As somebody who has been in Payments long before “Payments were cool,” I’ve spent the past 20+ years in a number of successful roles in Payments, Fraud Prevention, and Leadership.
Perhaps it would be a good title for a blog; I think it is.
I have seen a number of trends come and go, some which were embraced, others that were rejected, and still others which were intriguing, but for reasons that escaped us all, never quite caught on.
In the world of “Civilians,” the world of Payments and Fraud Prevention can easily become a scary thicket of competing brands, different platforms, and an environment where so many data points can lead to confusion instead of clarity.
Perhaps I can offer some.
Yet through it all, Payments is the one strand of ecommerce DNA that connects the buyer to the seller and then back to the buyer again, when goods are delivered, either in person or digitally. Information gleaned from the transaction is worth Gold. Identifying the optimal customer and predicting how they will maximize their spend is The Holy Grail.
The world of Payments will continue to become more complex, nuanced, and greatly accelerated. People in Boston or Beijing may will pay for things very differently but the he expectations for smoother checkout and faster delivery will only increase.
That represents the promise but, what is the danger? It all boils down to a world of “Good Guys” verses “Bad Guys.” What started with the Target breach in 2013 has now become a weekly occurrence of globalized breach and theft. Remember, Bad Guys will steal anything that isn’t nailed down, and they are always one step ahead of the Good Guys.
Today, we have a dynamic tension between the Good Guys and the Bad Guys, those who fight fraud verses those who commit it. There is an “Arms Race” between these two camps which can only accelerate as we move into the new decade. I can talk more about that.
Finally, there is leadership. There are a variety of leadership indices out there. There is leadership within the payments space and leadership from a regulatory perspective. However, there is also leadership within each organization. Sometimes each rises to the occasion and sometimes they falls flat.
So, let’s have some fun as we go through these worlds we all depend upon: Payments, Fraud Prevention and Leadership.
Payments, Fraud, and Leadership 