Tag: payments

A Mid-Year Outlook of the Payments Landscape

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We’re halfway through 2023 and it’s amazing how much has changed these past 6 months, both in terms of the business landscape and the current economic environment.

Before heading into the second half of the year, I think it’s important to pause and look at how the payments industry is continuing to transform. Here are some of the emerging payments trends that businesses should keep tabs on to set themselves up for success.

 

1. Personalizing the Payments Experience Drives Customer Loyalty

Companies need to offer personalized experiences to stay relevant, especially when you consider that 76% of consumers get frustrated by businesses that don’t offer personalized experiences.

Payments may not be top of mind when you think of how to personalize a user experience but it’s an integral part of the customer journey.  According to a 2022 survey, 91% of consumers indicated a satisfying checkout experience influences whether they will buy from that merchant again.

How do you personalize the payment experience? By letting customers pay when and how they want to pay. Offering convenient, preferred digital payments channels is essential, and is becoming more so. In CSG’s State of the Customer Experience 2023 Report, we found that digital communications sent through CSG increased 15.6% year-over-year in 2022.

Offering preferred digital channels may mean leveraging text-to-pay technology, which lets customers simply respond with a text message to make a payment, or letting customers schedule an automated phone call to complete a purchase. It could also mean printing QR codes on billing statements to make going online to pay that much easier. Not only is this a better customer experience, but your company is likely to see lower payment abandonment.

By offering a personalized payments experience, businesses are also building brand loyalty with their customers. Oftentimes we think of loyalty programs as discounts or special perks, but loyalty extends throughout the entire buying process—including completing a payment. By making payments frictionless, personalized, and convenient, companies can increase customer lifetime value and reduce payment abandonment.

 

2. Embedded Payments Remain Paramount

The best payment experience is the one you don’t even think about. It’s so seamless that you don’t notice it at all. This is where embedded payments come into play and it’s essential that organizations offer the payment options consumers are expecting.

Your checkout page can be a balancing act—you’re trying to offer consumers the payment options they want but you don’t want to overwhelm them with choices.

When determining which payment choices to offer,  lead with how people want to pay and what is easiest for them. This includes payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. To make payments even more seamless, you could consider offering social media sign-on, which was identified as a top checkout feature that enhances customer satisfaction.

 

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RELATED WHITE PAPER: 3 Steps to Ensure Payments Security

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3. Security, Security, Security

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. All parties in the payments process are concerned about security. As payment methods evolve, so do cyber criminals and it’s critical that organizations work with a payments provider that offers the latest in payments security.

At CSG Forte, we recommend following sound security best practices and leveraging solutions that reduce PCI scope. Best practices include end-to-end (E2E) Encryption, tokenization, and two-factor authentication.

Using secure solutions can also greatly reduce risk. For in-person payments, Point-to-Point Encryption (P2PE) is the gold standard in PCI compliance. The trailblazing P2PE process creates a secure connection between devices, or components within devices, preventing possible sensitive data from being exposed at any point while it moves across a network. P2PE reduces the likelihood of PCI compliance breaches—and correspondingly drops the number of self-assessment questionnaire questions from over 300 to around 30. This means you can raise the bar on security but dramatically lower the compliance audit burden.

Another way for an organization to reduce fraud risk is to leverage an authentication solution. When using an authentication solution, you can easily confirm account ownership information (including full name and business name) to secure your ACH transactions. This helps ensure payment accuracy and reduces fraud potential.

A good payments processor will also have solutions that reduce your PCI scope. For example, call centers can greatly reduce their PCI scope by texting or emailing a link to a customer to complete payment, as opposed to having a customer service representative manually take sensitive payment information over the phone.

As the payments landscape and consumer preferences continue to evolve, it’s important that your business works with a payments solution provider that offers the latest in secure payments technology. At CSG Forte, we are dedicated to providing solutions that help your business prepare for the future. Contact us to learn how we can be a valuable partner to your business today.

Million Dollar Payments: Nacha Boosting Same-Day ACH Maximum

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Think of your favorite news outlet, any news outlet. Chances are, if you visit their site right now, the leading topic will be the economy. From inflation to new job numbers, several metrics and topics are commonly discussed when analyzing the economy. However, the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network often goes overlooked in economic discussions. And it definitely shouldn’t—with over 7.5 billion payments valued at $18.9 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2021 alone.  

