and handset manufacturers working together to develop a multi-channel payments process that is user-friendly.

In a globalized digital world, the future lies in innovation. Companies that use an analytical approach and have a good knowledge of their clients are winning.

Analytics technology enables companies, including merchants, card-issuers, banks and suppliers of technologies and services, to understand the spending and payment habits of consumers. This valuable information ensures full compatibility of any new channel to consumer habits. By adopting such a process, companies will be able to innovate and improve their competitiveness, an indispensable asset in view of the increasing number of alternative players on the market.

Customer knowledge can be acquired through the collection of data from various sources to create a 360-degree view of the customer. The real-time understanding of each customer is based on advanced statistical analysis and on machine learning techniques on very large sets of granular payments data. This granular data enables companies to better understand their customers and further customize their communications and processes, rather than resorting to old methods of segmentation. Answers, comments and behavior of each client are processed and analyzed to obtain information regarding the effectiveness of the campaign, the brand loyalty, changing spending habits and profit/loss.

The payment ecosystem can draw benefits from the significant opportunity to adapt and evolve in line with the digital transformation that is changing the world. Industry players must build strong partnerships. All payment providers must ensure that the customer experience is improved, without neglecting safety regulations intended to protect our money.”

Click here to read the article in French.