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A new perspective on the payments flow
For years, orchestration has been framed as an execution layer, when it should also be seen as a distribution layer, says Thomas Gillan, CEO of BR-DGE. And that brings benefits to everyone in the payment chain
Access all areas
Booking.com has already embraced fintech to improve CX for both travellers and travel providers. Now AI will help it cross new frontiers
Payment orchestration is playing a pivotal role in streamlining operations for many airlines, including Air Europa where payments have become a strategic asset instead of a pain point
Rewarding loyalty
Finland’s S Group is proud that shoppers still want to spend so much time inside its co-operatively owned retail stores. But it knows those baskets will inevitably be filled remotely in the future
Good vibes
Ecommpay is leading the charge for accessibility and inclusivity in payments. It’s not just a moral obligation… it’s good business sense
Flexible friends and foes
BNPL is the fastest-growing alternative payment method among consumers in the UK who want more choice in how and when they pay. Here and elsewhere it’s a trend that’s forcing retailers to rebuild credit products. Currys’ flexpay is one of them
Chit chat in the Middle East
In a region where loyalty schemes dominate the retail landscape, are traditional paper receipts on the way out?
The online world dominates our daily conversation. Who remembers a time before Amazon?
So persuasive is the narrative that we live our lives virtually, that we overlook the reality staring us in the face: 80 per of cent of shopping journeys worldwide aren’t to the keyboard – they’re to a physical store.
Is e-tail wagging the dog?
Amazon racks up online sales of $447.5billion a year. And yet, even this goliath of the global checkout can’t match Walmart’s $600billion in purchases made through its regular US stores.
Team Besos recognises that there’s something visceral missing in the virtual. That’s why Amazon entered the high street. Takings at its hundreds of shops worldwide are a decimal place far removed from the mega bucks that pass through the .com checkout, but it gives it a touchy-feely connection with customers.
And it’s doing other retailers a favour.
Amazon can afford to use its stores as a petri dish for experimenting with the checkout process – the perception of which has irrevocably changed in consumers’ minds with oh-so-effortless online processes.
Because, while there’s much that shoppers like about the in-store experience, the biggest turnoff is long wait times at the tills. This pinch point is a headache for physical retailers for all sorts of reasons, but they've still not cracked it (as you can read on page 27).
So, in this issue, we've focussed on the merchants. From softPOS to payments orchestration, we look at their payment challenges and how they’re using digital to enhance the physical. Sue Scott, Editor
Finally, a hard launch for softPOS?
Retailer adoption of softPOS has increased dramatically since Apple introduced Tap to Pay in 2022. Victor Padee from payments orchestrator Aevi believes softPOS is about to have its moment
The till-free store?
How far are we from using invisible payments for in-store grocery shopping? We take a look at progress on the high street among leading European supermarkets, including Carrefour, Lidl and Tesco
Once upon a real time in America
Dave Glaser, from pay-by-bank platform Dwolla, believes payment infrastructure in the United States is more than capable of improving merchant and consumer payment experiences
Power lines
VW-owned e-mobility company Elli is joining the dots between charging stations for electric vehicles and payments
The cost of doing nothing
Ron Delnevo, Chair of the Payment Choice Alliance, asks if the UK has the capacity – or desire to provide the necessary capacity – to make sure payments are made on time, every time
Smart ways to pay
As Virgin Media O2 transforms from a telco to a techco, customers are benefitting from easier ways to pay their monthly bills in a first for the sector
For years, orchestration has been framed as an execution layer, when it should also be seen as a distribution layer, says Thomas Gillan, CEO of BR-DGE. And that brings benefits to everyone in the payment chain
The payments ecosystem is an increasingly crowded spectrum of providers and pioneers. This comes from a burgeoning need for innovation, and the goal of serving the customer better. However, in the short term, this has caused a lot of fragmentation. With an increasing number of intermediaries, the middle mile of payments, where transactions go between issuer and acquirer, is up for grabs, and there’s a concern that sensible pricing strategies could be thrown out.
For PSPs and acquirers the prospect of upcoming regulation in Europe and around the world, only adds to the pressure. PSD3 is being introduced, partly to combat increasing cases of fraud, improve customer rights, level the playing field for new entrants into the market, and facilitate the growth of Open Banking. With it is a new slate of compliance checkboxes for banks and non-banks alike. And it’s not the only thing being introduced. The Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) and the Financial Data Access (FIDA) proposal, although
having their own reasons for existing, add to the pressure currently facing those in this chain.
It’s clear that no one wants further disruption, not least merchants who are having to tackle a wider array of payment methods than ever before. Orchestration might seem to only add to the complexity and costs they face but there is also the potential to provide the simplification required to limit the negative effects of fragmentation.
Thomas Gillan, CEO and co-founder of BR-DGE, is keen to redefine this fragmentation as a positive. He stresses that ‘fragmentation is a healthy thing for the market, providing choice, flexibility, opportunity for innovation, and critically, less friction for consumers in the checkout flow’.
Providing that choice to the consumer is the main challenge merchants face today. From the growing popularity of digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay to the increasing slate of BNPL products, the need is there to support more than just debit and credit cards. In certain jurisdictions, there are further
methods still, where localised providers are increasingly eating up market share.
Catering to this variety ‘can use up a lot of resources in a period where it’s already difficult to make sure you’ve got the right technical resource in your platform’.
In the wake of a huge amount of digital transformation, and innovation within payments, Gillan adds: “The goal is to build a best-in-breed technology stack so that you can capture that revenue, optimise the conversion, and provide for your customers.”
So how to get there and add value in the process, as opposed to further adding to the complexity and making it sustainable to offer choice to the customer? Gillan is quite clear that orchestration is about ‘redefining the roles of payment providers to create a value-driven ecosystem’.
“For years, orchestration has been framed as an execution layer. In other words, it’s simply a mechanism for completing the transaction,”
he says. “But importantly, it’s also becoming a distribution layer. That means taking that fragmentation, and the wide range of payment product providers and putting them into the market so the payment orchestration layer (POL) can distribute those services to the customer and offer the execution path on the payment as well.”
Delivering value to acquirers and PSPs There’s a potential here to add value, not just reduce the costs and burden of completing these transactions. ‘Value-add’ opportunities include ‘focussing on the optimisation of payment flows and improving the customer journey, delivering these at the right time’.
For merchants, cost is obviously a concern. “The main challenge is not dragging the market into a race to the bottom and commoditising payments,” adds Gillan.
They’re providing a better service to their customers through payment choice but Gillan points out that a well-oiled orchestration platform also ‘allows them to bring in new methods and increase authorisation and acceptance rates by offering specific tailored payment methods to their consumers depending on their risk appetite, and where they’re trading’.
The concern for acquirers and PSPs however, is how they hold on to that value. It’s not easy and the payments market is certainly undergoing pressure. According to Boston Consulting Group, global payments revenues are predicted to see a sharp decline from nine per cent in 2023 to five per cent over the next four years.
Increased competition, often driven by challenging the technological inefficiencies and the rising costs of traditional systems, has led to a squeeze on the market. Broader
For us, orchestration is about being a distribution point where acquirers and PSPs can access the volumes they want, when they want to, at a price they’re willing to pay
macro-economic trends have also not been favourable. Fitting another player into the system may not seem like the most appealing option and Gillan is candid about that perception but says this is based on a misunderstanding of what orchestration
has to offer. There is actually a unique opportunity to be gained from adding an orchestration layer into the mix.
“It’s important not to look at orchestration as a big stick to beat the acquirers with. It’s already a very competitive world and having an orchestration layer where the value solely lies in encouraging a race to the bottom on processing costs doesn’t resonate with me,” he says. “Rather, where orchestration needs to move to and what we’re focussed on at BR-DGE is how to add value beyond the cost setup of processing a transaction.”
In a similar way to disruptors in the banking space, there is an opportunity here to innovate and challenge the status quo, something orchestration can help with.
“It’s important to note that a lot of the payment institutions and FIs we work with, have provided phenomenal services to the end consumer for years. As time moves on, it’s vital that they stay at the forefront of that and continue to offer those products and services via their merchant base. But as organisations grow, and as volumes grow, continuing to be fleet of foot becomes increasingly challenging.”
For BR-DGE the aim is to ‘augment and add to existing infrastructure that’s already providing great services and make them even better’. One way they can do this is through greater visibility of the transactions coming through, in the process ‘capturing every pound, dollar or euro that flows over their platform or service’.
Bringing everything together seems like the obvious solution. BR-DGE has just the tool to allow acquirers to move forward in this space.
“We feel we can add value in a number of different ways. That might be regional processors that want to offer global acquiring connectivity out of the box. They might want to add new payment methods, new alternative payment methods, local acquiring connections, and then deploy that at speed,” says Gillan. “For us, orchestration is about being a distribution point where acquirers and PSPs can access the volumes they want, when they want to, at a price they’re willing to pay.
“At the moment, the acquiring landscape is very much about bundling up all transactions and accessing them directly from the merchant. By putting orchestration technology in between, you’ve got an intelligent layer that can filter transactions, collate data and build-in additional services, to make acquiring efficient, effective and higher value.”
With greater visibility, pricing becomes more pointed and revenue generating opportunities for customers emerge. It’s a whole new way of doing business.
Payments is a major area of innovation for Booking.com, the travel platform that began as a small Dutch startup in 1996 and has grown to become one of the world's leading online travel platforms, with more than 29 million listings.
The company has been ahead of the curve for decades, most recently launching an AI Trip Planner, which uses a combination of the platform’s existing machine-learning models (such as GenAI Orchestrator) and OpenAI’s ChatGPT API, to help with research, analysing reviews and provide tailored trip suggestions. Subsequent research by Booking.com suggested that 41 per cent of consumers overall are interested in using AI to curate trips in 2025 with the biggest demand coming from the neurodiverse community who tend to want to plan details carefully.
