Summary: The payment's industry's big show - TRANSACT - is right around the corner. The world’s largest payments technology event is in just two weeks - April 17-19 - at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Thousands of payments technology leaders will gather to connect, learn, display their latest and greatest products and services, and make deals that will shape the future of payments. It is a time of significant change in our industry. ETA commissioned a study to find consumer’s views on recent payments innovations. Two thirds of U.S. consumers agree that using mobile payments is easier than paying with cash or with a physical credit or debit card. With speed, convenience and savings are being their primary motivators for using mobile payments. Though our survey found that Baby Boomers were most likely to carry cash, 69 percent said that they can envision a time in the future when we won’t carry cash at all, replaced entirely with smart technologies. With the payments industry expanding its value proposition for merchants, TRANSACT is the opportunity to see the seamless payment experience in action. The impact of new software vendors and tech companies is defining the way our industry approaches payment solutions. No longer is enabling mag-stripe acceptance enough for payments service providers. ETA’s Payments Trends to Watch found that U.S. merchants will spend $5 billion dollars between 2018 and 2019 on POS software alone, plus another $3 billion on customer analytics and loyalty management solutions. As they are looking to upgrade their POS hardware, they are looking toward faster, sleeker, more capable, and more competitively devices. The point is that our industry is undergoing a very exciting tectonic shift in so many ways. Payments service providers must and forge partnerships, develop products and stay innovative in order to stay competitive in an age of high-tech payments. The stage is set. And so is TRANSACT. On this special edition of our podcast, Jason is joined by VP of Industry Affairs Amy Zirkle, one of the architects of TRANSACT, to discuss how TRANSACT has been built around arming attendees with the intel, know-how and network to navigate this exciting time in our industry.
