Looking forward, the new growth areas in retail payments are contactless payments, mobile phone based applications and on-line payments. These innovations reflect technological advances in IT and telecommunications and ever-rising customer expectations. Payers and payees are demanding payment services that are convenient, reliable and secure. Increasingly, people also want the funds cleared from their transactions quickly, preferably in real time.
As significant change is occurring in how we make retail payments, we are also seeing a number of new players, including telecommunications companies and the likes of Apple, Google and Paypal – a trend that is likely to continue. Banks, the traditional providers of an end-to-end payment service, are now facing competition from, and needing to co-operate with, other entities.