Travel is a complex booking environment, handling relatively large purchases (compared to, for example,
a taxi ride or food delivery). And, unlike an Uber Eats order, you might not receive what you bought for several months, having made adjustments to the order in the interim.
As consumers worldwide seek out the latest travel trends – ‘noctourism’, ‘longevity trips’, ‘ageless adventures’, ‘multi-gen megatrips’ and ‘male-only vacations’ among them – Booking.com is making the platform experience ever-more personal and flexible, while providing transparency and security around transactions. To do that, it looks to fintechs, as Christel Karsten, Director of Fintech Strategy, explains.
THE PAYTECH MAGAZINE: Global platforms like yours have already addressed demand for local payment methods. So, what’s the next big trend in checkout experience?
CHRISTEL KARSTEN: Over the past few years, consumer expectations have expanded in two dimensions. The first is optionality in when and how they pay.
Christel Karsten,
Director of Fintech Strategy at Booking.com
The major buy now, pay later providers cleverly tapped into that need, but split-pay providers (which allow you to split a payment across different people or credit cards) are also growing in appeal. At Booking.com, we allow travellers with flexible bookings the choice to pay straight away or to pay when the booking becomes non-refundable. This optionality has been received very positively by travellers, where we see big differences across geographies in what consumers tend to prefer. For example, on average, European travellers prefer to pay straight away, whereas North American travellers prefer to pay later. Optionality typically comes at the cost of simplicity (more options make the journey more complex as the consumer needs to weigh the choices). But then the second thing that travellers seek is higher customisation in their check-out experience, where the options offered are adapted to their specific needs and preferences. So, in this way, customisation can keep optimisation simple by limiting the choices presented to what is relevant or preferred by a specific customer. The growing usage of payment wallets plays into this, where consumers can
Booking.com is embracing the potential that AI can offer and the opportunities to leverage it within this space are endless, especially when we think about how to improve the personalisation of lending or other embedded finance, i.e. using data-driven insights to tailor products, improve risk assessment, and create smoother, more relevant customer experiences.
TPM: Booking.com has assumed the role of a paytech in so far as it manages payments for merchants. What are they looking for from you?
CK: For travel supply providers, Payments by Booking.com gives access to a wider guest market, while helping them increase their revenue security and reduce risk and workload. Not only do we manage their online payments, but we can also help them streamline their operations and reach more guests – allowing them to unlock untapped business potential.
We are working with a partner in the UK, for instance, to offer a cash advance to travel providers in that market. In order to do that we need it to ensure the credit scoring models are adapted to the seasonal nature of the hospitality industry. That way, we can provide appropriate access to these cash advances for the properties on our platform.
Value chain optionality is also important. Booking.com is a data- and experimentationdriven organisation. As such, when venturing into a new product or service, we might initially rely heavily on a fintech partner for the service delivery. However, over time, as the product market fit is established, we might seek to in-source parts of that value chain, allowing Booking.com to adapt further to customer needs and build capabilities internally.
Stress-free travel: Booking.com’s Fintech Business Unit smoothes digital journeys
load their preferred payment methods, but they present a simplified interface to the consumer.
TPM: How do you use payment data to improve the customer experience and how will you use AI to improve it in the future?
CK: One way is to leverage data for customisation, to determine (and frontload
The opportunities to leverage AI within this space are endless, especially when we think about how to improve the personalisation of lending or other embedded finance
the experience onto) the most relevant options, based on a traveller’s payment history or the type of booking.
Travel providers also seek optionality – for them, it’s to do with when and how they are paid, especially when there is a window between the booking time and the actual stay date. Their choice of when and how to receive those payments is driven by the need to balance their cash flow management with the ease of running their operations.
Another theme is currency and foreign exchange (FX). Making FX simple and transparent are the most frequent requests from travellers and providers.
The typical preference for a cross-currency transaction for both of them is to pay and receive money in their local currency. There, Booking.com can play an intermediary role to facilitate both sides and, importantly, provide transparency on rates and fees before a payment is initiated.
TPM: What are you looking for from a fintech partner when growing your tech stack?
We seek fintech partners who are flexible to a changing collaboration model over time, and who remain collaborative and supportive along that journey.
Finally, of course, there’s attractive commercials. A partnership only works if the commercials are ultimately appealing to both sides of the transaction.
Christel Karsten, who has a PhD in Finance and Law, started her professional career as a strategy consultant with Booz & Co (later acquired by PwC ) where she specialised in financial services, mainly advising banks and their regulators. It was here that she began to question the long-term viability of the traditional banking model in the face of the then growing number of innovative fintechs moving at a higher pace and with fewer legacy tech constraints.
A move to OLX Group (a marketplace for peer-to-peer selling) as its director of global strategy, gave her the opportunity to get up close to this dynamic new sector.
An alternative is to leverage the data to provide access or insights that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. For instance, some travellers indicate they find it challenging to estimate a budget for their trip, or understand what they could do within a given budget. With our data, we could make such estimates accessible in an easy, interactive manner.
CK: Any fintech partner we consider has to comply with the basics, in terms of the highest standards for regulatory compliance, data security, and service delivery quality. On top of that, there are a few qualities we look for.
An important one is the ability to scale rapidly. Especially when working on a relatively new or innovative product or service, we are open to conversations with smaller fintech partners, but we will seek a partner with an infrastructure and processes that allow for scaling rapidly on the Booking.com platform.
Then there is their willingness to customise. Any services offered by Booking.com are highly catered towards the needs of our customers. We seek a partner who is willing to work with us to customise their offering to these.
“OLX Group started to explore financial products, including intermediating car loans for peer-to-peer car sales,” says Karsten. “I recognised the power of combining a large consumer-facing brand with financial products at point of sale.”
In January 2022, she joined the then barely six-month-old Fintech Business Unit at Booking.com. “Here, my role has focussed on identifying financial questions and challenges that travellers and travel providers face,” she says, “and to assess whether and how Booking.com can play a role in alleviating those challenges.”
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Payment orchestration is playing a pivotal role in streamlining operations for many airlines, including Air Europa where payments have become a strategic asset instead of a pain point
Aviation is a complicated business. In order to provide reliable travel, airlines must successfully navigate (among other things) multiple time zones, crew shortages, volatile fuel costs and frequent weather disruptions.
Compounding these issues, many airlines are hindered by legacy payments technology that is no longer fit for purpose in an evolving industry where complexity and customer demands continue to increase, marketplaces rule and a global ecosystem of holiday resellers and agents are plugging into their systems.
It’s not surprising that many of their payment systems hit a spot of turbulence.
According to research from Amadeus, which provides software to the airline industry, 40 per cent of companies across the travel sector said they were having difficulty managing multiple payment service providers (PSPs) on their legacy systems. Amadeus estimated that more than five per cent of global travel sales goes
into paying these PSPs, which translates to around $74.5billion – a cost subsequently passed on to passengers in the shape of steeper prices and additional fees. It’s a lose-lose situation, and in a competitive market where travellers expect seamless interactions, the fragmentation and rising charges for consumers are hurting the industry.
With consumer expectations shifting and the payment methods they look for becoming more varied, airlines are starting to see payments differently, though. They’re turning the payments themselves into a revenue driver.
A number of ambitious airlines have moved away from legacy technology and towards platform-based payment orchestration systems, which is the process of managing payments across multiple providers using a single platform. It can help airlines and other businesses save money, reduce fraud, and improve the customer experience.
One such airline is Air Europa, which partnered with payment orchestration platform Nium to power its payments using the closed-loop Nium Airline Payments (NAP) system. This helped the airline to improve profitability previously tied up in thin margins and slower settlement times.
Air Europa has now shifted the dial in payments innovation further by partnering with solutions provider Hands In to enable split payment for tickets within its online
purchase process. This provides flexibility and a more customised shopping experience to better suit individual needs. To achieve this, the airline offers Hands In’s split payment technology on its website, which allows customers buying tickets directly from the airline to divide ticket costs between multiple travellers or credit cards at checkout.
Since launching this feature in June 2024, Air Europa says it has generated more than €3.8million in incremental revenue, with over 15,000 unique profiles using split payments, underscoring the customer appeal.
With the ‘Group Payments’ option, users can divide the payment of the transaction between several people, personalising the amounts, automatically generating payment links, and making it more affordable to deal with a large travel expense. This option has so far achieved an 87.8 per cent conversion rate when the lead booker pays with the first card.
The ‘Multi Card Payments’ option, meanwhile, makes it possible to purchase a ticket using several different cards, which can make the transaction more accessible for an individual by spreading the cost over their different accounts. This option is also made available when Hands In receives a decline code from an acquirer due to insufficient funds, prompting the customer to retry the transaction using two cards instead of one.
Air Europa says this feature has recovered more than €2.4million in revenue and achieved a conversion rate of 95.1 per cent.
“We’re very pleased to have these solutions in our online purchasing process,” said Yago Casasnovas, Head of Payments, Fraud Prevention and Distribution at Air Europa. “They represent a further step in the line we have set ourselves of helping the user to decide how they want their trip to be, which is part of our campaign slogan ‘Tú Decides’ (You decide). The possibility of splitting payments between several people or cards makes shopping easier and further reduces the barriers to flying.”
Paying their way
Air Europa’s mindset is matched by other airlines around the world, which are busy exploring a variety of payment innovations, including open banking, mobile wallets, and embedded finance. They view these innovations as essential to improving customer experience, reducing operational costs, and increasing revenue.
Amadeus’ latest research, released last year, found that airlines are at the forefront of plans to increase technology spend in the travel sector. The study highlighted that full-service airlines expect to see an 18 per cent increase in revenue from switching to more modern payments solutions. And, with an increasing focus on payments as a cornerstone of their service improvement, orchestration platforms are growing in popularity.
