Digital Payments

If you have ever wondered how the global payments industry has made some people very rich indeed, read The Payoff, the new book by former SWIFT CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt and former SWIFT Head of Corporate Affairs Natasha de Terán, published on 1 July. 

The curious thing about innovation in payments is that the only market participants to be damaged by it are the banks, and even they are still very much in business. All that appears to have happened is that the card networks and a select group of rapidly scaling FinTechs and their investors have become enormously wealthy by cherry-picking low cost, high margin payments business from the banks. Is payments innovation not actually the transformative phenomenon we are always being told it is?

The curious thing about innovation in payments is that the only market participants to be damaged by it are the banks, and even they are still very much in business. All that appears to have happened is that the card networks and a select group of rapidly scaling FinTechs and their investors have become enormously wealthy by cherry-picking low cost, high margin payments business from the banks. Is payments innovation not actually the transformative phenomenon we are always being told it is?

Payments is widely applauded as one of principal theatres of game-changing innovation in financial services. The essential nature of the business, and the high volume of transactions, have certainly attracted a lot of entrepreneurs and venture capital and made some high-profile figures extremely rich. But in reality 20 years of innovation have changed nothing fundamental, and done next to nothing in terms of creating value for consumers. Dominic Hobson asks why.

A SUMMARY AND FULL REVIEW OF THE DISCUSSION AT THE WEBINAR ON 8 JUNE 2020 PART I