In any area of endeavor, organizations benefit from forming and following a strategy that serves as a roadmap to guide business decisions. With financial institutions of all sizes exploring digital transformation, faster payments, and new payments rails, many are starting to understand the value of a payments strategy as part of the overall business strategy.
Important components of a payments strategy include:
- Obtaining executives’ buy-in. A successful strategy begins with the board of directors and senior leadership, who set the culture in your organization.
- Evaluating market position and broad payments trends. Where is your institution now compared to its peers and the financial services industry at large?
- Understanding target customer(s) and assessing their needs. Your research team starts with customer-facing employees who hear from customers every day, know what they are asking for, and what your product and service gaps are.
- Determining vendor solutions. Taking your product or service idea to fintechs as opposed to relying on their pre-built solutions may yield a better result for your organization’s specific customers and needs. Can the solution meet the needs of both consumers and businesses? Can the solution be used by accountholders regardless of how they conduct business, i.e., in person, online, or via app?
- Incorporating risk and compliance. Include your risk and compliance teams in the development of your payments strategy to ensure regulatory concerns and fraud potential are considered from the outset. What data and analytic capabilities can you leverage to address concerns?
- Prioritizing initiatives. Making your strategy manageable by prioritizing the tactics is critical to keeping the plan on track.
- Leveraging industry resources. ePay can provide consultative expertise, education, and support to help you in creating or refining your payments strategy.
- Communicating internally and Just as executive buy-in is critical to the development of your strategy, it is equally important to keep employees and customers informed of - and excited about! - what it means for them. Don’t let a lack of communication or even poor website navigation thwart your success.
While your payments strategy will serve as the guide to your institution’s innovation plans, reviewing and refreshing the plan periodically throughout its execution is important to ensure a continued focus on your customers and their needs in a rapidly evolving environment.