PYMNTS Podcasts

To meet the growing demand for the functionality of open banking, financial institutions are having to balance security with customer experience. Simon Armstrong, VP of products at Entersekt, says a consistent authentication experience will create consumer trust and drive the adoption of open banking.

In this episode, Mzukisi Rusi, VP Customer Success at Entersek, speaks on The Evolving Concept of “Trust” in Banking and Payments.

When accessing their digital financial accounts, customers want to have a choice of channels and devices to use. They also want to have a great user experience (UX), whether via a desktop website, app or mobile browser.“That flexibility is really important, allowing choice for the consumers, what works for them — and it may be different on any given day,” Lindsay Dutton, Chief of Staff at Entersekt, told PYMNTS.

Having watched FinTechs successfully launch BNPL products and services, i2C's Ava Kelly said that banks are getting ready to enter the BNPL space in a big way. They may not be first, she said, but they will leverage key strategic advantages, like scale, deep pockets, trust and data analytics.

Andries Maritz, product manager at Entersekt, told PYMNTS in a recent podcast that traditional authentication methods must give way to risk-based authentication that learns legitimate consumer behaviors as eCommerce continues to gain ground.

With no end to the pandemic insight, companies are seeking new ways to inspire employees. Richard Bailey, executive VP of engineering at Entersekt, says it's important to lead with empathy and create substitutes for watercooler conversations for remote workforces.

The competitive landscape is heating up for credit unions, but Tiffany Doty, senior VP of client relationships at CO-OP Financial Services, tells PYMNTS that leveraging members' trust and data analytics are key to crafting competitive digital road maps that will serve members through the pandemic and beyond.

Streamlining and simplifying the checkout experience online and off is an industrywide obsession. From its unique vantage, PayPal has the data and the scale to know which levers and dials to adjust to ensure more completed purchases, as Senior VP and General Manager of Venmo and Head of Checkout at PayPal Darrell Esch discussed with PYMNTS' Karen Webster.

The real world needs policing, and so will the metaverse as it starts to take shape. The opportunity for money laundering and cybertheft will be as limitless as the virtual worlds within it. And as the metaverse takes shape, protecting customers and businesses will require rigorous security and enforcement protocols, Trulioo Chief Technology Officer Hal Lonas told PYMNTS' Karen Webster.

In October 2022 the payments industry sunsets the 3D Secure (3DS) protocol from the early 2000s, bidding farewell to passwords forever and ushering in a new authentication flow tailor-made for transacting in the connected economy, as Entersekt Product Manager, Payments Jonathan Van der Merwe explained in a recent conversation with PYMNTS.

Credit unions are expanding their digital services while continuing to offer omnichannel support. Bruce Dragt of CO-OP Financial Services says that by “credit unionizing” the services, credit unions can win back members who may have strayed to other financial service providers.

Amid the great digital shift, everyone's competing against Amazon. Brandon Gell, CEO and co-founder of Clyde, said for smaller firms, speed is of the essence, and refining the tech stack and linking with platforms can level the playing field. 

With fewer first-time users signing up for new subscriptions, customer retention is more important than ever. Darryl Hicks of FlexPay takes PYMNTS under the hood for a look at why payment authorization management (PAM) is the single-biggest lever subscription businesses can deploy.

With all the attention paid to consumer-facing aspects of the connected economy, unseen software developers are the ones responsible for actually making it work. In turn, their labor is being enabled by a growing assortment of data flows and best practices, as we learn in a conversation with PayPal Senior Director, Developer Experiences, Mudita Tiwari.

As credit unions strive to transform themselves for a digital-first world, CO-OP Chief Operating Officer Nick Calcanes discusses the need to adopt a human-centric approach that's focused on solving members' problems, using people who care about fixing those problems.

With millions of consumers using BNPL in-store and online, Zahir Khoja, general manager of North America for Afterpay, told PYMNTS that the fadt-growing financing option gives merchants new tools to connect with and understand their customers.

Passwords are broken – hard to manage and no help at all when it comes to protecting consumers. Praveksha Maharaj, product manager, digital banking at global fintech Entersekt told PYMNTS its time to retire this anachronism, in favor or new standards for passwordlesss authentication.

B2B payments are moving away from paper checks and invoices and toward a B2C-like experience, complete with platforms and virtual cards. Lu (Fausha) Chen, senior strategy manager at FIS' Worldpay, tells PYMNTS why B2B will see significant transformation within the next few years.

Many buyers are still paying suppliers with paper checks, though payments are becoming increasingly digitized. Tim Stahl, senior vice president at Versapay, tells PYMNTS that platforms and automation can streamline the reconciliation process, helping to gain visibility into everything from deposits to chasing down invoices to end-of-day cash positions.

Here's a twist on the conventional fraud conversation: It's not the payments that consumers make that put merchants at risk of the fraudsters, Nathan Wu-Falkenborg, vice president global strategy and analytics at i2c, told PYMNTS. It's not using advanced technologies that can help stop account takeovers, that puts them at risk.

We're still in the early earnings of merchants' crafting truly omnichannel experiences. Jim Magats, SVP, omni payments at PayPal, tells Karen Webster while all firms must strive to meet consumers across “four domains” of interaction, the challenge is especially acute for smaller merchants.

Synthetic ID fraud is on the rise. Paramita Bhattacharjee, VP, product line leader for risk insights at Early Warning, tells PYMNTS that one of the most basic building blocks of identity – the Social Security number – can be used as part of a successful defense against fraudsters, helping FIs make sure they are doing business with legitimate customers.

‘Click to Pay' was aimed at streamlining the checkout experience while boosting security in 2019. Mehdi Elhaoussine, senior vice president of strategy at IDEMIA and Ashish Bhatia, head of SRC products at Discover Global Network, told PYMNTS the tech is finally approaching critical mass — though further education of stakeholders is needed.

The increased ability to make payments quickly has opened a world of opportunities, but it has also brought with it a heightened risk of fraud. In an interview with PYMNTS, Gerhard Oosthuizen, CTO of South African FinTech Entersekt, said a future with fewer passwords and more consumer involvement in protecting their own information is the key to greater security.

As credit unions compete with digital upstarts and try to keep as much of their customer relationships intact, Todd Clark, president and CEO of CO-OP Financial Services told Karen Webster in a podcsat the successful digital path forward is probably not what you think.

Afterpay Global Head of SMB Melinda Roylett talks about how BNPL benefits small businesses during the pandemic by driving more traffic. It's playing a key role in their resilience strategies, she claims.