FinMont, a global payment orchestration platform, recently announced a new tie-up with The Lufthansa Group. The partnership is enhancing payment processes, and also incorporates Camino Network’s blockchain solution that has been built specifically for the
industry, offering airlines a unified, integrated platform for all their payment needs, coupled with actionable data insights and streamlined distribution channels. With features like one-click checkout, AI-enabled smart routing, and robust anti-fraud tools, Yuno says it will ensure ‘secure and efficient’ payment orchestration across borders.
Ultimately, payment orchestration platforms like CellPoint and Yuno have the ability to improve airlines in three key areas: financial returns, operational efficiency, and the big one – customer experience.
Financially, they can help airlines to boost conversion rates while also reducing costs. Operationally, they simplify payments and cut through issues associated with managing multiple PSPs. And in terms of removing turbulence from the customer journey, payment orchestration allows passengers to more easily navigate digital channels.
customers to use these points alongside other payment methods in a move designed to further enhance convenience and personalisation in the customer experience.
“We’re delighted with the results Air Europa can achieve by implementing Hands In’s solutions natively in its payment processes,” said Samuel Flynn, founder and CEO of Hands In. “Our goal now is to continue to help the company deliver an excellent customer experience with other split payment innovations that can contribute to this goal.”
Providing a wider array of payment options is helping airlines expand their market reach and attract new customer segments.
One alternative that’s quickly gaining traction is ‘fly now, pay later’, which is mirroring the wider buy now, pay later (BNPL) services capturing consumers’ attention elsewhere. Fly now, pay later – also referred to as book now, pay later by some airlines
Up, up and away: Airlines see payment innovation as a route to securing their futures
Full-service airlines expect to see an 18 per cent increase in revenue from switching to more modern payments solutions
travel industry to document all transactions. This helps to further boost the efficiency of the airline’s existing payment workflows.
Travel industry-focussed payment orchestration firm CellPoint Digital has also been in the news recently as it raises new funding to speed up the launch of its Offer Order Service Delivery (OOSD) payment orchestration platform, which it says will ‘transform modern airline retailing’.
Another development to watch closely is payment orchestrator Yuno’s strategic partnership with mobility company Meili. This collaboration is aimed at transforming the payments infrastructure within the airline
Amadeus Research
A smoother, more accessible payment process enables the world’s airlines to significantly improve customer engagement while also offering the newer options that their customers are looking for – such as Air Europa’s new payment propositions.
The next phase of Air Europa’s commitment to innovation includes plans to add multiple payment options, starting with PayPal. This will enable users to combine credit cards, PayPal, and debit cards when splitting payments. Additionally, the airline has revealed that loyalty points will be introduced, allowing
– is a method that allows consumers to spread the cost of flight bookings across more manageable, smaller interest-free payments. Instalments can be paid back monthly, weekly, or bi-weekly, depending on the payment provider and the plan that a traveller chooses. It means they can realise the dream of a holiday, even when budgets are tight.
Flight search and booking site Alternative Airlines, which also allows people to buy flights with their crypto holdings, now lets holiday seekers book flights on more than 650 airlines – including Air Europa, British Airways, and American Airlines – and then pay later with BNPL giants like Klarna and Afterpay.
New payment methods in the market are reshaping the payment mechanics of airlines around the world, opening up a more accessible age of flying. Payment orchestration is cleared for take-off.
Kai Lindström Vice President, Payments
at S Group
Finland’s S Group is proud that shoppers still want to spend so much time inside its co-operatively owned retail stores. But it knows those baskets will inevitably be filled remotely in the future
When Finland broke free from the yoke of the Russian tsars in the late 19th century, it was the new cooperative movement that helped build an independent economy.
So deep is the idea of the collective in the country’s cultural heritage that even today around 80 per cent of Finns are members of a co-operative of one sort or another.
S Group, one of the biggest and most successful companies in Finland, is owned by its circa 2.5 million members. That’s an extraordinary number when you consider that the country’s population is fewer than six million. Its network represents 47 per cent of the country’s grocery market and touches 78 per cent of households in some way –through supermarkets, petrol forecourts and EV charging stations, department stores, car dealerships, its own banking network… there’s even a theme park.
S Group employs 41,000 people at its 1,984 business locations, and in 2023 its annual revenue totalled €13.5billion.
Through two world wars and a domestic civil war, S Group has been a constant in Finnish life. It inspires loyalty – and it rewards it, with members receiving five per cent cashback on their purchases, via its green bonus cards. In fact, 2023 saw it returning €484million, or an average of €194 per person.
Its main contact point with members – the way it gets to know them best – is through the payments they make across its many diverse enterprises. Improving how it handles those transactions and, crucially, how it derives the best information about customers from them, led the company to build its own payments orchestration layer – an unusual step for a multiple retailer.
The significant data this system collects from the 500 million or so transactions the Group handles daily enhances customers’ overall experience by giving them insights such as their purchase history, food nutritional values and environmental impact.
The halo effect from this, S Group says, has driven a 14 per cent revenue increase.
S Group’s enviably close relationship with its customers is evident from its 98 per cent in-store, in-person payment transaction record. But it hopes to move this dial ahead of a predicted countrywide shift from card spending and mobile-based transactions to a greater ratio of other digitally-enabled payments as generational differences come into play.
The Group’s Vice President of Payments, Kai Lindström, explains that Finland – like much of the Nordic region – probably did too good a job of telling
people to protect their financial information from digital predators, making several generations reluctant to use more innovative payment methods.
Currently, 84 per cent of transactions are executed by cards, 90 per cent of those debit cards. The majority of the other online payments the population make are executed via bank links.
“Mobile wallet payments are starting to gain ground but not that much yet, maybe making up six or seven per cent of all transactions,” explains Lindström.
“MobilePay, the Danish mobile wallet, is really popular for person-to-person payments and, on the e-comm side, bank links are. But there are historical reasons why people are cautious. Back in the late 90s, when the internet was new, banks were warning consumers not to add their card details into retailer sites in case someone stole them.
People remember that and that’s why they favour bank links.
“I guess the banks regret that now because their move to protect the
consumer has ultimately impinged on innovation by impacting demand, and they don’t get interchange fees from the bank link method. However, I do think that is changing now.”
To complement its own in-house orchestration and help it along its journey towards offering a more seamless omnichannel experience for customers, S Group partnered with global payments technology platform Adyen in 2023.
“Our common goal is to provide S Group’s customers, across our brand portfolio, with easy, safe and dependable ways to pay, and innovative, value-added services, too,” says Lindström. “As well as new payment terminals, our customers will notice the change in new payment methods within our sales channels.”
orchestration layer and we need to continue to overcome them as we look at all our payment process solutions.”
The ultimate goal is to ensure that the physical and increasingly digital shopping experiences it plans to offer its customers, work seamlessly together.
“So, while 98 per cent of our sales volume at the moment is coming from in-store, we want to put effort into e-commerce and increase that tenfold over the next three or four years,” Lindström says.
not being able to pay with all the payment methods in our app for car fuelling and charging. We are looking at optimising these payment methods and journeys so that customers don’t always have to complete strong customer authentication to pay. We hope Adyen can help us achieve this.
“We’re also getting ideas from things we see our peers introducing successfully in other Nordic countries, such as scan-and-pay applications, which are blurring the lines between e-comm and in-store as customers shop in store but pay online.”
One of the partnership’s primary objectives is enabling the benefits of its loyalty scheme – currently embedded within its own payment card via its orchestration layer – to be extended to other payment methods, such as Apple Pay.
“If we enable Apple Pay, our customers will automatically expect their loyalty points to come with it,” says Lindström. The problem was they wouldn’t. “These were the kinds of hindrances that led us to build our own
The challenge is how to make that online customer journey and experience as good as it is in-store
A very visual indication of that intent is the fleet of home delivery robots that beat a path to customers’ doors from 100 of its stores.
“The challenge is how to make that online customer journey and experience as good as it is in-store, while resolving issues like
Being able to better capitalise on customer trends data to fuel the success of S Group’s loyalty scheme is an important by-product of this digitisation process, especially since the universal adoption of ISO 20022 enables more granular payment details to be captured.
“This data will bring much more information and, because it will be in a standard format, we can use it, with the help of our different partners, to gain more insights,” says Lindström. “We are sitting on top of a huge amount that we’re not currently using to maximum benefit.”
Access to all: It’s a massive opportunity but not the current reality in payments
Ecommpay is leading the charge for accessibility and inclusivity in payments. It’s not just a moral obligation… it’s good business sense
Inclusivity. Accessibility. Sustainability. Three powerful words. But they are sometimes seen as being at odds with another: profitability.
That’s not how Ecommpay sees it. In fact, the global payments provider has set out to demonstrate that being mindful about how you support customers, employees and wider society can drive revenue and returns, not undermine them.
Founded to tackle financial exclusion through the payments system, the company launched a new programme in 2024, Ecommpay For Good, which doubles down on its efforts to create a more equitable society. It took the opportunity to refresh its brand identity and ensure its own platforms –
including its website, mobile SDKs, and payment pages – were fully accessible by collaborating with the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) to align with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2 AA standards. It hopes to achieve certification by Q2 2025.
Crucially, the programme empowers other businesses to offer similarly accessible, inclusive, and sustainable solutions that cater to all customers. Merchants can, for example, access a free, publicly available online Guide to Digital Accessibility, produced in partnership with the DAC, which provides step-by-step advice on improving website accessibility to WCAG 2.2 AA standards.
That’s not just a morally good thing to do. Studies have shown that optimising online
accessibility alone can increase web traffic by 23 to 24 per cent and enable merchants to unlock what’s known as the ‘purple pound’, the spending power of people with disabilities and their households. That opportunity is estimated to be worth £274billion in the UK and $8trillion globally.
