Leading Innovation With A Diversified Payments Ecosystem

Justin Benson, CEO of Spreedly, believes that payments can be the springboard to a strong digital economy. In this excerpt from The Connected Economy’s Power Source – CEO Edition, Benson explains what defines an effective payments strategy, and why diversity and inclusivity so important in the overall payments ecosystem.

As historically one of the most fragmented, siloed infrastructures found in business, payments has the opportunity to lead the way to a better digital economy.

Forward-thinking leadership teams are the ones who will break the tradition of selecting one service without the flexibility to adapt as business needs change. These payments teams instead select the right mix and combination of solutions for their needs at that moment, and benefit from the ability to flexibly shift, add and experiment.

An effective payments strategy is built on working with the right payment partners. That might be a fraud detection vendor that specializes in your industry, or a merchant or platform that your customers want you to transact with. Or it could mean testing a new and exciting technology that has the potential to be groundbreaking for your business.

Amazing new business models are emerging every day. For example, we see new platforms closing the gap between customers and businesses, and helping merchants to execute business online faster. The organizations that can quickly leverage these new technologies are the ones that will succeed. As we know, the limiting factor in many cases is the ability to build, support and maintain the complex integrations needed to take full advantage of these new technologies.

Payments orchestration helps every participant — from merchants and platforms, to payment gateways and related services — to securely connect and transact. Successful digital businesses orchestrate payments to leverage the right services that deliver the right payments experience for their customers every time, regardless of where they are or what their needs may be.

We believe the world is better with a diversified, inclusive payment ecosystem. This ecosystem is what actually has the power to enable new business models and drive new opportunities.

As more businesses pivot to digital payments, we’re seeing more of them embracing the flexible orchestration approach. With COVID, we’ve seen incredible leaps forward in the adoption of digital payments, and we believe these changes are sticking around. We also know that the barrier to a truly inclusive payments ecosystem is dramatically lowered for those organizations building their payments to take advantage of payments orchestration.