The Future is Now: recapping the digital payments Utrust conference

We had a truly brilliant panel of distinguished guests join us for this talk. We wanted to talk about how the future of payments is going to be built, and that meant an All Star cast.

Let’s put names to the faces:

Moderator:

Kristina Lucrezia Cornèr: Managing editor, Cointelegraph

Speakers:

Dirk Pinamonti: Head of e-commerce, Nexi

Michelle O’Connor: Vice President Marketing, TaxBit

Michele Simone: Head of Partnerships, Southern Europe, PayPal

Sanja Kon: CEO, Utrust

Now, of course you can and should watch the whole thing. It was a lively conversation, and there is much to be learnt. You can do so right here:

If you don’t have the time, however, worry not. We’ve got you covered. Here’s our official recap of proceedings:

The push for digital commerce

This is known: the pandemic, and the need for social distancing and lockdowns, has put ecommerce and digital services on the spot. With access to physical stores and services severely constrained, this was inevitable.

What Dirk Pinamonti starts by mentioning is that these were trends that were already happening. It was an acceleration more than anything else.

“I’m thinking about omnichannel, new customer journeys, with mobile payments happening even in-store. The most important thing is that many millions of new users have approached digital payments and ecommerce. The main acceleration has been on the side of the people.”

Michelle O’Connor mentions regional differences. She’s in the United States, and the situation there was much less developed than in Europe. A lot of businesses were still not operating with the kind of tech Pinamonti mentioned. Cash and cards were still the only options in a lot of places.

That changed.

Michele Simone agrees with everything that was said, and he adds some thoughts about why he believes things are still only getting started:

“We were already in the platform era, but now we are even more”, says Michele. “Half of the global population is online, and all of these people are spending time on social media. We need to work on the basics, or fix the basics. For instance, in Italy, almost 100% of people own a smartphone. Yet, less than 70% of websites are mobile-optimized. This creates huge friction when you want to sell online.”

The demand for digital currencies

Sanja mentions the opportunity that arises from any sort of crisis. Businesses are looking for new and different ways to keep their business during this moment, and more and more businesses are acknowledging that digital currencies are the native money of ecommerce.

“For now, it’s focused on some verticals, but it’s expanding”, she finishes.

Michelle agrees. She says that TaxBit exists exactly because of this boom of demand. There is exponential growth and interest both in consumers and enterprise customers, which is driving growth “quite a bit sooner” than even they were expecting.

Adapting the roadmap

All businesses had to adapt in the last year and a half. The companies represented in this talk are no different. For Dirk, it was all hands on deck. Trying to help businesses find the solutions they need, and turn them not into volatile fixes but actual solutions that are sustainable and will help them even after this is past. Whether that means a website, social commerce, or anything else.

Sanja agrees: it was essential to understand what merchants and customers were needing in this very particular time.

Utrust is developing a tool that will help merchants increase their revenues, instead of costing them money in fees (details on that here).

“This is really exciting. It’s about changing the way people perceive payment providers. It’s not only someone that can process payments, it’s a partner that can help me earn more money.”

The balance between giants and proximity retail

Amazon’s name comes up a lot. Small businesses will always have a difficulty in dealing with the massive footprint of Jeff Bezos’s company. Building a base is a huge challenge, and everyone agrees that there need to be solid foundations for businesses, constructed as soon as possible, because there will not be a return to status quo even when the pandemic subsides.

Piggybacking on larger companies, and using their marketplaces, is the only option for many companies to maintain sales.

There’s also an issue of mindset, and Dirk brings up the issue of fraud, and how it’s covered in the news, that emphasizes the negative

“A lot of people don’t know their way on the Internet as well as they do in the physical world. It’s a question of digital education. Of course big players benefited the most. No one wants to make a demon out of the big commerce giants, but it’s important that SMEs take advantage of omnichannel opportunities.”

Sanja also comes from an ecommerce background, and she likes the idea of marketplaces for SMEs. Selling on multiple marketplaces is great, but it’s hard to retain independence. This is why Utrust offers a comarketing plan to whoever joins.

Financial inclusion

How can these platforms help those who are unbanked? Those who are underbanked?

This is one of Sanja’s favourite topics, and one that really drives the activism of a lot of the people who use digital currencies. With these currencies, you don’t need banks, mediators, or any other financial agents. It’s very easy to be fully autonomous.

“All you need is just a phone and Internet connection, which is something most people have access to. That’s what we stand for at Utrust.”

Dirk is fascinated by blockchain as well, and he makes a solid point when he brings up regulation and regulators. He loves the advances and the grassroots movements that bring new ideas, but he feels the desperate need for regulation. He thinks that without proper regulation there will be fraud and bad experiences which could poison the well.

Michelle works in a tax software company aimed at digital currencies, and she works very closely with regulators. She agrees with Dirk. If there is to be blockchain adoption in finance, as well as insurance, medical business, etc. there needs to be regulation.

“The education and understanding of how to open a digital portal, and how companies hire and build these new teams, what does this look like? People are shifting their whole priorities” says Michelle, remarking on the need to help people feel safe.

Michele is very passionate about PayPal’s mission, and how the company is standing up for diversity and inclusion. The idea is to move from the shareholder economy to the stakeholder economy. He believes the company is dedicated to diversity and inclusion, democratizing access to the financial industry.

“The company is pushing all employees to start their own initiatives, even funding projects. PayPal is a virtuous example of closing the financial gap.”

After the pandemic

How will the ecommerce boom sustain itself in the next ten years?

“There are institutional players and decentralized finance. On one side, institutional investors are buying Bitcoin, and also companies directly. Several major firms have bought hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin, including Tesla and Square. All of that fueled and is accelerating adoption. On the other side, we have everything related to DeFi. There’s a growing attention that is translating to more trust from the market and users. We’re really excited to see where it goes”, says Sanja, remarking on the digital currencies part of the discussion.

Dirk references the new players coming in. A lot of businesses have joined the digital space. He thinks this will be good for brick and mortar stores as well, who will take advantage of the omnichannel opportunities. They will use physical spaces for showrooms, and better customer experiences.

Michele thinks the keyword is growth. Digital payments are in the beginning of an amazing journey.

“I hope and believe that the way out for this pandemic will be strongly leveraged on the development of digital payments and ecommerce as well.”

Michelle is in tune with Sanja. She believes “everything will be tokenized”. She believes we are headed towards a token economy. Movements from big players, moving big funds in this way, is giving her the confidence that that’s where things are headed.

Thank you for joining us!

We end with this very hopeful note from all our speakers. Every single one of them believe in bright days ahead, and what more could we ask for?

Thank you for reading this recap, and we will definitely see you later for plenty more of these riveting discussions. Just follow @utrust on Twitter so you don’t miss a single thing.

And, of course, we would be remiss if we didn’t leave you the video again, in case you want to check out the talk yourself!