We Are Purple, organisers of the global campaign day Purple Tuesday, says this sales opportunity is increasing by 14 per cent a year, but only one in 10 businesses has a targeted strategy for reaching the ‘purple pound’ segment.
In fact, its surveys show 75 per cent of disabled people and their families have moved away from a business because of poor accessibility or customer service.
Far from being a minority, as many as 22 per cent of the population are experiencing disability at any given time, including those recovering from long-term illness. That’s more than one billion people worldwide who routinely have their life chances limited by poor access to financial services.
On the other hand, research also reveals that disabled consumers are willing to pay more for accessible user experiences. By enhancing accessibility, businesses can boost customer loyalty and drive additional revenue, argues Ecommpay.
Its message to merchants is that designing services with this, the biggest minority group in the world – or any excluded demographic – in mind creates a competitive edge by enhancing user experience. And that’s good for everyone.
Inside/out approach to improvement Ecommpay hopes its leadership in this area will inspire others in the payments industry to embrace accessibility, sparking broader change.
It has joined the UK government’s Disability Confident scheme, which encourages employers to think differently about disability and take action to improve how they recruit, retain and develop disabled people.
It has also launched mandatory training on unconscious bias and is about to roll out neurodiversity training to all employees, also making this available to any merchant that wants to participate. But it’s certainly not stopping there.
As an organisation, Ecommpay is taking a holistic approach to improving its own systems and services, setting an example for others to follow. And, potentially, that’s a big audience.
Ecommpay already offers global and local acquiring, with more than 180 payment methods, payments processing and orchestration on one platform and via a single API. Central to its philosophy is to continuously build essential capabilities like orchestration, open banking, recurring billing and direct debits directly into its platform, eliminating the need for third-party
systems while streamlining operations, and reducing costs and friction for its clients. At the heart of its business is a commitment to financial freedom and accessibility for all, which it strives to achieve by pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in payments.
That’s embodied in a platform where everyone feels empowered, connected, secure, and free to choose their preferred payment methods.
This approach to financial inclusivity extends beyond its day-to-day operations. It’s reflected in the partnerships struck last year with organisations like the European Women in Payments Network (EWPN), Project Nemo, the RNIB and Purple Tuesday to address a wide range of accessibility and inclusion challenges within the fintech and payments sectors.
EWPN, for example, is a non-profit organisation dedicated to empowering women in fintech and payments across Europe. As the only pan-European community for women in the industry, it creates valuable opportunities for women and minorities, championing diversity and inclusion.
We believe that equal access to information and services online should be a given, not a privilege Miranda McLean, CMO
Project Nemo, led by The Payments Association ambassador Joanne Dewar, is a grassroots initiative focussed on raising awareness about the crucial role of accessibility in the industry.
Through its involvement in these and other initiatives, Ecommpay reinforces the message that accessibility is not merely a regulatory obligation but also a long-term opportunity for success.
“While only five per cent of payment businesses prioritise environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives, Ecommpay is leading the way,” says its Chief Marketing Officer Miranda McLean.
“Ecommpay’s rebrand represents more than just a new logo – it
symbolises the company’s ambitious vision for the future,” she adds. “As the global payments market expands, Ecommpay is positioning itself to play a major role.
“The new brand identity is dynamic and adaptable, reflecting the company's mission to provide customisable solutions that meet the diverse needs of both businesses and their customers.”
Moving forward: a future built on inclusion
Ecommpay’s rebrand and the Ecommpay For Good initiative are key steps toward building a more inclusive financial ecosystem. The company is paving the way for businesses to thrive while ensuring equal access to services for all customers, regardless of ability.
“We believe that equal access to information and services online should be a given, not a privilege,” says McLean.
“As the digital economy evolves, Ecommpay is committed to making this vision a reality, creating an environment where businesses can grow while ensuring equal access for everyone.”
It believes that as businesses work to offer seamless digital experiences, integrating accessibility into every customer touchpoint has become essential. For Ecommpay, accessibility is not just a moral obligation but an economic necessity. By making digital services accessible, businesses can unlock new markets and enhance revenue while promoting inclusivity.
And it’s driving this transformation by helping businesses understand how to harness the power of accessibility.
“With its pioneering approach, Ecommpay is laying the foundation for a future where the digital economy is open to all – regardless of ability, creating a more equitable digital economy,” adds McLean.
“Through innovation, collaboration, and an unwavering commitment to diversity, the company is leading the charge in building a payments ecosystem that works for everyone.”
The future of fintech lies in accessibility. The revolution has already begun – and it’s inclusive.
Miranda McLean, Chief Marketing Officer at Ecommpay
BNPL is the fastest growing alternative payment method among consumers in the UK who want more choice in how and when they pay. Here and elsewhere
it’s a
trend that’s forcing retailers to rebuild credit products. Currys’ flexpay is one of them
Today’s consumers value flexibility. They expect it in the way they work to earn their money, whether it’s a remote/hybrid job or a handy side hustle, and they expect it in the way they shop.
This has given rise to the buy now, pay later (BNPL) phenomenon, essentially a short-term, point of sale financing option that allows them to pay for purchases over a set period of time. So long as they clear the balance within the agreed period, they don’t pay interest.
A new wave of POS BNPL providers, including Afterpay and Klarna, have been busy strengthening their grip on checkouts in recent years, becoming household names in the process. The statistics make for interesting reading. According to a new Finder survey, as of 2025 two in five UK adults (42 per cent) have used BNPL services at some point, which equates to approximately 22.6 million people. This is up from 36 per cent at the start of 2023. That trend is amplified globally. The study showed that around 380 million people around
the world used BNPL services, and that’s predicted to increase to 670 million by 2028.
Such short-term financing is particularly popular amongst Gen Z-ers and Millennials, who are typically less wedded to traditional financial products, such as credit cards.
A separate study by market research company Opinium has found that one in five (18 per cent) of Gen Z consumers in France, Germany, and the Netherlands now use BNPL.
The psychology behind it is fascinating. Researchers at Imperial College London found that paying through BNPL helps people feel less financially constrained when compared to a lump sum payment (upfront or delayed). This is seen as important as, regardless of how much actual disposable income someone has, it is their perceived financial constraints that will ultimately dictate their spending habits.
Plotting around the potential pitfalls However, the psychology also helps to explain some of the pitfalls of BNPL. It’s driven by a paradox: it’s often used for luxury online
shopping whilst at the same time many people are living through a cost-of-living crisis, prompting concern that it’s locking consumers into endless revolving credit.
Detractors say BNPL often encourages unnecessary spending and point to a range of risks. These include consumers not fully understanding the BNPL product they have signed up for, which can lead to missed or late payments that may carry a penalty fee. It’s as easy to fall behind with a BNPL payment schedule as it is with other bills – so it can be another layer of pressure for someone who is already struggling.
Fifteen per cent of BNPL users have incurred late fees, with this figure rising to 22 per cent for those with ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ credit scores, according to research carried out last year for the UK’s Lending Standards Board. Governments in the UK, the US and Australia have responded to these concerns by committing to bring previously unregulated BNPL providers into their financial regulator’s remit. In the UK it’s expected that new rules will
come into place in 2026 to protect consumers from unaffordable borrowing, with providers required to carry out affordability checks and become registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The new rules will also ensure that consumers have clearer information and stronger rights if issues arise with products they purchase.
According to specialist financial law firm Osborne Clarke, the impact of the UK changes is likely to mean that the choice of BNPL products available for consumers is reduced.
“Some currently exempt BNPL lenders may decide either to withdraw from the market entirely (rather than face the increased costs and operational burden of being an FCA regulated firm),” it said, “or to obtain FCA authorisation for lending but ultimately decide that it is no longer a cost-effective model to offer credit free of interest and charges to customers.”
In Holland, the Dutch government is trying to prevent the roll out of BNPL on the high street entirely, saying it is concerned about levels of consumer debt, especially among young people. Against this background, retailers are considering their options and reviewing the credit choices they offer customers.
Currys, the UK retail giant specialising in white goods, consumer electronics, computers and mobile phones, recently unveiled its revamped credit product, giving people more flexibility to pay in a manner that best suits them.
Currys’ flexpay makes it even easier for customers to spread the cost of their tech, at the point of need
Joshua Fabian-Miller, Currys
Currys’ flexpay, which replaces Your Plan, gives both online and in-store customers a choice of four products to spread the cost of purchases.
Depending on the purchase, customers can select to pay interest-free with fixed monthly instalments over 12, 24 or 36 months; pay equal monthly instalments at low interest (currently 9.9 per cent) over a set 48-month period; pay monthly with a personalised interest rate on a plan fixed between
12 and 36 months; or buy now, pay later, paying as much or as little as they like over the offer period (usually six, nine or 12 months) with no interest charged, so long as the balance is cleared within that time.
Choice is the key word here, says Joshua Fabian-Miller, Consumer Credit Director at Currys, which revealed that more than 20 per cent of eligible spend now goes through its flexible payment option, exceeding that on traditional credit cards.
“Currys’ flexpay makes it even easier for customers to spread the cost of their tech, at the point of need,” he says.
The retailer’s refreshment of its credit offering was implemented following extensive research with staff and customers. Its aim is to make credit more personalised. The company also wanted to ensure it was presented to customers at the point of need, and that customers always know where they stand through the intuitive approach of its dedicated mobile app. Currys flexpay is markedly different from the retailer’s previous product. There is more functionality under the hood; more ways to flexpay in store; the ability to flexpay on additional hardware categories; a simpler and clearer application journey; and better visibility of existing borrowers’ credit balance across buying journeys. Currys says transparency sits right at the heart of the proposition.
In line with the forthcoming regulation around BNPL, credit is already only provided to customers who meet the affordability criteria.
