Staying Relevant In The Digital Payments Age

When it comes to defining innovation, particularly in financial services, there’s no one central definition.

Mainly because there’s no one audience each innovation is designed to target, which is what makes the concept of innovating financial services that much more complex. And increasingly harder to define. The banking ecosystem has seen this challenge grow in recent years as digital trends dominate what consumers are expecting out of their online banking experience.

What innovation today means is pushing the envelope forward in a way that works across multiple interests — and multiple audiences. During Innovation Project 2016 this year, FIS’ SVP and GM of Mobile Doug Brown gave PYMNTS some insight into just what FIS views as its innovation strategy.

“At FIS, we’re all about innovating across the edge and all the way back,” he said. “We’re really looking aggressively as to how we can make our clients relevant in the digital age. That includes banks, payment processors and a number of large retailers.”

Of course, as more and more consumers go digital, that means less thinking about being part of the physical ecosystem that used to drive the payments industry. As a result, companies are being forced to adapt, and adapt fast.

What this also means, is seeing how it can merge its technology innovations into the business needs of its clients in order to give them an edge in the market. If not? There’s plenty of players in the market ready to move swiftly to win over an audience.

Or to be specific: “What technology and innovations can we bring them that’s going to help in their business models and competing against an ever-growing number of competitors on the digital front,” Brown said.

This means focusing on one particular group that everyone in payments is growing increasingly focused on.

“How do we make banking, for example, much more relevant to the millennial focus, where they find the whole product set interesting?” Brown said. “That’s incumbent on us to help drive the innovation and that’s what we’re helping bring forward and we’re going to continue to over the next three to five year horizon.”

And in the next three to five years? Payments, as it exists as an industry today, will look a lot different. As will its innovations.