Survey: Payments come of age

Payments are no longer a means to an end for accepting money and finalizing a transaction.



According to a new global survey of senior retail executives responsible for payments strategy and/or payments IT strategy from payments company ACI Worldwide and technology analyst firm Ovum, “2016 Global Payments Insight Survey: Merchants and Retailers,” up to 81% of retailers view payments as a clear part of their business strategy.



A similar percentage feel new payments technology will provide significant benefit to their organization. And 91% of respondents expect to increase or maintain their investment in payments over the next 12 to 18 months.



Specifically, 53% expect increases while 38% expect to maintain spending. More than half already offer, or hope to offer in the near future, both contactless card and mobile near field communication (NFC) acceptance.



However, retailers do have concerns about the security of emerging payments technology. Primary concerns include theft of consumer payment credentials and theft of consumer account/transaction history (70% each) and identity theft (67%). On the other hand, security issues that have minimal impact on consumers are a lower concern including demands for ransom/extortion (46%), data deletion/destruction (58%) and internal fraud/theft of data (59%).



One aspect of payments that hasn’t changed with the development of technology is the dominant position still held by banks. Eighty-seven percent of respondents see banks as the primary provider of payment services.



However, other payment provider categories are increasingly gaining traction, including most notably online payment providers with 76% of retailers willing to work with them in future.



Results of the survey were taken from a larger survey of 1,675 executives across 14 different industry sub-verticals in 18 countries.