Are Business Payments Realities Keeping up With Client Expectations?

Given the diversity of payment models and methods today, clients’ questions are often quite similar.

That’s the word from Chris Como, head of cards and money movement at FIS. Speaking with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster for our ‘Executive Insight Series: Top of Mind,’ Como described a surprising sameness in the questions that are top of mind with FIS clients.

“All clients ask me kind of the same question in a variety of different ways,” he said. “They’re generally trying to figure out where should they be focusing. What’s the right bet to be making?” These are crucial questions, explaining why they’re always top of mind.

Customer experience is a chart topper, with Como saying: “As I look across the landscape, there’s a lot of investments that they’re worried about for their end customers and what experiences they are desiring. There’s a lot of disruption in the marketplace, especially from FinTechs and the world of cryptocurrencies.”

Loyalty is another big question Como gets a lot, especially from smaller banks and financial institutions (FIs) wanting to compete with the larger players and their huge programs.

“It’s accelerated in the last six months,” he said. “A lot of our clients are struggling with the same thing FIS is. You look at the market and it’s harder to chase after revenue and grow as fast as investors might want. There’s a big focus on profitability, which means that as a product or P&L owner, you’re struggling with prioritization and where to focus.”

Asked if current macroeconomic conditions cause him to view these queries through a different decisioning lens, Como said: “It’s the same lens, but maybe a different level of scrutiny. What’s the intrinsic value? How many customers could we affect? Is it really viable for us from a top-line perspective? How hard is it for us to go do this thing?”

Once he’s picked a horse to back, the questions get much simpler: “How quickly and easily can we get it implemented?”

Read more: FIS Debuts Embedded Payments Solution for Software Providers Serving SMBs

On Being Bullish in a Down Economy

Webster threw a curve ball, asking what he’d advise clients to remove from their wish lists.

Como said that in his 12 months at FIS, he’s been consistently asked by clients about enabling crypto buy-sell-hold capabilities or cards that transact in alternative currencies.

To that, Como said, “I’ll enable anything a client wants. If there’s a market for it, we’ll do it. I’ve been a bit pessimistic about the alternative currency side of it, but very optimistic about the underlying technical capabilities of cryptocurrencies.”

What he likes on that side of the digital assets play are tokenized deposits, and “using blockchain-based technology to mark existing assets. Central bank digital currencies are one we like. But those are sort of working within the current money system. I’m bullish there.”

On the other hand, he said the very first client conversation he had at FIS was about enabling bitcoin rewards. While his initial reaction was ‘tell me more,’ Como said: “Those are sort of the ones that I think our clients are pulling back a bit more from. We’re still looking at it, we’re not completely avoiding it. But it’s not something that’s on our roadmap for the next 12 months.”

His preferred approach is shaping grand client visions into ideas that can be easily productized and put into the market. Doing this requires widening the aperture, telling clients that “we’re all competing for the same consumers that are enjoying the wonderful experience of using Uber, or they’re buying off Amazon applications.”

“When I think of great experiences, I don’t just look at banking. I kind of broaden that,” he said.

“Simplicity is king, and the reason I think those broader experiences are so great is those were new players to the system, and they didn’t have a preconceived notion of how things could work or what information you need,” Como added. “They kind of took a very Steve Jobs simplicity view.”

See also: FIS Intros Infrastructure Solution for Global Real-Time Payments, CBDCs

The Complications of Simplicity

The problem with simplicity is that it’s hard to deliver at scale, especially when it comes to digital payments and the many forms they now come in.

“The secret to success there is you have to marry two different disciplines together. There’s one side of it, which is more the human-centered design discipline that you see from the likes of an Apple,” Como said. “The other discipline that’s super critical is technical knowledge, experience in the systems, the regulatory landscape of payments, all of those things.”

Here’s the rub: Achieving that simplicity while delivering on some clients’ Big Ideas is hard.

“There were times when I’ve been in rooms, and it’s like all ideation and whiteboarding, and as a 25-year veteran in payments I would be like, none of this is actually possible,” Como said.

The way to go about this is by uniting disciplines, using proven technologies, and building something that’s not cost-prohibitive and delivers on those experience expectations.

“If you can do that, you’re able to sit in front of a client and authentically talk about how we’re stretching and redesigning and thinking differently,” he said, “but at the same time, you’re pragmatic with the fact that you understand what regulatory requirements exist, disputes or what have you, so you’re not totally off the rails.”

Again, top of mind for Como and some clients lately is tokenized deposits and using blockchain for B2B, especially regarding cross-border remittances.

“It’s pretty challenging for our clients to move money across borders, and a technical solution that’s interesting and ultimately much lower cost to carry, that’s probably one of the most interesting areas to me right now,” Como said.