The trends in the payment domain require a new and adapted business model. With the right choices, this has benefits for all parties involved: you, your customers, and the banks. The result: quality (process control) increases, costs decrease, and risks are better manageable.
#1 Standardization
Through standardization in both formats (ISO20022), instruments (SEPA), and bank connectivity (SWIFT, EBICS), boundaries blur and it becomes increasingly easier to centrally organize payment traffic regardless of which banks and countries are involved. This leads to cost reduction.
#2 Digitalization
Where processes in the past were linked to paper documents, more and more solutions are emerging on the market to digitize these paper processes. Examples of this “drive-to-digital” include electronic signatures, eID, electronic mandates, electronic ways of opening/changing/closing bank accounts (eBAM), and OCR applications to digitize information on paper for follow-up processes (e.g. invoices, letters, etc.).
#3 Self-service
Companies are increasingly trying to get their customers behind the wheel via self-service portals. For example, insurers and utility companies offer the possibility to choose the collection moment themselves, skip the direct debit for a month, or encourage customers to enter changes in data (address, bank account, etc.) directly online.
#4 Greater role for supervisors
Whether it concerns banks, insurers, payment service providers, corporates or parties that provide general facilities, all of them are faced with an increasing importance of “supervisors” and related laws and regulations. Measures to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing and the requirements to report information about, for example, American relations (FATCA) require an adjustment of the process and system setup. It is essential that the process setup is organized in such a way that it is fully auditable and equipped with the right controls on the right risks.
#5 Straight-Through-Processing
The attention to setting up processes in such a way that failures are limited and controls are set up “risk-based” to only get those exceptions that are worth picking up makes that the capacity is used much more effectively. Automating a large part of the necessary controls on a payment order ensures that the time that still needs to be spent on these payments can be considerably reduced. The trend towards more and more STP processes is reinforced by methodologies such as Lean/Six Sigma, which puts the customer value of each process step at the center via a different view of processes.
#6 Improved accessibility of banks
Lastly, we see an important trend that more and more banks are making it possible to organize initiation of payment orders and receipt of bank statements, outside the specific Electronic Banking channel, electronically via direct (SWIFT, EBICS, FTP) connections. The changes regarding the Access-to-the-Account in the new European legislation in the Payments Service Directive II confirm this development.
Questions?
Do you have any questions about any of the above trends? Our payment experts are happy to help out, so feel free to contact us.
About Projective Group
Established in 2006, Projective Group is a leading Financial Services change specialist. With deep expertise across practices in Data, Payments, Transformation and Risk & Compliance.
We are recognised within the industry as a complete solutions provider, partnering with clients in Financial Services to provide resolutions that are both holistic and pragmatic. We have evolved to become a trusted partner for companies that want to thrive and prosper in an ever-changing Financial Services landscape.