15 Jun 3 Payment Trends for 2016 That Merchants Need to Know

Ingenico hosted a webinar and asked two industry experts – Rod Hometh, SVP of Strategic Development for North America / Ingenico Group and Jordan McKee, Senior Analyst at 451 Research provide their payment predictions for 2016.

1. Demand for NFC/Contactless Payments Will Increase
“Merchants will find consumers are simply demanding that the mobile wallets they’ve come to enjoy and use more frequently are accepted in their stores,” McKee noted “We’re already seeing some of that withApple Pay, and are starting to see consumers push back a bit and ask those merchants who aren’t currently accepting today, ‘Why not?’ and ‘When will you?’”
More merchants need to look into accepting NFC payments from their customers. There are many benefits to offering NFC/contactless payments including:

• Increased security
• Faster payment speeds
• Improved convenience and reliability
• Enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty

2. EMV and Payment Security Will Still Be a Focus in 2016
“The EMV adoption will continue through 2016,” said McKee. “More merchants will upgrade their payment technology to support EMV and also take other payment security measures.”
Payment security has been top of mind for merchants since the infamous Target data breach, and they have been gathering more information on next steps. With the October 2015 EMV liability shift behind us, merchants need to look to upgrade their payment technology in 2016 to protect not only their customer’s card data but also their brand’s reputation.

3. The Omni-Channel Strategy will Become a Reality

“As more merchants complete their migration to EMV and implement advanced security measures, they will increasingly look for new differentiators,” explained Hometh. “Key among these is allowing consumers to pay in multiple ways, across different channels—from in-store to mobile to online to self-service.”
Merchants need to start thinking about cross-channel solutions in their business. Think about enabling their customers to start a purchase at home and finish it in their brick-and-mortar store. Or encourage customers to initiate a transaction on their mobile device and complete it at an unattended kiosk. These are some of the many possibilities an omni-channel strategy can help merchants with.

Source: Ingenico Group Blog