Payment Technology

 Alas, technology is never finished. With the proliferation of back-end technology to manage sensitive credit card data to the hardware on the market today, like Square, for accepting payments, it’s a haze of innovation.

In January. Apple announced it was planning to embed Near Field Communications (NFC) technology into its next generation iPhones and iPads. In a Computerworld article, Gartner analyst Avivah Litan, said similar contactless payment technologies have been around for years, but they've only received a lukewarm reception from consumers and what's likely to make Apple's offering vastly different is the company's huge base of 160 million iTunes users.

"That base gives Apple the ability to operate largely as a "closed payment system" with minimal need to interface with credit card companies and banks. They can largely shut out credit card companies if they choose to and operate in much the same way that PayPal has done in the virtual world, “ said Litan.

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Just yesterday, Venturebeat reported that PayPal announced it would bring NFC money transfer to Android by bumping two phones together.

Roelant Prins, Chief Commercial Officer, Adyen, says that the technology for NFC based payments is getting closer.

“I don’t doubt that consumers will be open to this. Google, Apple, Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Paypal will all play a role in this next phase of payments, but I don’t think it will be exclusive to one or two players.  For the merchant this means they will need to support a range of (new) payment methods,” said Prins.

And a range of payment methods is just what Adyen specializes in. Adyen is specifically focused on the merchant and ensuring they are ready for the next wave of innovation that consumers will adopt. A number of international merchants have gone live on Adyen’s new mobile platform, including Pathe, the largest chain of cinema theatres in the Europe, which uses Adyen to sell tickets to customers on its iPhone mobile application.

According to Johan Van Vulpin, CEO, Greetz, Europe’s largest online greeting card retailers, more and more of their customers have been demanding flexibility and convenience over mobile and Adyen’s payment platforms were developed with this in mind.

Adyen delivers its mobile payments solution to more than 1,200 merchants globally. They have found that merchants in emerging markets such as Latin America and Asia are faster adopters of new payment methods and the company believes that emerging markets have an advantage over “older markets” regarding mobile payment development.

“In many of the “old” markets there is a wide variety of “legacy” payment methods in place and it will take a big effort for consumers to change their behavior on a massive scale. In emerging markets like Africa, there is often no real infrastructure for electronic payments. NFC based mobile payments will be the first to offer this possibility – the success is related to the fact that many people will have a mobile phone in these markets, many in lieu of having bank accounts,” added Prins.

Adyen’s business is strong, they are experiencing global growth and pushing into emerging markets, so what keeps Adyen up at night? Prins is painfully transparent about that topic: “It’s the pace at which the development of technology moves, technology is moving very rapidly now, it’s always in flux.”

The methodology that Adyen applies to global payments is built entirely on next generation technologies, which makes it not only flexible, but efficient to operate and run. This combined with legacy industry expertise from their team, creates an compelling competitive proposition, both from execution and pricing models for global merchants.

But despite his worries, Prins says he likes to see the mobile payments market in motion because it illustrates the potential of the payments industry as a whole and proves that merchants are seeking new ways to reach global customers.

“It's always hard to predict what is going to be next or which technology will win. But the advantage of being a flexible, agile company is that Adyen can adapt quicker to changing market conditions, technology and trends for merchants,” added Prins.