This article from TechRadar understates how rapidly payments are moving to the cloud and the role of data in driving that transition. It also incorrectly positions Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon as key payment suppliers driving the transition.
Each one of these tech companies has a key role to play in payments but primarily around infrastructure. When it comes to making payments broadly available and invisible, the key players are cloud based payment platforms, like i2c, Galileo, Marqeta and others who can only function because of almost invisible, innovative banks that are the regulated entities.
So these cloud-based payment providers help merchant service providers figure out how to utilize data to automate service delivery in a fashion that increasingly makes payments invisible. As more data becomes available from more devices through IoT, more and more payment transactions will become totally automated because people can’t deal with that much data; our machines will increasingly make decisions on our behalf.
Here’s more from the TechRadar article:
“A typical city dweller might now travel to work in an Uber, buy a coffee using the Starbucks app, use Apple Pay to buy lunch and after-work drinks and then prepare a meal with ingredients delivered through a subscription service. Their payment card never needs to leave their pocket for credit card processing.
These ‘frictionless’ experiences are what consumers of most ages and economic groups have come expect, and they’re becoming a key differentiator for those brands that have been able to move with the times and offer seamless digital payment.
Clouds on the horizon
The ongoing evolution in payment technology is big business, and the major tech players – Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon – are starting to push the traditional banks out of the process. For any consumer-facing business wishing to offer customers a more seamless purchase experience, there’s a good chance one or more of these entities will actually be the ones delivering it.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
