APAC CIO Outlook Article Pays Attention to Payments

Invenco CEO, Gavin Lennox, features in the CXO Insights section of a special fleet management edition of APAC CIO Outlook. In the article entitled "Paying attention to payments", he explores the evolution of payments and outlines how user convenience, data security and the costs from merchants, processors and card schemes have all contributed to a rise in self service payments.

In the article he explains this is "why the world originally transitioned from cash, to cheque, to plastic...(and why) it is also driving the current move into a contactless world, including payment by near field communication cards, mobile phones, watches and “card-not-present” transactions made online and over the phone."

Making the transition

Gavin Lennox goes on to look at how some countries are making a rapid transition while others, including the USA, are slow to embrace the latest chip card and contactless payment technology. He says, "While many APAC countries have significantly transitioned to the EMV standard PIN enabled chip cards, others around the world including the USA, are lagging well behind.

"Early adopters of the new standard, such as Malaysia have seen card fraud dramatically decrease as a result. Those that haven’t are now scrambling to get on board with the new technology and payments ecosystem required to support it. Retailers are inevitably feeling the impact with credit card fees already being a significant cost for retail operations. Weighing up the cost of changing to the new standard should be counter balanced with the risk of not changing."

In considering the move to the new standards, Gavin Lennox says he believes it will signal the start of a more secure era of card-based payments globally.

"It will also see many businesses closely examining their data security and related technology in terms of payment management and that can only deliver a safer environment for us all to operate in."

Click here to read the full article.