Strong mobile focus emerges from payments technologies representation at retail IT trade show, according to Retail Technology editor, Miya Knights

Strong mobile focus emerges from payments technologies representation at retail IT trade show, according to Retail Technology editor, Miya Knights

Demand for more information about mobile payments in retail has been high at this week's Retail Business Technology Expo and Cards & Payments Solutions 2012. A number of payment providers have been on hand at the trade show, held at Earls Court in London this week, to meet this demand with a number of new mobile and payment technology integration options.

Delivering the kind of products and services that meet the everyday challenges retailers face going forward was the priority of Fintan Byrne, vice president of sales for payment data communications provider Transaction Network Services (TNS) in the UK and Ireland. “Cost-effectively maintaining a secure payment environment, while bringing new technologies to bear in order to attract customers into the retail environment, as key,” he said.

First-mover mobile advantages

Byrne said TNS was at the show to demonstrate its response in a couple of ways. First, he said the provider’s contactless system was already being used in the field today: “Most retailers upgrading PED [PIN entry devices] in accordance with the latest PCI [payment Card Industry] standards today are going for systems that include contactless,” he said. “There are also definitely first-mover advantages from the perspective of being seen as innovators, as well as driving faster transaction throughput and higher footfall.”

Second, Byrne said these transactions can no be fed through a ‘multichannel payments gateway,’ which is designed to track transactions across multiple channels to streamline customer relations and processes like refunds. “Our multichannel gateway gives the retailer their own-brand payment presence on their e-commerce site, rather than handing off to an Amazon or PayPal,” he added. “This gives a consistent channel experience for the customer. While point-to-point encryption and tokenisation significantly reduces the scope of PCI compliance.”

Industry reaching tipping point

Mark Kusionowicz, marketing director of payment, loyalty and information services provider The Logic Group, was also at RBTE talking up a strategic partnership announced at Mobile World Congress with near filed communications technology software and systems provider ViVOtech. The Logic Group managed services for multichannel payments, couponing, loyalty management and fraud prevention will be integrated with NFC mobile touch, mobile wallet and Trusted Service Manager (TSM) technology from ViVOtech so that retailers can personalise the services and deliver them in real time to consumers through their mobile phone.

“Mobile is not just hot,” Kusionowicz said. “retailers are saying that they are no longer focusing on the traditional points of purchase, but the whole shopping journey. The smartphone provides a vehicle with which you can consistently communicate with the customer throughout that journey. It’s also not just which card they might use to purchase with, but the frequency with which they use it, which retailers can measure and track through different channels and link to customer interactions. And we’re going to more NFC handsets than ever launched in the coming year, along with the raising of the £20 payment limit in time for the Olympics this summer.”

Taking a pragmatic view

But John Rozek, director of payment industry services provider and consultancy Polar Moment, said that, regardless of the number of payment options now available in-house or as managed services, retailers need to understand how to properly architect a multichannel payments system. “Traditional e-commerce is the ideal platform for moving onto multichannel,” he told Retail Technology. “It makes it easier to separate out individual customer payments and enables tokenisation, which is everything. There might be different way of initiating the a transaction but, if a token replaces it within the retailer’s systems, they can take new payments and carry out refunds without having to hold the customer’s card data.”

Rozek added: “Whether it’s NFC, contactless or wallets from PayPal and Google as far as mobile is concerned, I would so what. It’s about the integration at the back end and the front end is about consistency the customer experience across channels that also allows for legacy systems and processes.” Connecting customer payments up across channels is also an important enabler for payment and communication services provider, Vodat International.

Integrated customer journey view

Mike Bielinski, Vodat International chief executive, explained: “The Connected Store is our theme, which recognises the important role that the store has to play within ‘omnichannel’ retailing. It means that everything about the retailer is connected everywhere and the store is part of the complex customer journey. Jaeger, for example, has invested in their omnichannel vision with us using secure networks and technology that enables communication effectively together with unified payments.

“This includes the ‘Call Me’ button on the website, to the call centre and payments online or instore. And all these interactions can be tracked and fed into a CRM [customer relationship management] system, so the store staff can have some knowledge of a loyal customer that walks into the store,” he added. Clearly, like Rozek, Bielinski believes the retail payments landscape is not just about mobile or online anymore with security, compliance and the IT consumerisation trend in play.