Musings from the airplane

I am not writing this literally on the plane, but I might well be - this is a conference season, so many of us are on the road. My colleagues have already been blogging from SIBOS, Finovate, Finnosummit and other events. I wanted to share my own observations from the events I attended. EMV, tokenisation, mobile, Blockchain - these were just a few major themes discussed in depth in Las Vegas at PayThink. This used to be known as ATM, Debit and Prepaid Forum and remains THE event to go to discuss these topics in the United States. It is organised by PaymentsSource and chaired (for the last 12 years!) by Tony Hayes, my colleague and Partner at Oliver Wyman. Thank you to the organisers for inviting me to moderate a panel on lessons learned from cards platform transformations, and many thanks to my panelists - senior executives from FIS and e-Global for sharing their insights. We talked about the drivers forcing processors and issuers to upgrade their processing platforms, such as growing transaction volumes and types, need for flexibility and speed when adding new products, and how the processing proposition changes. Processors are now moving away from out-of-the box to componentised solutions, are changing how they package and price their services, and are re-thinking the business terms how to engage with clients. When working with software vendors, our panelists stressed the importance of "soft aspects". Of course, the technology matters and must meet the requirements to get you on the short list. However, often it will be your people that will win or lose you the deal - flexibility and commitment they demonstrate during proof of concept and other advanced stage interactions are often major factors when clients make a final decision. Last week I was in Lithuania, the country I grew up in and left over 20 years ago... I go back every year, but this was the first time I went there as an analyst. The Central Banks of Lithuania and Sweden jointly organised a conference on the role of Non-Banks in the Payments Market. I was kindly invited to join the panel to discuss "what's in the future." As our clients know, our view at Celent is that the disruption in banking is real and that, as a result, banking will change, however, banks will not disappear. Of course, some of them will, but others will adapt, and some of the today's non-banks will become banks. The challenge for all is how best to manage that tension and the ongoing evolution of the industry. In between travels, I also published a new report on tokenisation, a hot topic in the industry at the moment. The speed of tokenisation evolution in the last 12-18 months has been remarkable, and there are no signs of slowing down. Celent clients can access the report here. Finally, it's not long before we board the plane to go back to Vegas to Money 2020. The meteoric rise of this event has been absolutely amazing - fours years ago there were about 1,200 of us; this year, the organisers expect 10,000! My colleague Dan Latimore and I will again be there as well. My diary is already full, but if you are a client and would like to say hello, do reach out to your account managers and we'll do our best to meet up. With everything going digital, the physical handshake remains as important as ever! Safe travels!