Currys cites a close and collaborative relationship with BNP Paribas Personal Finance as being critical to delivering better, clearer choices for customers.
“It’s the result of our strong, longstanding partnership with Currys and our deep understanding of their customers’ needs,” adds Stephen Hunt, CEO at BNP Paribas Personal Finance UK. “Together, we have developed a leading credit solution that offers flexible and affordable payment options, making it easier for customers to purchase amazing technology.
“We’re excited to continue to support Currys in transforming the credit experience, delivering more accessible and responsible credit solutions.”
The introduction of Currys flexpay has had a big impact. The company has grown its active credit customer count to over 2.3 million. And these customers are the retailer’s happiest, with NPS scores 22 per cent higher than non-credit customers. They are also 20 per cent more likely to purchase complete solutions and linked products, and over twice as likely to return and shop again at Currys within 12 months. Flexpay is winning hearts and minds.
Julian Martin Capote, Head of Payments and Partnerships at Miravia, a new Spanish online retail channel targeted at younger consumers, wouldn’t be surprised at that.
“Consumer preferences are changing and businesses must adapt,” he told Paybl’s Pay It Forward podcast recently.
Younger people are less familiar with using a credit card. Many will have never had one, so they are looking for alternative solutions at point of sale to finance their purchases
“BNPL is becoming a must-have solution for e-commerce platforms, especially when you are targeting younger audiences, because they are less familiar with using a credit card,” added Capote. “Many will have never had one, so they are looking for alternative solutions at the POS to finance their purchases. BNPL use is relatively low at two per cent in Spain, compared to our neighbours, [but] we realise the opportunity to reach higher penetration [because] it’s really important for Gen Z and Millennials.”
Standing in the way of credit innovations such as BNPL, as the Dutch government is attempting to do, could then be going against an unstoppable tide. But the success of Currys’ pick-and-mix approach to credit at the point of sale is perhaps a lesson in how BNPL can sit comfortably on a shelf of other products, giving consumers maximum transparency and choice.
I’m looking at a pile of receipts on my desk… crumpled bits of paper spewed out of retailers’ terminals.
Flimsy proof of my honesty. Safeguards if I change my mind or the item is faulty. Essential for claiming a warranty.
Managing these data-rich records is a headache for customers, but the huge financial and environmental cost of issuing them is weighing heavily on merchants, too.
“Retailers’ biggest problem everywhere is streamlining the checkout and eradicating paper to meet their ESG targets and to cut spending,” says Chris Purdie, Founder of paytech Receiptable, which claims retailers can reduce their carbon footprint by 2.5g of CO2e for every digital receipt issued.
That could be of interest to merchants in many regions – notably France where automatically issuing paper receipts was banned in 2023 under the country’s Anti-Waste Law. But right now Receiptable’s sights are set on the Middle East where retailers are motivated to reduce the burden of paper chits for a host of environmental and operational reasons, but also for one key commercial advantage.
They want to leverage what the receipt represents – namely a snapshot of a customer’s spending habits.
“Some of the biggest retailers in the Middle East have 60 per cent of their customers scanning loyalty cards at the checkout but they want the other 40 per cent. They want the full picture,” says Purdie.
That’s incentivised many to routinely capture personal details, such as telephone number and email, at the till, which not only slows the checkout process, but in some countries now risks a run-in with the regulator.
Receiptable’s solution aims to bridge that 40 per cent gap by acting as a messenger between the customer’s bank and the merchant. It triggers a receipt containing merchant-enriched data to be sent to the customer’s banking app in real time, simultaneously alerting the POS not to issue a paper one.
With the right safeguards and permissions in place, it doesn’t take a genius to work out how valuable that vault of data could be to marketeers, while simultaneously solving a practical problem for consumers and a not insignificant one for the planet.
Al-Futtaim is a well-established privately owned business, headquartered in Dubai, that holds franchises locally for some of the best-known brands in Europe and the USA. Sweden’s IKEA and the UK’s M&S are among them. Its lifestyle and loyalty app, Blue Rewards, operates in nine countries in the Middle East
and South East Asia and gives Al-Futtaim a 360-degree view of individual customer behaviour across all the retail brands in its portfolio. Blue allows customers to earn cashback and benefit from a range of highly personalised offers and rewards. It also recently
launched an AI advisor to help customers find the products and services most relevant to them.
Paul Carey is the programme’s Chief Products and Payments Officer. Since Covid, he says it’s seen a significant growth in card-based payments, both digital wallets and contactless, especially in the UAE where more than 90 per cent of the population are ex-pats, including a growing wave of digital natives.
Here, as in Saudi Arabia, smartphone penetration exceeds 90 per cent, making app-based payments and rewards increasingly the default, as opposed to traditional paper and card-based systems.
“Cash is becoming less and less common, with less than 15 per cent of customers using it in our retail businesses in the UAE,” says Carey. “Apple Pay is available in the UAE, Saudi and, most recently Egypt [where it launched in December 2024]. Credit cards are still relatively new in Egypt, but they are picking up steam, while in Saudi local debit card usage covers the majority of spend. So you see very different
Retailers’ biggest problem everywhere is streamlining the checkout and eradicating paper
Chris Purdie, Receiptable
customer behaviour across the region.”
The rules around till receipts vary, too, depending on local regulation.
“Every country has its own local regulation and compliance policies, which is sometimes hard to harmonise for our business operations. In the UAE, a receipt must be printed in English and Arabic, making them longer, which is more expensive in terms of the amount of data and printing required. The customer often gets both a card slip and a POS slip, too, depending on the brand set-up.”
Like most retailers, its conscious of environmental sustainability – or lack of it – in the checkout process.
“Reducing paper and ink is an obvious target,” says Carey. “Reducing the storage of all this paper is an added benefit when multiplied by many brands and locations.”
The additional advantage of digital receipts issued to Blue members is that customers can find them when they need them.
“E receipts tend to be sent in SMS/ WhatsApp/email and as a customer I have to switch across all these if I need to retrieve a receipt for warranty purposes, for example,” says Carey. “If you’re a Blue member, you will soon be able to access your receipt in one place and show it to the till where it will be accepted for refund purposes.
“This ability to retrieve a receipt is better than getting it in the first place.”
language of loyalty
Loyalty schemes dominate the retail landscape in the Middle East and Al-Futtaim's is seen as one of the leaders in the move to digital-first and app-based programmes.
According to the Middle East Loyalty Programs Market Databook 2025, published in February by Research and Markets, the value of reward schemes in the region is set to grow by 16.3 per cent this year and will reach $5.49billion by 2029. It predicts the growth will be driven by AI-enabled personalisation, subscription-based loyalty, and coalition models where brands collaborate to offer shared rewards.
Blue is a centralised programme that already extends across multiple diverse brands, from Toys R Us to Ted Baker.
“We have stock-keeping unit
Paper trail: The move to digital receipts brings a whole host of customer and merchant benefits
(SKU) level data so we can personalise offers, depending on what an individual customer buys,” says Carey. “But having access to this type of data for a customer’s spend outside of Al-Futtaim would be incredibly valuable so we can improve our understanding and personalisation.
“Our data team want more of those data points to make our engagement more relevant… we don’t want to be sending out everything to everyone.
“From a bank’s perspective, too, being able to see all the data – not only where they are
Digital receipts have the potential to provide much more depth of understanding
Paul Carey, Al-Futtaim Blue Rewards
shopping, but also what they are buying – means they could do a lot more with tailoring products that are relevant to a customer’s circumstances, such as specific personal lending.”
That’s the premise on which Receiptable is basing its offer to banks – launching soon with two in Bahrain. It gives them the opportunity to tailor financial offers and services, built on a detailed understanding of their customers’ spending, and also to partner with retailers in Receiptable’s merchant network.
That’s not such a far-fetched idea. The region has already seen First Abu Dhabi Bank, the largest in the UAE, launch an online rewards shop for luxury brands. There are also initiatives between financial services providers, hotel chains, airlines and telecoms, and growing interest among consumers for subscription-based loyalty programmes that unlock premium rewards targeted just to them.
And while it’s ever-more sophisticated AI-driven technology that will enable that, none of it would be possible without a humble receipt.
Retailer adoption of softPOS has increased dramatically since Apple introduced Tap to Pay in 2022. Victor Padee from leading in-person payment orchestrator Aevi believes softPOS is about to have its moment
E-commerce may be growing at twice the rate of in-person transactions, but make no mistake, physical shopping isn't going anywhere. The way we pay in-store, however, is evolving fast.
Juniper Research put the total value of POS terminal transactions in 2024 at $17trillion. Total e-commerce transactions, on the other hand, were just $7trillion. But the way those in-person payments are physically executed might change dramatically over the next two years, driven by a solution that was originally conceived for micro and small merchants, pop-up shops and market stalls.
SoftPOS – allowing phones or tablets to be used as roaming POS devices – was a god-send for traders who couldn’t afford to invest in fancy wired-in checkouts or were trading at events and stands with limited or no means to connect to electricity and a static phone line.
But now there’s evidence that much larger merchants see softPOS as solving a number of enterprise-sized problems, too. In fact, according to a report by Pyments Intelligence and Discover Global Network in 2023, 71 per cent of merchants already believed it wouldn’t be long before softPOS replaced traditional payment terminals.
That’s driven by their experience of mobile digital wallets. They are now the fastest-growing payment method in the world, accounting for approximately 30 per cent of global POS transaction value.
Victor
Already worth more than $10.8trillion, they are projected to account for approximately $19.6trillion in POS spending by 2027, according to The Global Payments Report by Worldpay.
In the UK, industry group UK Finance said in 2024 that a third of adults were already using mobile contactless payments at least once a month.
