Following a successful first day at PayExpo 2015, the Payment Eye team returned to London’s ExCeL centre for more interviews, debates and discussions on the direction in which the payments industry is heading.
To kick off day two, we sat down with Mike Laven, CEO of Currency Cloud, who explained how developing countries are revolutionising the way they pay for goods and services, as well as outlining the biggest security concerns within the payments industry.
With many contrasting opinions on the future of the payments industry, Mike described a scenario in which many forms of payment – cash, cards, NFC and even biometric technology, can all operate successfully within the same space.
Next up, we spoke to Daniel Spier, managing director of IDT Finance, a group that specialises in European prepaid financial services. He addressed concerns regarding regulation changes and the questions of whether cards have a future within the payments industry.
We then ventured into the Mobile Money Europe tent, where Jens Munch, CEO of mobile payment developer iZettle, discussed the future of in app payments. Jens also showcased iZettle’s new contactless payment service, a product that will go head-to-head with Apple Pay as they now set to enter the UK market.
After lunch we caught up with Christoph Tutsch, managing director of Onpex, a cloud-based payment solution firm that combines card processing and alternative payments. He explained to us the importance of cloud technology and why he thinks Munich is an ideal location for the FinTech industry (personally though, given the buzz at ExCeL today, we think the smart money’s on London).
Then the bell was rung, the competitors entered the ring a the gloves came off for the final rounds of the PayExpo Payments Punch Up.
Robert Courtneidge, head of cards and payments at Locke Lorde went up against Suresh Vaghjiani of Global Processing Services (GPS). They debated whether big banks are in danger of losing a significant share of the payments industry. After 12 gruesome rounds, Vaghjiani was declared the winner.
After the big fight, we then sat down with Abraham Wim, director of services at Vasco, a mobile security and fraud prevention company. Abraham talked about the importance of adding extra security to the payments industry, while at the same time improving the overall customer experience.
Last, but by certainly no means least was Glen Richardson, CMO of Fruugo, an e-commerce platform that challenges the likes of eBay and Amazon. Glen told us why online shopping can actually improve the physical retail industry; as well revealing what he thinks is the ‘next big thing’ in biometric technology.
To cap off what has been an exciting and enlightening PayExpo, the winners of Payments Dragon’s Den 2015 were announced at the Future of Payments zone. This year’s winner was xWare 42, a mobile payments software developer whose xPay service allows banks to give customers additional information about their purchases. Ramsus Goth, founder of veridu.com and winner of last year’s Payments Dragons Den made the announcement.
It has been a fantastic couple of days here at PayExpo 2015. To find out more about the event, keep your eyes peeled for our video interviews that will be coming soon. Also, check out our Twitter account @PaymentEye for more from the show, including more pictures of our interviewees.
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