This piece was dropped in The Record and highlights a white paper that Microsoft released at the recently completed Sibos 2020 virtual event. As readers and members will know, Mercator Advisory Group closely follow the real-time and generally faster payments space pretty closely, including a recent pre-pandemic member report that summarizes progress through qualitative discussions with early adopters.
There is no doubt that real-time is a desired capability, which will become increasingly evident to banks that do not have a solution. However, many institutions don’t know how to describe the value proposition (or sell it internally). This paper provides some further insight on how to describe benefits of RTP.
‘“RTP is a big win for customers,” said Microsoft. “It enables a more frictionless banking experience with fewer holds, moving payments with the same quick gratification that customers have come to expect from other modern services, such as instant messaging, video streaming, and one-hour delivery.…“But RTP may be an even bigger win for banks. That’s because once you’ve modernised your core infrastructure to handle RTP – even partially – you start to unlock a whole new world of potential products and revenue streams.” ‘
Mercator recently conducted a webinar on this very subject with regards to U.S. adoption progress, and, in some sense, there are institutions that will simply take a bet since it moves them in the direction of modernization. Momentum has picked up tremendously since the pandemic hit, since digitalization has blasted through inertia across various industries and demand for faster and better methods has jumped the priority queue.
This was a main theme across the various sessions we attended at the Sibos event. Benefits are not all clear bottom line winners, but the value can be described outside of dollar signs.
‘“Banks don’t need to move everything to the cloud at once,” said Microsoft. “Modern cloud technology can begin to collect siloed solutions into a central point, logging quick wins and starting a cloud adoption process that can get you to RTP on your schedule.” ‘
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group