What are the best practices in creating an omnichannel payments infrastructure that is secure, modern, and flexible to the current customers’ need of today and tomorrow?
Omnichannel allows the customer journey to take place along any combination of digital and physical touchpoints. This requires payment and data to flow across multiple channels, solution providers, and endpoints.
"If, nowadays, you still need to highlight security as part of your proposition, you’re behind the curve. It is not a USP, it is given. Security is a foundation stone of any modern platform in fintech."
The second important thing, if you go cloud-first, is APIs. Modern platforms also need to have much easier integration points.
Nowadays, everybody is talking about APIs. The card-present world that AEVI operates in is behind the ecommerce space. Ecom was always API-driven, but now parties like AEVI are simplifying the face-to-face payments world, and simplifying face-to-face platforms with APIs. This is for onboarding, reporting, and data exchange capabilities. AEVI´s suite of API-driven solutions allows for all partners in the ecosystem to seamlessly integrate with the platform and each other.
How can local payments be tackled by global payments providers?
Global payments parties always had to dive into the country, into the domestic scheme, from the device, the certification, the scheme and to end connectors.
The digital landscape is breaking down barriers between regions, opening up a global market and global customer base.
However, this requires multiple partnerships. There`s no way one party can do it all. You need partners tying that together on one simple platform.
How can merchants reduce costs and complexities that come with multiple providers’ collaboration?
Many merchants still rely on legacy POS terminals. If you look at classic POS terminals or at major merchants, such as global grocery retailers, everything is integrated into that one payment device. Making changes would require enormous investments.
With smart POS, we can take all the functionalities apart in separate apps and help you take your business to another level, with one device that works everywhere.
Merchants are increasingly turning to smart POS devices due to the variety of benefits these products offer. AEVI empowers merchant solution providers to move and manage their classic payments proposition into the new, value-added world of payments and smart devices.
In a nutshell, all business functions can become apps. So, when you make a change, you only need to change an app and not necessarily the whole environment. Thus, the time to market for new solutions in the merchant space is much, much quicker.
How can merchants and payment companies navigate the complexity of global payments?
The payments space is all about more and more parties getting involved to make the perfect checkout experience where payments is almost hidden. It's part of it. It's fluid. It's seamless.
We provide a single set of APIs whether it's the merchants, the acquirers, or the banks.
We stand for openness and partnerships. We can no longer afford for all the parties in the payment chain to have to integrate with each other; they all need to integrate to one point, one platform like AEVI, that takes care of orchestration and integration in the background.
What role can real-time payments play in the payments modernisation journey?
It's a rather difficult question. Real-time payments would be something our customers would deal more than AEVI themselves. What we do is already real-time.
Real-time payments mean immediate funds availability, settlement finality, instant confirmation, all in a payment made in seconds.
However, I believe that better communication is the key factor when it comes to real-time payments.
Usually a face-to-face payment is one way, so it goes from the customer or cardholder. But when it's instant, the other party, the banks, can also directly communicate back.
That brings a whole new range of possibilities for what you can do at the checkout and how you could start to interact with the customer while they're still there. Thus, I think that that is going to modernize the checkout experience because you get that two-way communication.
What are the acceptance environments and technological platforms for in-store and online card acceptance?
AEVI integrates the online part with other parties. But for the in-store, our focus is smart POS.
Merchants now need new solutions to keep pace with ever-changing consumer demands. Smart POS terminals can come packed with apps and services that enable merchants to increase productivity and become more profitable.
"Payments are expected to be quick, easy, and everywhere, and more and more devices to become part of the IoT payments"
In a post-pandemic retail environment, we recognise that the need for omnichannel solutions is greater than ever before. Merchants face a wealth of challenges as customers expect personalised experiences at the POS, and the virtual and physical worlds come together.
We need to better understand the needs of the customer, addressing their pain points, powering innovation, and bridging the online and offline retail worlds. Through smartPOS.
We bring payments straight to where the customer is, across multiple touchpoints in-store and online.
About Mike Camerling
About AEVI
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