As a retailer try to stay as flexible as possible investing in smart and smooth payments structures / keep in mind that competitors in payment are everywhere / try to be not too expensive because we do not know how will be the future... Michel Yvon, Decathlon

It is important to offer a seamless and connected omnichannel customer experience for your consumers, and be present in all channels that your consumers may be shopping in. Convenience is consumers #1 preference when it comes to shopping in a specific channel, but payments is the #2 reason.Holly Worst, Worldpay

- Inconsistency between all parties (non readiness of issuers, lack of information among merchants), although it's much better this year in comparison with 2019

- Conversion decrease

- The unknown future of card payments - we do not know whether/how fast customers accept the new flow and adapt, thus conversion will get back to normal/ or there will be a hard shuffle of payment preferencesElena Emelyanova, Wargaming

Include holistic merchant servicing and a strong focus on the convenience of payment processes while at the same time ensuring security and peace of mind for the consumers.Frederik Hesse, Mastercard

- the shift to online and diversification of the checkout with alternate payments methods, such as wallets, eCash and bank transfers, playing a larger role

- the blurring of the physical and digital worlds into a true omnichannel, integrated consumer experience

- the growth of contactless or even contact free

- the surge in subscription paymentsDaniel Kornitzer, Paysafe

- It’s amazing how customer payment behavior during COVID in such different regions as Russia and LATAM are similar in many ways

- In both regions pandemic was a trigger for a huge number of “late adopters” to first try on-line shopping. Those people are likely to stay and make the impact on increase of e-commerce penetration in the total spendIvan Glazachev, Yandex.Money

- Since mid-March, convenience has become the most important reason to make purchases online; and as consumers experience more uncertainty in their daily environment, aspects of trust and security are getting even more important. So, being able to use Pay After Delivery services – get the products, try them and pay for them later – gives consumers even more confidence.

- Further accelerated adoption of mobile payments (as well as cashless payments for in-store).

- Merchants will likely experience less cross-border payments, especially in-store.Wilco Slabbekoorn, Afterpay

Risk & Security trends shaping payments during the pandemic directed us clearly to online business agenda in regards with coming SCA regulations and higher challenges on fraud field. However, key question still remaining to keep adequately balanced payment security/risk vs good customer experience.Ognjen Vlacina, Ikea

The main challenges of post-PSDII SCA ERA for Merchant Payments Ecosystem are: the increased friction that will result in lower conversion rates for merchants and the immediate reduction in Authorization Rates from issuers. Over time, however, these two metrics should improve as more entities in the ecosystem leverage the most recent versions of 3D-Secure and issuers invest in a data strategy.Spencer McLain, Ekata

.... SCA is a journey, not just a one time deployment, if done right one can easily strike the perfect balance between risk reduction and well designed customer journeys .Petra Silsbee , Pluscard

Some fundamentals in payments don’t change. Most importantly: the chicken & egg problem of two-sided markets. For a new European payment scheme the biggest challenge is to reach enough critical mass on both the payer and the payee side: consumers and merchants. That will create the necessary network effect that is required to reach the scale it takes to competitive with non-European giants.Gijs Boudewijn, Dutch Payments Association

... technology-enabled, software-led distribution that allows integrated payments with more flexibility and less friction.Jared Drieling, The Strawhecker Group

Merchants need to offer consumers super easy, fast and frictionless ways of paying – wherever consumers are.

- This may mean merchants need to invest in creating and optimizing their digital (payment) experience

- This may in turn impact the need for changes in infrastructure and KYC processesWilco Slabbekoorn, Afterpay

SCA

SCA deadline is looming with regulatory enforcement starting on 1st Jan 2021. The speakers and panel discussed the impact of SCA and agreed that disruption is likely for a period until both the payment ecosystem and consumers have adjusted. Panel agreed that merchants need to take action to mitigate the risk of payments being declined for non SCA compliance. Several solutions were discussed including 3D Secure but also device-based authentication enabled by mobile payment wallets.

Covid

The speakers and panel discussed the impact of COVID on retailers and merchants, and debated how payment providers can offer support. The panel agreed that COVID is accelerating a shift from physical in-store payments to digital online payments. Panel have observed retailers launch transformation initiatives to support this shift. Whilst some retailers need to adapt to the increased complexity of digital payments, others are to scaling up existing digital capabilities.

The pandemic accelerates a monumental change in consumer behaviour.

74% of UK consumers think they will continue to prefer online shopping even after the lockdown restrictions are lifted. 40% of Americans say they will shop online more than in-store going forward. At the same time, travel and ticketing have seen massive declines in revenue. According to PPRO’s cross-border transaction engine (Jan - Jun 2020) the following categories generated > 75 % growth: women's clothes, food & beverages, healthcare and cosmetics, furniture, electronics, gaming/gambling, and jewellery and accessories. As assumed pre-crisis, e-wallets and other digital payment methods continue to gain market share as credit card transactions shrink. Accelerated by the pandemic, there has been a global shift away from traditional cash and card payments toward digital payment methods in both digital and physical spaces.

According to Worldpay omnichannel is one of the most important payment-related initiatives for the next 18 months. Holly Worst revealed some of the outcomes of a survey among 1200 consumers about shopping behaviour across channels: 73% of consumers use more than one channel during their shopping journey. Convenience is key, yet payments is one of the top 3 factors driving preference over channels. In retail, returns are the new normal. Not getting this right can badly hurt a retail business. 37% of respondents didn’t shop at a retailer again if they faced payment challenges during a return.

The panel (on the proposal for a new European payment scheme) explained what and why the scheme has been envisaged and covered a wide range of issues ranging from the geopolitical and competitive requirements around the scheme, through to the challenges faced in rolling it out.

With panelists from all parts of the payments ecosystem the discussion was wide ranging, inventive and covered both the positive and the negative aspects of the proposals and how they may impact European payments in future.

Our session was all about then New Normal for Merchants. In a wide ranging set of presentations we were able to explore what the future of payments for merchants will look like as well as what is happening today. The general view from that initial conversation was that although we were already on the path to digitisation the COVID -19 pandemic has accelerated this change – the last six months has done what would normally have taken five years in terms of consumer changes.

Major other topics while discussing this change was of course Data – how it is gathered, stored and who has the rights to use this. Secondary to this was the topic of Identity, with differing views on what type of ID should be used and again, how ID can be used with and for authorisation of payments.