What Payments Wants In A Biz Partner More Than Innovation

Innovation is what propels the world forward, but for some members of the payments industry, innovators are simply too risky. That’s the conclusion of a new study conducted by CAN Capital, which found that companies are more concerned with expertise than they are with innovation when choosing a business partner.

According to the research, the results of which were published Wednesday (May 20), 41 percent of payments professionals cited expertise as the top factor when choosing a business partner, but only 23 percent cited a potential partner’s access to the latest technology as their top reason for choosing a partner.

CAN Capital said the results are not necessarily surprising. The payments industry is changing so rapidly, researchers said, that payments professionals want to make sure that their business partners are well-versed in the latest technology that is already in-use.

The survey revealed other intriguing findings about trends among payments professionals. For example, more than half of the survey participants cited debit and credit cards at the POS to be the least secure payment method (compared with using these cards online or through a mobile device). Further, the researchers found that payments professionals are increasingly seeking guidance on how to adapt to the rise in eCommerce, online and mobile spending, with 58 percent of respondents citing this area as the one that has the largest impact on spenders.

CAN Capital surveyed 101 payment and alternative finance professionals at the recent Money20/20 Conference to obtain the statistics.