Lloyds Bank estimates that 87 per cent of face-to-face payments in the UK are now made using contactless technology. Mastercard, meanwhile, forecasts that the global user base for digital wallets will grow to 5.2 billion by 2026. That’s more than 60 per cent of the world’s population.
Aevi, a specialist in-person payments orchestration, also believes softPOS is about to have its moment.
“Consumer behaviour has shifted. Where tapping a phone on another phone once felt unfamiliar, today it's becoming the default. This change opens massive opportunities for merchants who are ready to embrace softPOS,” says Aevi’s Head of Global Business Development, Victor Padee.
“The initial thinking behind softPOS was reducing hardware costs because micro-merchants didn’t have to buy a terminal. But the way we see it, it’s more about creating a flexible and scalable payment solution that enhances the customer experience and can help support high transaction volumes.
“Cloud infrastructure will be critical to enabling enterprises to deploy
softPOS at scale without any significant upfront cost,” he adds. “And it could be seen as a great way to test a certain market or a certain use case. Or they could just use it as a queue-busting solution for busy times.
“Whatever reason they add the technology, I believe that it’s going to be a part of the future tech stack because softPOS NFC technology goes beyond the payment. Now it’s bleeding from the micro-merchant to the large merchant, it will definitely be utilised in different use cases.”
For larger enterprises, softPOS has a number of advantages. It’s easy to scale for one. A single softPOS app can be certified once and deployed across multiple mobile devices, making it appealing for platform providers such as couriers and taxi operators while acting as a queue-buster for bricks and mortar retailers at busy times.
It’s cheap. According to a Kaiser Associates study, one out of three merchants quotes cost as a reason for not upgrading payments technology, especially when the cost of maintaining and upgrading terminals can be counted in the thousands.
It’s always up to date. SoftPOS can effortlessly keep up with emerging payment methods.
And, lastly, it offers a unified platform for data analytics.
Although the technology had been around for a while, it wasn’t until 2022 when the PCI Security Standards Council brought softPOS within the PCI framework and Apple introduced
Tap to Pay, allowing iPhones to be used as payment devices with softPOS systems, that the technology grew up.
In a report produced by Aevi the same year, it identified softPOS as ‘the next evolutionary step from smartPOS, giving enterprises the ability to move away from legacy systems’.
The report added: “The hardware will not necessarily change with a combination of smartPOS type, BYOD (bring your own device), tablets, tills, etc but the underlying software running them could and probably will in the future be softPOS… a client could target
payments or payment times in one place without juggling multiple systems. It’s all about a unified view of the customer data, which is crucial for personalisation and insight.”
For those who sell across borders, a unified view is increasingly challenging as payment preferences diverge. In APAC and LATAM, for example, alternative payment methods have seen huge growth in recent years while, in the US and Europe, it’s the card – in physical form or provisioned into a wallet – that’s dominant.
“Preferred payment methods vary by country. That creates complexity for merchants
believe integrated payment solutions will become a standard as businesses seek to create a more cohesive experience across all touchpoints, blurring the line between physical and digital commerce.”
Adapting your payments stack in such an environment is often made harder, though, by vendor lock-in, where customers are tied down to hardware leases, preventing them from trialling or adopting new systems.
“It causes significant frustrations for those merchants who want to grow and adapt their businesses,” agrees Padee “Many
Moving with the times: SoftPOS is the ‘next evolutionary step’ in payments
a softPOS-only strategy and roll that out on a myriad of managed and unmanaged devices.”
Based on its findings, Aevi took a strategic approach to building an orchestrated network of softPOS providers, selected according to UX, UI, flexibility, technology security and localisation. Through a single integration, customers now get access to multiple softPOS providers all over the globe.
It’s another example of how payment orchestrators are helping merchants reduce complexity and meet customer expectations.
“A truly connected omnichannel payment stack is the one that delivers a consistent experience to both merchants and customers, no matter the device, channel or payment method,” says Padee. “The foundation of this is seamless integration for a single API, which enables merchants to manage all of their
The initial thinking behind softPOS was reducing hardware costs because micro-merchants didn’t have to buy a terminal
trying to deliver a consistent experience across borders,” says Padee. “They need to strike a careful balance between embracing the future and respecting these preferences. They must continue to support flexible payment processing options whilst also accommodating cash users or more traditional methods.
“Regulatory complexity adds another layer of difficulty. Within Europe, GDPR, PSD2, fees refunds, settlement times, exchange rates and relationship management are all part of handling cross-border payments.
“Merchants have to navigate a maze of rules while staying competitive. [So] we
solutions are extremely hard to implement or require costly customisation.”
As an orchestrator, Aevi allows businesses to switch providers quickly and adopt new technologies without major disruptions or losing current or historic insights and data.
“Having the ability to move your card acquiring process from one acquirer to another, without changing your hardware puts a lot of power back into merchants’ hands,” says Padee.
Combine that with the flexibility that a softPOS system offers and merchant payments could be radically transformed.
Till we meet again: In the UK, major grocery retailers have taken them out and put them back in
How far are we from using invisible payments for in-store grocery shopping? We take a look at progress on the high street
When Amazon entered the physical grocery store arena, first in the US and then in the UK, the key differentiator was the ability to ‘just walk out’ with your purchases. It heralded a bold and fresh new era of household shopping. Being able to simply grab what you need and leave, without once having to interact with a store assistant or go to a till, sounded like a godsend for busy shoppers back in 2018. For merchants, it promised to free up (or reduce) staff and eradicate pinch points at the checkout.
Such a radical rethink relied on mobile phones, clever weight-based technology, computer vision via a multitude of cameras and deep learning. Coming along swiftly behind it was Amazon One, a biometric checkout, using on a customer’s palm for verification. It even dispensed with the requirement for a phone.
Very soon, all we would need for a trip to the shops was… ourselves.
For a time, major supermarkets in the UK appeared to be in thrall to Just Walk Out and biometric payments technology, with a number trialling their own versions. Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Asda and Aldi all opened stores – usually for time-stressed shoppers in London where Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods chains continue to offer Just Walk Out and Amazon One checkout options.
Consumer trends would suggest such technology is in demand, with a significant number of consumers now opting for contactless card payments as standard, and 79 per cent of Gen Z consumers ditching cards altogether in favour of digital wallets on their phones, according to PYMENTS Intelligence.
Research by takepayments found that 48 per cent of UK consumers prefer contactless payments over cash or Chip & PIN.
But progress has been fitful and, in some cases, reversed. Even Amazon said in 2024 that it was stripping its US stores of Just Walk Out technology. One of the reasons given by the company at the time was that it believed shoppers wanted to review their receipt and savings while in the checkout line, instead of later in their Amazon app.
Meanwhile, Amazon One’s penetration in the UK has been slow. In 2024, the company said it expected it to be ‘in more than a dozen third-party stores’ by the end of the year, but many of these are in high footfall events and hospitality areas rather than supermarkets or isolated convenience stores.
So, are invisible payments still the Holy Grail for grocery?
After that initial burst of enthusiastic investment in the late 2010s and early 2020s, most of the UK’s high street retailers appear to have shifted back to more familiar checkout procedures. There are a few major reasons why.
For one, the technology doesn’t always deliver the seamless experience it promises. Customers have to load an app and scan in before they shop, and in the case of Aldi, they were even asked to pay an upfront fee before filling their trolley, to combat shoplifting (both accidental and intentional).
Then there’s decades of learned behaviour that’s difficult to break. As the UK’s The Grocer magazine has pointed out, there’s a ‘nagging unease’ among shoppers that they ‘may have been overcharged, or guilt that they may have been, in fact, undercharged’.
Just Walk Out and biometric checkout technology is also expensive and often requires stores to close for installation, presenting a significant initial outlay and lost revenue for any merchant.
That said, when it comes to biometrics, there are many environments where the technology is now already in play, including facial recognition in airports for passport control, and in enclosed ecosystems, such as school canteens, where children pay for lunch using their thumbprint.
Biometric authentication is also used to validate digital wallet payments and digital banking transactions, and this area is predicted to grow. According to Global Market Insights, the biometric payment market, valued at $8.83billion in 2023, is expected to increase by around 17.1 per cent between 2024 and 2032.
Major players including Mastercard have also been rolling out new biometric authentication services, which aim to make it easier for businesses to integrate biometric payments into their checkout process.
JP Morgan last year announced a partnership with ID verification company PopID to deploy in-store biometric payments. The implication from PopID’s data is that the platform can minimise ordering and checkout times by nearly 90 seconds per transaction. It doesn’t sound a lot, but multiply that by thousands of customers going through a major high street retailer’s checkouts in a day, and the operational benefits mount up.
Biometric technology is already used extensively in Asia, of course, with palm payments being integrated into popular services such as AliPay and WeChat Pay in China. But customer cultures across the world are very different, and, given concerns around privacy, many in the West are cautious of adopting a similar approach.
So where are some of Europe’s leading retailers now with invisible payments?
The French supermarket is one of the few in Europe actively trialling biometric payment technology. In 2024, it partnered with Ingenico to launch a version of PalmPay, linking a
customer’s hand to their payment card. It was rolled out in a single Paris store to coincide with the 2024 Olympic Games. Carrefour previously introduced pay by face to its outlets in the UAE.
The UK’s second-biggest supermarket is regarded as the country’s grocery pioneer in till-free formats, trialling its first no-pay store in 2019.
Customers were asked to scan and pay for their groceries as they moved around the London shop, using the retailer’s then-new SmartShop Scan, Pay & Go app, which they downloaded on their smartphone.
After paying in the app, they scanned a QR code before leaving the store, which reassured them that they had indeed paid. But the retailer abandoned the format three months later following poor consumer feedback.
