Payments Are Key To The Global Economic Recovery
“Offering payment choice to consumers will deliver economic opportunity for businesses and drive the post-Covid recovery.”
By Duncan Sandys, CEO – P20
While everyone is delighted to see 2020 pass into history, in the midst of the pandemic and uncertainty, payments took a seat at the top table in its own right. No longer was it seen by others as a subset of banking – now it is an industry itself.
Covid delivered the last mile, so to speak, but the visibility line has been moving upwards for some time. Before the pandemic, payments was adopted by the US and UK Governments as a National Critical Function and Critical National Infrastructure respectively. And the dynamism of the industry has produced new products and platforms by the bucketload.
In a time of shrinking revenue, Covid accelerated existing trends in digitization. But the lockdowns changed people’s approach to payments beyond just necessity. Early data suggests changed payment habits, a rise in contactless transactions, new groups experimenting with new technology – and crucially, an intention to adopt these changes post-pandemic. But we have also seen criminals change their approach with a massive increase in cyber crime and there has been a disproportionate effect on the most vulnerable in society.
Last September, P20’s Global Payments Conference discussed all these issues. Opened by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and Canadian Minister of International Trade Mary Ng, we hosted panels on the future of payments, fraud and criminal transactions, cyber security and financial inclusion with industry leaders, politicians, government officials, regulators and others. We had keynote conversations with former CIA Director General David Petraeus, former UK Security Minister Admiral Lord West, HM Trade Commissioner for North America Antony Phillipson, HM Treasury Director of Financial Services Gwyneth Nurse, Mastercard Vice Chairman Michael Froman, former White House Director of Cybersecurity Greg Rattray and now former US Congressman George Holding.
With vaccines rolling out, there is light at the end of the Covid tunnel and the world will re-emerge into the sunshine. But in truncated fashion, Covid has given us a glimpse of the key payments issues of the future. At P20, we believe that these are:
A consumer-led focus for product development;
Making payments instant, not just faster;
Creating no touch – not just contactless – payments;
Enhancing transaction security;
Improving consumer awareness and financial education; and
Creating solutions to enable the most vulnerable in society to participate in the payments revolution.
P20 brings together global payments industry leaders, government and regulators to in harmonizing a global approach and developing solutions to non-competitive issues in the payments industry in the areas of combating fraud and criminal transactions, cyber security and financial inclusion. As the Voice of the Global Payments Industry we work together to offer best practice and to contribute to creating a framework and level playing field for payments in which competition can thrive.
Almost everything in life involves a payment and offering payment choice to consumers will deliver economic opportunity for businesses and drive the post-Covid recovery. But there has to be consumer trust that security is not being sacrificed for speed, that one societal group is not being prioritized over another, that ethics and responsibility are not less important than profit.
Almost everything in life involves a payment and offering payment choice to consumers will deliver economic opportunity for businesses and drive the post-Covid recovery. But there has to be consumer trust that security is not being sacrificed for speed, that one societal group is not being prioritized over another, that ethics and responsibility are not less important than profit.
The global payments industry has proved itself equal to the task when it comes to innovation and I believe that in this industry, we have some very exciting years that lie ahead.