Innovative digital payment strategies are critical for success in today’s competitive financial market. Regulation is stirring up the sector creating both competition and collaboration. Head of fintech at Visa, Smriti Vicari and Pavle Ljujic, co-founder of b.yond, speak to Briony Richter about how b.yond will drive innovation.
Digital payments innovation comes in many guises; of course technology, but also innovation in security and innovation in brand marketing. The payments industry is currently experiencing considerable transformation and it’s all driven by a demand for innovation.
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Fintech is a booming market with new and ambitious players coming to the stage showcasing their new services and products. Digitalisation in the payments sector will significantly change the industry.
Payments companies have the opportunity to improve efficiency and embrace the competitiveness of the market that surrounds them.
Speaking to CI, Vicari states: “I have worked at Visa in Europe for eight years and across a variety of different roles. I now look after the fintech category for Europe. For us it’s a relatively new client category. It’s a constantly evolving and cutting edge.”
Adding, Ljujic says: “When it comes to b.yond I wear two hats; one as a co-founder of the b.yond initiative and second as representative of the Pannovate, a consortium member. What differentiates b.yond from other market propositions is that it is truly innovation-led driven from the major leading companies that are required to launch a live payment programme to market.
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By GlobalData“It provides an opportunity for businesses, Fintechs and digital banks to launch a real live whitelabel Proof-of-Concept (POC) to market within less than 8 weeks, whilst being able to monitor its performance.
“This also enables b.yond clients to access and test the latest services and features from the consortium often not available yet on the market.”
b.yond is a financial innovation platform. It will allow banks and businesses with a consumer focus to rapidly deploy a range of innovative fintech payment services.
The service and innovation of financial organisations is becoming more important to consumers than ever before. They rightly demand quick, secure and tailored services.
Through only one contract from b.yond, start-ups and other businesses will have several elements available to them that are necessary for the launch of a solution for payments.
Joining up with platform, businesses will have everything required to launch a payments solution.
The contract will include:
- On-boarding;
- KYC (Know Your Customer);
- P2P transfers;
- Card control;
- Agency Banking;
- Visualisation of statements/spending and alert notification;
- Saving pots, and
- Tokenisation, and more to follow shortly.
The b.yond platform
The launch of b.yond is a step towards enabling clients to gain access to the payments capabilities that lie within Visa’s global network.
Using the solutions, businesses can work strategically on their ideas with all the tools necessary for a successful launch.
The companies involved all understand the need for innovation within the financial industry and together b.yond will create a new level of speed and efficiency for the businesses using it.
It’s clear that there isn’t enough collaboration across the industry and that is just what b.yond is going to change.
“The buzzword in the industry tends to frequently be around the need for ‘collaboration’, but it is too often seen that this unfortunately remains just that, talk. When they do actually end up collaborating, it seems to stem out of a necessity to stay in the race rather than a wish to actually create something better,” Ljujic says.
“b.yond’s approach is slightly different, every consortium member has their own expertise and point of view of the market and where the trends are heading. This creates a more realistic 3600 view into what is required and how we can ‘together’ best deliver it. We realised this when we were building the initial foundations for b.yond, understanding and discovering what the pain points were and challenges faced across the consortium’s various sectors and how we could overcome them, as a group and with one white label value proposition.”
Speaking about Visa and the journey towards b.yond, Vicari adds: “We really shifted in our thinking over the past five years, looking at our role in the industry and what’s the most valuable use of our network. We went from wanting to build everything ourselves to adding more value by being an enabler to the ecosystem. We decided to open our network to a number of players to allow them to innovate.”
Continuing, she notes: “That’s the rationale behind b.yond; how can we be an enabler? We partnered with consortium of seven different companies that all brought their best in-class capabilities to create a seamless fintech competition. So if you are a brand new start up and you want to launch a card business you go onto the b.yond website and you will see a very slick and simple interface. There are eight companies behind that interface all bringing something unique.”
b.yond goal
The b.yond platform is mostly targeted at early stage start-ups. However, there has been interest from large retailers so there is a great menu of options for all players to test.
With the pace of development in the fintech, it’s not surprising that companies are starting to see the benefit of collaborating to facilitate new technologies that are improving consumer lives.
