TRANSACT Connect: Day 3 Recap
The third day of TRANSACT Connect featured keynotes from American Express and Visa, panels on topics like smart terminals and payment facilitators, and of course plenty of networking.
Opening Keynote from American Express
The day began with a keynote from JJ Keiley, Vice President, Payments Consulting Group, US & LAC at American Express. Keily focused on how changing consumer shopping and purchasing preferences are creating a need for a cleaner payments experience at the point-of-sale, and provided advice on how acquirers can help merchants navigate relevant solutions. He highlighted emerging trends from American Express, including a recent research that points to a 58 percent increase in the likelihood of contactless payments use from cardholders since the COVID-19 outbreak.
“ETA member companies are well positioned to help merchants navigate this environment,” Keiley said. “As an industry, we must rally together and help them as quickly and to the best that we can. Changes made now will not only be better during COVID, but provide a better experience long term for merchants and consumers.”
Visa Addresses Digital Transformation
From the virtual main stage, Brian Cole, Head of Product, North America at Visa focused on payment trends, digital transformation and fraud fighting tools in ecommerce environments.
“Card-not-present transaction growth has rebounded to beyond pre-pandemic levels. E-commerce was one of the greatest opportunities in front of our industry before this crisis. Now it’s even more important.” Cole said. This trend represented a “major structural shift” in the payments environment, Cole said, noting it was a afoot before the pandemic but has now reached a level of acceleration and permanence.
In addressing the recent high demand for card-not-present and ecommerce transactions, Cole walked attendees through Visa’s perspectives and solutions, including token services, click to pay, and installment payment products.
Track Sessions Touch on Pressing COVID-19, Regulatory, Technology Topics
In the Payment Facilitator track, a panel of payment facilitator leaders examined the best practices and what to consider when creating or becoming a payment facilitator. Matt Doka, Co-Founder & CTO, Fivestars; David Giannetto, CEO, WorkWave; Celine Kaiser, Vice President of Payments, Modernizing Medicine; and Deana Rich, Co-CEO & Co-Founder, Infinicept participated in “Don’t Get Robbed On The Path To Becoming A Payment Facilitator.”
“I heard a theme, which is that an ideal payment facilitator candidate is a software company that has solved a problem for another business or another set of businesses,” said Rich. “What it means to be a payment facilitator is to control that payment experience. You became a payment facilitator because you wanted to make sure your customers had that great experience.”
In the first session of the day for Risk, Fraud and Security track, EMVCo Director of Engagement and Operations Brian Byrne presented an overview of how EMVCo supports the evolution of security specifications for eCommerce. Byrne also offered an introduction to EMV® Secure Remote Commerce (SRC), highlighting the specification, why it is needed and how it could be implemented by payments companies. “For all of our specifications, our focus is on providing a flexible and secure toolbox that can be used all around the world,” Byrne said.
In the Selling in an Evolving Marketplace track, smart terminals were the focus of the afternoon. In “Moving from Traditional Terminals to Smart Terminals: Best Practices for Merchants and the Channel,” CardFlight CEO and ETA Board Member Derek Webster moderated a discussion with Sarah Adams, SVP of Partner Development, ISVPay; Alex Boeding, Sr., Product Manager, Worldpay FIS; and John Shipley, SVP, Third Party Relationships, Clearent. The panel focused on the growing emergence of smart terminals, noting the challenge of besting traditional countertop payment terminals for SMB payment acceptance. The panelists discussed best practices in migrating to Android smart terminals, and the role modern payment solutions play in managing social distancing practices in our future business environment.
“We’ve got to really shift the mindset and go in and have solution sells,” said Adams. “It’s a shift the sales perspective to be empathetic to the customer’s needs, and to express to them the power of the devices and to future-proof it.”
In the Payments: Past, Present and Future track, Nick Starai, Chief Strategy Officer of NMI, discussed contactless payments in the time of COVID-19, especially unattended payments environments like vending machines and gas pumps. “If the contactless card issuance accelerates in the United States, which we think it will, then unattended retail will be one of the biggest beneficiaries,” said Starai. “Unattended readers are very unique. Knowledge of unattended payment devices are a good way to get your foot in the door, because these unattended device builders are not payment experts, and we believe we can help with our knowledge of software and payment devices.”
The second session of the Risk, Fraud and Security tracked homed in on the unique regulatory environment for risk management and underwriting, given recent developments with COVID-19. Theresa Kananen, Partner, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP, Edward Marshall, Partner, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP and Deana Rich, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Infinicept, participated in a discussion highlighting the increased regulatory scrutiny facing payments companies like acquirers and ISOs, and discussed how the COVID-19 crisis has made solid underwriting and risk monitoring more critical than ever.
Noting that regulators at the Federal Trade Commission have focused in on chargebacks and return rates, Kananen said, “As we are talking about underwriting and risk monitoring during a crisis, it’s a good reminder to us all to update your processes and procedures. If there are merchants that are running a little hot on chargebacks and return rates, it merits a closer look.”
The day concluded with a casual conversation happy hour hosted by the Women’s Network in Electronic Payments (Wnet) which included a conversation on leading a virtual team during the pandemic with Kelly Beatty, Chief Transformation Officer, FIS, Christine Lee, CEO, Billing Tree, Philip McHugh, Global CEO, Paysafe, Jennifer Reichenbacher, SVP Marketing, Paysafe Group, and Kelly Tufts, Vice President, Credit Operations, Discover Financial Services.
The day of course included ample networking time for attendees browsing the virtual exhibit hall. Check out our who’s who guide to the exhibit hall here.
Day four begins tomorrow at 11:30 am when the virtual exhibit opens. Content begins with a keynote panel titled “Moving the Dialog Forward: A Discussion on Maintaining Business Operations During COVID-19,” featuring leaders from Fiserv on the virtual main stage at 12:30 pm ET. Click here to learn more.
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