The richly layered payments ecosystem is mostly invisible to the consumers and merchants who use it every day. In contrast, simplifying payments has been a complicated endeavor for technology companies, financial institutions and service providers. This three-part series has chronicled the journey from payment acceptance to commerce enablement, recognizing important milestones along the way.
Part 1 recalled the initial leap into electronic transactions. Part 2 followed subsequent developments in mobile payments and ecommerce. Part 3 goes behind the scenes to speak with innovative designers and developers who are nurturing tomorrow’s technologies.
Developing story
Electronic transactions have played a pivotal role in the global migration from analog to digital technologies, experts say. As payment technologies evolve, previously defining characteristics, such as authorization and settlement, can become apps running in the background. And as they master language and cognitive skills, solutions move from basic tasks to interactive communications.
“Technologies that simplify payments offer merchants a single point of command-and-control where they can oversee transaction processes,” said Vlad Branin, Vice President, Professional Services at Zooz Inc., a global technology company. “This gives them the ability to act in real time to rescue and optimize transactions. They can establish rules to govern each payment’s route without manual intervention, reducing declines, downtime, and false positives, and ultimately increasing revenues and acceptance rates globally…”