Users will be able to deliver whole new payments solutions in as little as eight weeks. The testing phase allows businesses to see what their solution can do and where it needs improved. This means that once it has rolled out, it should get positive feedback from consumers.
Even better, b.yond streamlines it processes, eliminating complexity and reducing the number of stakeholders involved in the process.
Speaking about the partnership Vicari says, “It wasn’t too difficult to pick those companies. We had a partnership with GPS and have been working with them on several partnerships. We decided to sit down and brainstorm and there was a lot of chemistry with the companies. At the end of the day when it comes to developing new propositions, it’s the people that you work with.”
Ljujic adds: “In a nutshell, b.yond has been created to support and drive fintech innovation by giving businesses the possibility to launch a live programme with speed. The ultimate goal is to deliver the best ‘banking’ experience from a B2B and B2C perspective.
“As we know it goals are always a moving target. Our industry is ever-changing, so it’s clear than in five years, once we have created the ‘best’ banking experience, we might turn our sights to something else.”
b.yond also aims to combine the fintech business model with traditional banking infrastructures to allow for growth. The fintech model looks more closely at what individual customers are feeling and saying. They create solutions to solve real consumer problems and due to their flexibility, they can get products to the market much quicker.
“There’s no perfect solution but banks are held down by old legacy systems, however legacy banks have tremendous amount of scale and resilience,” Vicari notes. “Part of our strategy is to pair fintech capabilities with traditional banks and demonstrate that the best opportunity for them is to partner together.”
At Money 20/20, Visa also announced its partnership with Currencycloud. Their platform has the ability to put real-time APIs on FX rates. Vicari explains that Visa wanted to work with them to enable traditional banks to launch travel propositions for their customers.
Visa and its partnering businesses all bring unique skills to the playing field to help fintechs grow.
“At the very beginning there is a lot of education. They are trying to solve a problem but don’t know enough about cards or payments. If they don’t have support that can be a huge road bump,” Vicari says.
“We have tried to streamline our processes to be able to do things quickly for example getting fintechs licensed and out to market very quickly.”
Growing partnerships
Not too long ago the prevailing mindset across the banking industry was that fintechs would disrupt and displace incumbent banks.
That view has evolved and now banks see the benefit of partnering with a fintech; if it’s the right fintech.
Collaboration in the financial industry is critical for innovation. Both banks and fintechs can deliver reliable and secure banking solutions to consumers. However, it’s now about going that extra mile.
Asked whether the financial industry is engaging in enough partnerships, Ljujic states: “Yes and no. I think there is a lot of engagement, but I’m not sure if it’s the right type of engagement. Some are doing it for publicity, some for investment and some for other reasons. The industry is definitely collaborating a lot more now than several years ago, and that’s a positive step forward. I do think that we should be focusing on more organic partnerships that share the same vision and purpose.”
Vicari adds: “I think there is always room for more partnerships. We partner with the best companies but the industry changes so quickly so of course there is room for more.
“We have to be ahead of the game and find out what capabilities there are out there and be prepared for that. The visa network is open and ready for anyone.”
Banks and fintechs will power the future of payments transformation and innovation. Banks have brand recognition, loyalty, large amounts of data and industry knowledge. Fintechs have that transparency and flexibility to produce solutions and products quickly and get them to consumers. Together their capabilities could deliver the ultimate package of security, transparency and personalisation that is desired.
Looking ahead, as technology has evolved, payments have moved from being location-focused to device-enabled meaning that development will foster anywhere that the consumer is. This creates both a challenge and an opportunity for the industry.
With the right partnerships, payments will continue to evolve to the ever-changing financial landscape.
Speaking about the future, Vicari sees a bright future for Visa.
“I would love Visa to be associated with the best-in-class destination for fintech. The most credible, seamless and fun place to innovate. b.yond is one way to do that and we are looking to launch similar propositions.”
It is inevitable that the technology that we use will change as well. Concluding, Ljujic explains what he thinks will be the biggest change in payments over the next five years.
“I would like to say open-banking, but I’m not sure 3-5 years is enough for it to be ‘the biggest change’. I think it would have to be integration of payments in people’s lifestyles, how people pay, in everyday activities.”