Progress has been fitful and, in some cases, reversed
In 2021, Sainsbury’s revisited the idea, deploying SmartShop Pick & Go, which used Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology, in the same store. Earlier this year it was reported that it had again stripped the store of the system, instead reinstalling checkouts which operate alongside the grocer’s SmartShop app.
European and UK retailer Tesco’s version of Just Walk Out, which it named GetGo, is currently available at stores in London, Birmingham and Welwyn Garden City in the UK.
Using a very similar format to Amazon’s but developed with Israeli technology startup Trigo (in which the retailer is invested), GetGo requires customers to sign up in the Tesco
app and scan a QR code to enter the stores via a GetGo gate.
Technology then tracks their shopping journey using a unique skeleton outline of each shopper but not facial recognition. Tesco has adopted a ‘hybrid’ format for all but one of its GetGo stores, also allowing customers the choice of self-serve or attended checkout.
German retailer Aldi launched its first Shop & Go store with tech partner AiFi in 2022 in London, UK. It came under criticism for demanding a £10 ‘pre-authorisation’ payment before allowing shoppers in –counterintuitively adding extra friction to a process designed to be frictionless. If the purchase is less than this amount, the rest is refunded and if nothing is purchased, the full deposit is returned.
In 2023, Aldi UK & Ireland CEO Giles Hurley indicated that the experiment hadn’t been an overwhelming success, telling The Grocer that a rollout of more self-checkouts, rather than more Shop & Go stores, was seen as the ‘right next step’.
Aldi Nord, meanwhile, has trialled the Shop & Go concept based on Trigo technology in Germany and the Netherlands since 2023.
Aldi’s rival discounter in the UK, Lidl has been reported to be exploring ‘pay at trolley’ technology, having already started to install eGates at its stores. Smart trolleys tell the gate if the customer has successfully paid for their shopping, triggering them to open.
The retailer is working with technology company Wanzl which says prototypes have been developed in Germany, using a trolleymounted AI-enabled camera and a contactless payment device with an interactive screen.
Dave Glaser, from pay-by-bank platform Dwolla, believes real-time payment infrastructure in the US is more than capable of improving merchant and consumer payment experiences
For the country that gave the world PayPal, Google Wallet and Apple Pay, the US domestic payment system can seem, well, a little Jurassic to an outsider.
Payment dinosaurs, like cheques (US: checks) while not prolific, aren’t extinct either. And UK visitors are often a little unnerved when a waiter takes your plastic and disappears with it to process the payment.
That said, things are changing fast. Handheld devices are becoming more popular in diners; 28 per cent of Americans made a contactless payment instore last year (according to McKinsey); and A2A, real-time payments and open banking are accelerating in use (albeit from a very small base).
Dave Glaser, CEO of the pay-by-bank platform Dwolla, would argue that the US was kind of ahead of the curve on that last one.
“We’ve had an open banking platform for the last 50 years. It’s called the ACH (Automated Clearing House) system,” he says.
The US has two ACH operators: The Clearing House, privately owned by the major banks, and the Federal Reserve’s ACH also known as FedACH. It created an infrastructure that could, in theory, share customer data between every bank and credit union as well as third-party payments operators. The trouble was that by the time banks, merchants and consumers caught up with the idea of open banking, the system itself had become legacy.
Dwolla entered the market 15 years ago as one of the earliest champions of A2A payments. It could see a future where payments become truly frictionless through pay-by-bank and open banking solutions for merchants and businesses. Since then, the market has become a lot more crowded and the technology race a lot more
heated. In 2017, The Clearing House launched what it simply called the RTP (Real Time Payments) – a true instant payment network for its member banks.
That was joined in 2023 by FedNow from the Federal Reserve, an alternative rail for all US financial institutions to provide real-time payments and settlements for customers. More than 1,000 of them have signed up so far.
Real-time payment volumes are growing, with the RTP network surpassing one billion payments in the 18 months leading up to 2025, doubling in volume over that period. The competition posed by FedNow appears to have given it a healthy boost. Meanwhile, Visa will launch a near real-time, A2A transfer service, Visa Direct, in April 2025, promising speeds of sub-one minute for retail customers and
business users, including cross border. The credit card-dominated payments landscape of the US means users are even more likely to adopt a service from such a recognisable incumbent.
“There’s so much modernisation happening with companies that have been around for decades,” says Glaser. “They are finally upgrading and modernising their payments platforms. Merchants and businesses are leveraging RTP, FedNow and even the same-day ACH model and experimenting a lot right now.
“Our larger customers are all digitally transforming and thinking about moving processing and systems off mainframe computers, eliminating paper checks and manual processes, and taking advantage of today’s tools, like APIs and open banking.
“The opportunity is for players like Dwolla to help make that open banking system feel modern. In addition to processing payments, we’re bringing in
identity and fraud solutions to make pay-by-bank as simple as swiping a card.”
A significant difference between the open banking environment in the US and Europe is that, in the latter, changes are driven by regulatory pressure, while in America it’s been largely dictated by the market itself.
“The regulatory-driven system mandates standardised APIs and data-sharing protocols, compelling banks to participate,” says Glaser. This has typically led to faster adoption and a level playing field for third-party innovators, but Glaser points out that it can also stifle innovation if regulations are overly prescriptive, while initial costs imposed on banks are significant.
On the other hand, he says: “A market-driven approach relies on a voluntary collaboration between banks and third parties. This can foster more organic, tailored innovation, but progress is often slower and less consistent due to varying priorities and
We’re trying to create an even playing field from monopolistic or duopolistic payment methods out there, making it easier for merchants to enjoy lower costs by taking advantage of the banking systems already in place
technical standards. A market-led approach can also lead to fragmented solutions and potential security vulnerabilities if not carefully managed.”
So would open banking have arrived in the US quicker had government been driving it? Well, there are some barriers that would have presented obvious problems regardless, explains Glaser.
“The absence of a unified regulatory framework has demonstrably hindered progress,” he says. “But while a top-down approach could have fostered faster standardisation and interoperability, the complexity of the
US financial system suggests that a direct replication of other regulatory frameworks may not have been the most effective strategy.”
It’s an interesting, but largely academic question, since Dwolla works with what it’s got.
“We’re trying to create an even playing field from the monopolistic or duopolistic payment methods out there, making it easier for merchants to enjoy lower costs by taking advantage of the banking systems already in place,” says Glaser.
There are problems with that, though, that still need to be resolved. One of the biggest with A2A payment methods is a subpar customer experience.
“Cumbersome user journeys with multiple redirects and authentication steps can create friction compared to familiar card payments. Streamlining these processes is essential,” adds Glaser. But with new technologies working in tandem, he’s confident solutions can be found.
“When combined with biometrics and open banking, A2A payments have the potential to create a truly frictionless payment experience. A fingerprint or facial recognition, for example, can be integrated into the A2A flow, replacing passwords or card details, instead authorising payments with a touch or glance through the user’s banking app or a trusted third-party provider connected via open banking,” says Glaser.
If open banking does reach its full potential, then he predicts the industry will see greater competition. And for banks that are prepared to innovate and invest in APIs and supporting infrastructure, that could be good news, even if they take a hit on transaction fees in the short term.
“They also have the opportunity to leverage open banking to develop new services and deepen customer relationships,” says Glaser.
“Merchants also stand to benefit from lower transaction fees and faster settlement times, and consumers could see lower costs, greater convenience, and increased control over their financial data.
“Ultimately, fintech companies are the biggest potential beneficiaries, as open banking provides a platform for innovation and competition.”
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The car’s packed, the dog’s in boarding kennels, the kids are excited. First leg Dover, ferry to Calais, down the French autoroute and through the Mont-Blanc tunnel for the summer holiday at Lake Garda.
It’s the kind of driving trip that families have enjoyed – or endured – for decades. But how easy is it to navigate such a trans-continental journey in an electric car?
It’s a question that Andre Moeller from Volkswagen Group-owned electric mobility company Elli, asks himself when he envisions how cross-border travel should look in a vehicle that’s not powered by internal combustion.
For many private car owners, their electric car is fed by a wall charger at home most of the time. But, when big trips are needed, these drivers join the ranks of company car users who need a network that’s dependable and efficient.
“We work on all these situations and find the best solutions for the customer – we’re starting with the customer view,” says Moeller, who is Head of Payments, Risk and Fraud Management at Elli.
“We may not encounter a customer for six months because they own a house and charge the car at home. Then summer comes and they’re driving through Europe and everything needs to work.”
Elli is Europe’s biggest charging network operator with more than 750,000 charging points across 28 countries. That scale has
been built on a partner network with providers including IONITY, bp’s Aral Pulse and Audi Charging Hubs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Ewiva in Italy and Zunder ES*ZUN in southern Europe.
Customers register a payment method through the Elli app – Visa, Mastercard and PayPal are the three options – then they can interact with a charger using the app, a physical card paired to the app, or by using the car itself.
Elli launched its own pay-by-car feature, called Plug&Charge, last year. Moeller says it’s the embodiment of embedded payments.
“You drive up to the charging point, plug in the cable, and that’s it. The charging point identifies the car. That brings us to the next level,” he says. “The customer doesn’t need to use a card or a smartphone.”
We may not encounter a customer for six months because they charge the car at home. Then summer comes and they’re driving through Europe and everything needs to work
Customers aren’t completely sold on the idea of pay-by-car yet, he admits – at least, not yet. They’re happy using their app or Elli card to activate the charging process. But the Plug&Charge system, which is only currently supported by IONITY chargers in the UK, clearly reduces payment friction and starts to make use of the huge technological capabilities of the modern electric vehicle, says Moeller.
He’s no fan of innovation for innovation’s sake but he believes the feature will be seized upon by retailers as a way to upsell products that will be of benefit to drivers as they wait for their cars to charge. Drinks and food, for example, could be offered via the car’s infotainment screen as the vehicle approaches a charging stop, their order made ready for when the driver steps through the door, and then the cost is automatically added to the charging bill.
