One Size Fits All Misses the Digital Payments Mark

Ask 10 people what the concept and execution of “digital engagement” mean, and you’ll get 10 different answers.

For Serena Smith, chief client officer of i2c, it means digital-first customer engagement.

Individuals and companies around the globe demand digitally issued cards and payments choice, and in turn, companies must pivot to serve them across a variety of use cases and markets, she told PYMNTS for the “What’s Next in Payments: How Do You Do Digital?” series.

For her company, which enables client firms to issue credit, debit, prepaid and core banking solutions, a digital-first approach is pervasive. In recent years, artificial intelligence from a customer engagement standpoint has been a boon.

AI has helped enable the platform to look across the entire financial services ecosystem and gain insight into how people use their cards, how they use digital wallets, and how client firms can anticipate what their end customers want across 216 countries and territories — and when, she said.

The shift toward digital channels is palpable, said Smith, who added that even older consumers (her own father included) have been using their devices and platforms to help conduct their daily financial lives. Millennials and Generation Zers are digitally native.

Using digital tools for instant wage and earnings access is proving especially popular, she said, especially with i2c’s clients in North America and Canada.

“Because we’re in so many different countries and territories around the world, not only can we look at a certain segment, but we get to look across the whole broad ecosystem, and we can see what’s happening from different geographies and different perspectives of how they’re using the cards,” Smith said.

Asked by PYMNTS about where there are pockets of growth and low-hanging fruit — geographically speaking and over the near term — Smith said that her firm is seeing activity in Latin America and countries including Peru, where digital banks are gaining ground. The Middle East is also fertile ground.

“That’s not to say that we don’t continue to see activity gaining in places like North America and Canada because those are going to be key centers for us,” Smith said.

Along the way, and with a nod to the mechanics of the platform itself, i2c provides building blocks to its clients, offering them different ways to help them meet market-by-market needs via APIs, she said.

“As we’re working with our customers to do that transition from analog to digital, we can take that in pieces and parts as we help them to do that,” said Smith. “When you think about real-time disbursements, you think about all your mobile-first banking, you think about all the digital processes, and you think about the scalability and the reliability of the platform. All of that’s available as they go through this transition.”

Underpinning it all is data, which Smith said is the gold mine “that our customers sit on top of — and that they may not even realize that they have.”

The platform approach helps them harness that data and use predictive analytics to understand where their end users are headed and how their needs can be met with contextualized offers and products.

Most individuals have relationships in various places. They may do business with multiple banks or have a mortgage in one place, a checking account in another place, and a car loan in yet another place.

“Understanding your customers can help you to pull that customer into your financial institution so you can better service them,” Smith said. “Data helps lead you to better customer engagements as well as cross-sell and upsell to your customers understanding what their behaviors and their needs and wants are.”