Will the down economy be the ultimate catalyst for real payments innovation in 2010? there are lots of reasons to think so…
Intel Chairman Andy Grove’s Only the Paranoid Survive said that “ a strategic inflection point is when the balance of force shifts from the old structure, from the old ways of doing business and the old ways of competing, to the new. Before the strategic inflection point, the industry simply was more like the old. After it, it is more like the new. It is a point where the curve has subtly but profoundly changed, never to change back again.”
Looking back on the Payment Card industry it seems clear there have been at least two major Tipping Points. McNamara’s insight into getting cardholders and merchants on a single platform seems so obvious now, but in 1950 the notion of a credit card was far from obvious, in fact it seemed down right risky!
Dr. Evan’s book, Paying with Plastic, 2nd edition contends that the 2nd so-called discontinuous innovation came in the 1960’s with the emergence of American Express and the birth of co-opetition. He then goes on to speculate or hypothesize about a couple more that I’d like to share with you today. While they are all more or less technology driven, the first 3 are mostly technologically driven, and the last 4 are but what’s interesting to me, and hopefully exciting for you, is their implications and the unique potential I think we share in being able to capitalize on them.
Perhaps if you squint a little and tilt your head sideways, or take a step back you might see that we might be in the midst of a few more such inflection points, though when they might specifically occur is yet to be known.
- Biometric Security, Trust & Confidence
- Globally Ubiquitous & Unique Wireless
- Mobile Everything (including commerce), and Smaller, Better, Faster, Cheaper
- The democratization of the tools of payment acceptance, personal finance and choice
- Viable alternatives for digital Cash Replacement
What do you think?
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