With payment volumes and values continuing to grow, new rules are needed to foster the growth of the ACH network. The National Automated Clearing House Association (Nacha), an organization that governs and facilitates the ACH Network, develops standards and rules to ensure the ACH Network operates smoothly, and that payment information transfers securely and quickly.

In response to substantial increases in ACH payments, Nacha announced a rule that will increase the same-day ACH spending limit. Beginning March 18, 2022, businesses will be able to transfer same-day credit and debit payments up to $1 million, up from the current $100,000 cap.

And with more verticals likely to adopt this because of the increasing amount of payments they can accept, there’s never been a better time to start offering this payment option. Get paid faster, lower payment processing costs and easily manage recurring payments.

 

Choose CSG Forte for Same-Day ACH Payments

CSG Forte is the leading payments provider of same-day ACH, supporting over 73,000 merchants. With a best-in-class solution and decades of experience, we deliver a scalable and seamless solution to companies operating in a wide variety of verticals, including integrated software vendors (ISVs), healthcare, property management, government, insurance, enterprises and utility organizations.

Our payments platform can turn what was once an operational expense into a revenue generator through our revenue optimization solutions. Our platform optimizes ACH payments by validating payments in real-time, automatically re-presenting failed payments and keeping recurring payments on track.

Want to learn how you can optimize your ACH payments and take advantage of the rule change? Click here to learn more.

 

 

 

4 Reasons You Need a Scalable Payment Platform

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The best payment platforms are rigorously designed to include or address several specific factors, including security, speed, reliability and more. But although those features are important, one of the most integral factors for any payment platform isn’t any of those. And it’s probably not what you think it should be—it’s scalability.

 

What Is a Scalable Payment Platform?

What makes a platform scalable is its ability to handle oncoming work that grows and develops. Much like the advantages of offering flexibility, providing scalability allows users from either end of the platform to transform and change their businesses with the knowledge that the platform will adjust quickly to maneuver successfully through new challenges.

On the other hand, platforms that are not scalable will suffer. Static platforms fizzle and die, unable to keep up with the growing trends and industry challenges. Look, for example, at the mobile payments industry. The highly scalable applications like Starbucks find themselves responding quickly and adeptly to consumer wants and needs. Mobile pre-ordering, built-in rewards, music applications, and payments are all part of that ever-changing platform, and it doesn’t seem likely that will end soon.

On the other hand, a great number of other mobile applications didn’t meet ever-expanding customer demands or beat out competitor capabilities. Unable to accommodate user demands and requests, these platforms failed to drive forward. As a result, they lost users and sales. The platform dies.

Payments platforms are specifically sensitive to scalability because of the nature of the payments industry. With ever-expanding challenges and disruptions, platform creators are now required to do more than troubleshoot. They are almost asked to intuit the new big wave, creating solutions before problems occur.

But such is the life for any tech industry, including the financial technology (i.e., fintech) industry.

 

Why Your Business Needs a Scalable Payment Platform

Payment platforms that cannot scale risk losing users on either side of the platform. Here are four important why merchants and other users should consider scalability on their list when shopping for a payment platform:

1. Plan for Growth

As a merchant, your aim is for business to grow, not shrink. Your payment platform should be able to adjust with you. As you increase volume, you should be able to easily move into higher processing levels without much issue. Be sure that your processor can accommodate changes in volume and speak to them about potential contract savings, as well. Many processors offer discounts the more you process.

2. Expect High Functionality

The platform should not be disrupted no matter how little or how much you are processing. You should still be able to perform all of the functions you need regardless of your business size. There’s no reason any of the features you’ve been using at one level cannot translate to another.

3. Lower Risk During Business Fluctuations

Scalable platforms are more than just flexible. Because they can adapt, if you need to make changes because of a hardship or short-term change, a scalable system is going to help you adjust through this time. In lieu of terminating contracts or being forced to switch processors, which is a lengthy and arduous process, a scalable platform will allow you to tighten the reins momentarily without much cost.

4. Increased Opportunity for Newer Features

Scalable platforms are usually more likely to receive system updates and changes as trends come, which increases your opportunity to test out newer features as they are making waves. Static platforms are less inclined to update frequently and most likely will not adopt newer technologies. If you’re interested in the new and shiny, a scalable solution gives you a better opportunity, and it’s much easier to test out than transferring everything to an all-new system or processor.

 

Choose CSG Forte For Scalable Payment Solutions

Scalability is one of the most important features for payment platforms, landing high on the list for merchant shoppers. CSG Forte offers a scalable platform that adapts to changing business and takes both cards and eChecks. For more information, contact us.