Moeller says: “We have a sister company, Electrify America in the US, and as well as building a charging network, they’re building halls where you can go to wait as the car charges. It’s a co-working space where you can have a coffee and there’s a playground for the kids, too. This is prime time [for a retailer] because the quickest charge a driver is going to make is 10 minutes.”
Elli Charge&Fuel is another embedded product that manages payment processing of fleet-related services, including company vehicle charging, traditional fuelling, and car washing across Europe. It also covers public transport and electric bicycle/scooter hire in cities.
Elli has now begun to white-label these embedded products, starting last year with car rental giant SIXT, which runs an app using the German firm’s rails.
“We set up a partnership with SIXT because they have opportunities such as recurring car payments from vehicle subscriptions, the classic car hire business and scooters,” says Moeller.
“They were looking for a charging partner so we built a product related to their customers, who can now charge their cars over the SIXT app, which they couldn’t before. That for me is the future we need – more collaborations. We use the customer data together and bring something positive for the customer.”
Ron Delnevo, Chair of the Payment Choice Alliance, asks if the UK has the capacity – or desire to provide the necessary capacity – to make sure payments are made on time, every time
One of the biggest bugbears – for merchants and the public – is the failure of payment services providers to provide sufficient capacity to ensure their systems are genuinely reliable.
Of course, failure to provide sufficient capacity is not limited to financial services. I used to work for the British Airports Authority (BAA) in the late 1970s. The planning department at the BAA was brilliant. Their forecasts of future passenger traffic through UK airports were always accurate – even those looking 20 or more years ahead.
The figures they produced foresaw exactly how busy Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and other airports would be on a particular day. There was plenty of time to prepare, to build the runways and terminals to provide the required capacity.
But it never really happened – and was particularly lacking around London – leading directly to the shambles we are in today,
desperately trying to make up for the failures of the past.
Similarly, when Margaret Thatcher decided it was appropriate to sell off the UK’s water, it was because she knew that the cost of meeting water supply and sewage capacity requirements would be very high – and the then Prime Minister didn’t want that cost to be included in government expenditure.
More than 30 years later, with neither the government nor the privatised water industry having provided the required capacity, the UK public sees its water supply under threat and, even, worse, untreated sewage regularly released into rivers.
In the early noughties, I was constantly asking banks to improve the services they
provided, particularly via ATMS. Their answer was ‘it can’t be done – insufficient computer capacity’.
Despite the fact that UK banks were doing very nicely in this period, the investment to upgrade/replace legacy computer systems had not been made and any new functionality would require a lead time of two years or more.
This was around 15 years after the World Wide Web was invented in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee and at least five years after NatWest had launched the UK’s first full-service internet banking in 1997. Inadequate investment in capacity = restricted innovation.
It would be possible to quote numerous other historic examples of such capacity failings – the London peripheral carpark, otherwise known as the M25, stands out. But I digress. Let’s return to today’s payment system capacity issues.
According to a UK Treasury Committee report in March 2025, nine of the country’s top banks and building societies wracked up the equivalent of more than 33 days of unplanned tech and systems outages over the previous two years.
At least 158 banking IT failure incidents affected millions of customers’ ability to access and use services between January 2023 and February 2025, the report said. And that didn’t include the most recent ‘payday outages’ affecting several high street banks, causing panic and distress to those living paycheque to paycheque in particular.
Barclays’ most recent outage, which lasted for several days, saw 56 per cent of online payments fail due to ‘severe degradation’ of its mainframe processing performance. It’s landed the bank with a compensation bill of between £5million and £7.5million.
In 2024, almost every month brought similar issues, most frequently at the end of months, when the number of transactions needing to be processed is at a peak.
The impact is exacerbated because customers are unable to actually talk to anyone about the problems they are facing. How often do we – the customers – find ourselves sitting in financial service telephone queuing systems (because, of course, there are no bank branches for us to visit any more), which repeatedly and automatically inform us that the service is experiencing exceptional usage at that moment and that it may be better to call back later.
Can anyone perhaps explain how something can be ‘exceptional’ if it happens every month? Could the harsh reality be that few companies provide sufficient capacity on telephone complaints lines because they really do not want to hear their customers' complaints? Is that cynical of me? No.
It’s just a realistic view of what we all face today – a lack of capacity
Can anyone explain how something can be ‘exceptional’ if it happens every month?
in ways that impact almost every aspect of our daily lives.
None of this is going away. In fact, it is going to get worse. Why? Because implementing AI is forecast to require vast new computer capacity in the UK – which means more power. The quality of payments and other digital services enjoyed by both merchants and the British public is likely to depend on how much fully-powered AI is delivered in the next five years.
Matt Clifford, an advisor to the UK government, has asked for
a 20-fold increase in the UK’s sovereign computer capacity by 2030, simply to provide envisaged AI-facilitated public services. This is over and above privately owned AI data centres, which in the UK alone were apparently attracting promises of investment of £200million per day in January 2025.
How much additional power will all these AI data centres require? A lot.
Which explains why the likes of Amazon, Apple (Pay) and Microsoft are said to be planning massive investment in nuclear energy over the next five years, plans which include small modular reactors (SMRs), which are not as yet even available on a commercial scale.
Sir Keir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister, has seized on what he clearly believes to be a major opportunity. He has proposed an ambitious initiative to increase the development of nuclear power stations in the United Kingdom, emphasising the construction of SMRs.
I am not a NIMBY – BUT I do think some realism is required in relation to SMRs.
Remember the problem with providing increased airport capacity, notably near the UK’s capital? Essentially, nobody wanted a bigger and busier airport in their ‘back yard’ when the issue was first raised more than 50 years ago – nor did they want sites to interfere with the surrounding flora and fauna.
So, Maplin Sands was a non-starter and Boris Johnson’s artificial island in the Thames sunk without trace.
Are people likely to be any more enthusiastic about local SMRs? Sir Keir does admit planning regulations will need to change – and planning inquiries truncated – if nuclear power is to be brought to a community near you or anybody by 2030.
My educated guess is that we will arrive in 2030 wondering why AI capacity is lacking – and trying to remember what the acronym SMR means.
Meanwhile, banks will continue to struggle to meet their SLAs – an acronym we will all sadly be very familiar with by then: the service level agreement that a bank has with a customer, which means they have a duty to make sure we can get paid!
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As Virgin Media O2 transforms from a telco to a techco, customers are benefitting from easier ways to pay their monthly bills
They provide the devices and services that keep us all connected – those portable life-orchestration machines that sit in the palms of our hands.
Telcos – telecommunication companies – are no longer an industry. Governments recognise what they provide as an essential utility, up there with water and energy, so dependent have we become on our mobile phones.
Since Vodafone first turned a basic device into a mobile wallet with Kenya’s groundbreaking M-PESA money service (now operated by Safaricom), telcos have been intimately linked with the payments ecosystem.
UK telecoms giant Virgin Media O2 (VMO) has now claimed a slightly more modest but nevertheless significant first.
It’s figured out how to enable customers to cover recurring bills for everything from handhelds to broadband and streaming services via their mobile wallets, something no other provider has been able to do.
Since 2024, new customers signing up for VMO broadband, landline or TV have been able to check the option to settle their future monthly payments via Apple Pay or Google Pay, secured through the wallets’ built-in biometric authorisation. This year, that payment choice will also be extended to existing customers.
Pay-by-wallet will run alongside an open banking option for those who want to continue to pay by direct debit. That allows them to biometrically authorise arrangements at the touch of a button via their
online banking apps without entering their sort code and account numbers. VMO promises to cross more digital payment boundaries soon.
Abraham Georgakarakos, VMO’s VP of Digital and E-commerce, says it’s spanning telecommunications and payments innovation.
“It’s not our role to compete with banks or fintechs, it all comes down to how we can make our customers’ lives easier by providing them with more products and services,” he says. “Whether you’re coming at it from the telco world, the bank world or the fintech world, the question is, how can we bring all these services together to offer customers a range of options?”
VMO says its goal is better transparency of its billing processes, as customers demand clearer information about telecoms’ charges and services pre- and post-purchase. And it just makes keeping track of your expenditure a lot simpler. Customers can now pay for their broadband, TV or landline contract in the same way they’d buy a cup of coffee or order clothes online. That’s not something you’d normally associate with a utility company.
It’s also bundling sought-after perks and smart security options, delivered through collaboration with banks and fintechs. “Every single day we’re looking at how we can enhance customer experience,” says Georgakarakos.
Since 2006, VMO has pursued its long-term payments and data vision in partnership with ebpSource, which delivers digital infrastructure and has a long track record of working with utility providers, government, financial services and payment processors with special focus on e-billing and e-payments.
Now in the middle of a mass migration to Google Cloud, impacting all aspects of the business, VMO says it’s in the process of ‘creating a data architecture capable of transforming the organisation from a traditional telecommunications business, to the 21st Century technology company its customers are demanding’.
So, with the lines between tech, telecoms and fintech becoming increasingly blurred, VMO is at the helm of major industry change – driven by consumers’ desire for instant media and frictionless means of paying for it.
“Looking at the future, we’re living in a world of connected or embedded finance where, not just in telecoms but across the board, we’re going to see a fusion of financial services into non-financial services, with more layers of options,” says Georgakarakos.
He believes open banking – and the UK’s open banking infrastructure in particular – is an important component in that.
“The UK is one of the countries leading the way in terms of adoption,” he says. “People are using it for everything from paying tax to paying individuals. Next, this will enable the increasing fusion of financial services with non-financial services like telcos, where, right now, we have an overabundance of financial services operating as micro businesses.
“The use and understanding of data this provides on consumers’ affordability and spending patterns, will also foster greater understanding of their needs and help them to optimise their money.”
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