ETA’s TRANSACT 2022 just wrapped up last week, and I’m still buzzing with excitement from all the great interactions and discussions. This was the first time since 2019 we had everyone in person for TRANSACT, and you could see the difference it made. You could feel the excitement as everyone convened for the first time in a while – it almost felt like catching up with old friends at a reunion.
One of my favorite things about TRANSACT is the fact that the show agenda and the conversations on the floor are a great cross section of the payments industry and how it continues to evolve. From the growth of online payments to the roll out of EMV and the emergence of PayFacs. Now, a few years removed from our last event, the focus has shifted to Android, cloud services and cryptocurrencies. Android has emerged as a dominant platform within payment solutions due to its flexible architecture and the ability to run additional applications like loyalty, employee time management and inventory management, among others. In a similar vein, cloud services continue to become more popular within the fintech industry, drafting on their successful implementations for other business applications. Lastly, while consumers might not be quite ready for crypto-based payments just yet, the need to accept the method will creep up quickly. The solution providers that are ready to adapt to these trends and be ready for the next ones will be in the best position to capitalize.
As I wandered the TRANSACT show floor and met with our partners, it was clear that so many companies, from all aspects of the ecosystem, have ramped up their suites of cloud-based solutions. In particular, there were a lot of discussions around cloud-based payment applications, loyalty and estate management. What stood out to me though was the importance of a platform-based approach, which can enable better connectivity across the entire ecosystem. This would further allow more services to be integrated and connected, which ultimately will make it easier to manage estates and provide opportunities for data-driven decision making for merchants and their solutions providers.
A platform-based approach also enables more streamlined integration and innovation. It helps streamline the certification process, making it easier to get to market more quickly with both software and hardware-based solutions. With the rate at which consumer technology and their subsequent preferences evolve, it will be paramount for solutions providers to enable their merchants to keep pace and drive loyalty and increase opportunities for additional revenue.
Additionally, as the pace of technology continues to quicken, providing effective connectivity is more important than ever. With multiple levels of certifications, finding ways to easily onboard applications, services, solutions and networks together will further enable the industry to adapt and expedite these technology advancements.
It’s an exciting time to be a part of the payments ecosystem, and I’m looking forward to Ingenico’s role in enabling these connections as we look to align our solutions with where the industry is headed.
Interested in learning about how Ingenico is helping enable the payments ecosystem to innovate? Get in touch!
Tracy Cline is head of strategic sales at Ingenico Group, North America
