Subscription billing - MPE Special

PCM: Do you see real-time analytics also as an
opportunity in Payments? In the past companies
used to base their decisions on historical data.
Now with the technological advancement you
can get quality data out of real time analytics.
Nathan: Definitely! With traditional financials, when
you do the monthly or quarterly close the data
comes from looking back at historical information.
However, if you’re able to connect all your data sets
and systems together, you’re able to build up a full
financial view of the business based on real-time
transactional information. This real-time information
can serve the finance, sales and management teams
and give them instant feedback on business trends.
Also, and this is incredibly important in the payments
industry, preventing fraud relies on being able to act
instantly to cases of fraud before there is a negative
financial impact, so you have to be running real-time
on transactions. For us moving all of our data systems
to being real-time is very high on the agenda of all
departments.
PCM: What are your expectations from Data
Science or how do you think these expectations
have evolved over time, in the Payments sector
especially?
Nathan: It is interesting because Data Science is like
UX and UI designers 5 years ago. There weren’t many
of them, nobody really knew what they were doing
but they knew it was important. I think Data Science
is going through this discovery phase recently too.
You can now study Data Science specific courses in
universities, when traditionally people came from a
computer, engineering, math or physics background,
or a mix thereof. In general, Data Science is maturing
and by this I mean the technology stacks and the
systems are evolving to a point where they can be
trusted and are widely used and understood. In
the recent years, there were a lot of possibilities
discovered in payments, and people figured out
what data means to their company and customers,
and how to best leverage it. Now it’s the time to push
forward and get the real benefits from it.
PCM: Do you have a vision where do you see the
development of Data Science in the future?
Nathan: I see a continuing improvement in predictive
and machine learning models on conversion rates,
fraud, and on the optimization of whole omnichannel
strategy.
There are plenty of areas we’re looking into, and
many of them are sensitive and provide a competitive
advantage for our company, hence it’s confidential.
As Director of Strategy, I will continue to work
together with my team in order to provide
our merchants, as well as our own internal
departments, with special insights so that they
can make actionable changes in the areas they
didn’t even know could be improved.
I think this is what makes Data Science so
interesting; taking a journey of discovery into
areas you can already improve, and areas that
others haven’t even thought about yet. It’s that
curiosity that will drive it into the future. Within
payments, people have many habitual patterns
that you can extract valuable insights from.
We like to think that we are all very different, that
we do things differently, but the truth is that we all
have many predictable patterns.
Our geo-spacial habits, our spending habits, what
we like and don’t like etc. As we collect more data
on behavior the predictability of such habits will
become more reliable, which will drive better
decision-making to serve customer needs.
PCM: What legal and regulatory challenges
do you face when utilizing the data? What are
the major hurdles in this matter?
Nathan: There are two parts. There are the
regulatory hurdles that we face and Europe is
definitely at the forefront in protecting people data
privacy, which is great. The second part is about
the perception of collecting and using data. How
much do people want to give away and expose
their privacy?
We are living in a world where everything is being
tracked. 90% of the existent data was collected
in the last two years and I expect that trend will
continue. The amount of data that is being stored
is growing rapidly, and people are not comfortable
with that – they feel it’s very ‘Big Brother’ and
could be used against them.
For example, if we were tracking payments and
looking to link it with a person’s profile both
online and offline, then we need to be open about
why we are doing it, and have the certainty that
the person is protected and the use of the data
is positive. In such a case, data could help us to
understand what payment methods the customers
like to use, where do they like to shop, what kind
of things do they like to buy. This information
could allow merchants to provide the best deals
to the customer as well as the most frictionless
and seamless payment experience, both online
and in stores.
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EXPERT INTERVIEW