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Treasury and Trade Solutions
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The Request to Pay Revolution
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PAYMENTS MEGATRENDS
While revolutionary, RTP is part of larger trends that
will change the payment space beyond recognition
RTP schemes are revolutionary, but they should be
considered as part of larger digital and business model
transformations in payments, financial services and the
global economy.
•
Hyper-connectivity
: The denizens of the digital world are
platforms that connect through multiple API connections
to take on new forms and capabilities. Ultimately all
banks will open APIs for consumer and corporate
banking. The development of RTP as an instrument is
driven by regulators with specific aims, so it is limited in
scope – there is nothing stopping merchants and banks
from connecting to each other through bilateral API
connections to overcome these limitations.
•
Real time banking
: Low value and high value clearing
systems will move 24*7 and this will change existing
concepts like ‘end of day’ and ‘cut off times’. When
domestic clearing systems force banks to upgrade their
systems to process in real time, they will then be ready
to connect internationally through real time networks.
•
Open competition
: Competition from non-bank entities
— regulated or not — is going to be a feature of life. These
Over the Top (OTT) providers will seek to replicate the
success seen in the telecoms space.
•
Customer relationships
: Whether we look into telecoms,
banking or the world of FMCG brands the battleground
is, ‘
who has the customer digital relationship
?’ New
players may see payments as a means to establish a
data relationship with a customer rather than a separate
line of business.
These developments mark a shift from batch processing to
real time processing which follow developments in other
parts of the economy. Ecommerce is global, data rich and
real time: it is only natural that the banking systems adapt
to this new reality.