The foundations of payments systems are scalability, availability, and reliability. Without these, we cannot layer additional functionality onto the core services. This is crucial in the New Payments Ecosystem, where the customer expects seamless, fast, and effective payments integrated into the buying experience, not to mention the ability to make a payment anytime, anywhere—that it “just happens”, securely. The customer sees the value in the overall experience; how quick and easy is it to buy those sunglasses, pay that bill, or tap into the train? And in a rapidly diversifying payments ecosystem, the latest question is; how easy is it for me to manage all my payments?
The Internet of Paying Things
Developments such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and PSD2’s request to pay mean that managing ongoing authorisations for Payment Service Providers or ‘things’ to action payments on your behalf is fast becoming reality for the consumer. This expansion of the initiation of a payment is now a significant driver for payments players to deliver an enhanced end-user payment experience. 87% of global retail banks cite reducing payment friction as “the most important product-level priority,” with an even higher percentage of banks in Asia (90%) focusing in on this strategy.
It’s not just about enabling those new payment or messaging types; it’s about preparing for the inevitable digital payments explosion. In an IoT era, there will be more payment-enabled devices, and more of those devices will be making micro payments. These two factors combined will serve to boost non-cash payment volumes even further. Payments providers need to be able to scale to the Internet of Paying Things.
Customer Experience Without Compromise
But how can we achieve an end-user payment experience worthy of the New Payments Ecosystem without breaking the proverbial bank at its foundations? A large part of the answer lies in augmenting existing infrastructure; investing and preparing your business for the new fast, open ecosystem without compromising on those foundations, or security. Banks say improving infrastructures (93%), and security (88%) are key drivers behind their additional payments investment. It’s critical to understand that scalability, availability and reliability, and security underpin every new payments experience. As the industry looks to develop new services to delight customers, it cannot disappoint on the basics.
Don’t break the Bank, Don’t Break the Payments Chain!
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ACI Enterprise Payments Platform 
