{"id":4543,"date":"2019-04-03T23:20:05","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T23:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paymentfacilitator.com\/?p=4543"},"modified":"2021-06-15T13:28:41","modified_gmt":"2021-06-15T13:28:41","slug":"a-team-sport-highlights-from-pf-world-2019-as-opportunity-and-strategies-for-success-take-the-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/archive\/a-team-sport-highlights-from-pf-world-2019-as-opportunity-and-strategies-for-success-take-the-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA Team Sport\u201d: Highlights from PF WORLD 2019 as Opportunity and Strategies for Success Take the Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Payment facilitators,\nsoftware companies, processors, risk management experts and others convened in\nSanta Clara, Calif., this week to learn about the PF ecosystem and best\npractices at PF WORLD 2019. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delivering the\nkeynote address, Poynt founder and CEO Osama Bedier described payments\ncapabilities as \u201cplumbing,\u201d telling the audience that you \u201ccan\u2019t create a great\ncustomer or merchant experience\u201d without them. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSoftware with payments embedded will pave the way\u201d to a new era, he said. Bedier predicted that payment facilitators will represent $1.5 trillion in processing volume in the next three years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bedier\u2019s address kicked off the first day, which featured an\noverview of the global PF market, the journey to become a payment facilitator,\nand the relationships and tools available to help new and existing PFs succeed.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking on a panel of software companies and payment facilitators discussing the benefits \u2013 both expected and unexpected \u2013 of integrating payments, Stripe business lead Cristina Cordova told the audience that the company strives to bring together the services a business needs into one package, adding that it was exciting to \u201chelp businesses get created and thrive.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of several panel discussions aimed at demystifying\nthe decisions along the journey to becoming a PF, Mahmoud Abdelkader, CEO of\nVery Good Security, advised the audience to decide first whether they can\ncreate a strategic advantage by adding payments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And during another panel discussion featuring processors on\ntheir role in the ecosystem, participants echoed that need for companies to\nunderstand why they want to become payment facilitators and what value they\nmight provide their customers by adding payments. The speakers emphasized the\nways that processors and other partners can help provide pieces of the payment\nfacilitator puzzle, with First Data\u2019s Tom Tucker calling becoming a PF a \u201cteam\nsport.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a session on the global landscape for payment\nfacilitators, the focus was on the massive shift to digital payments in India.\nThat opportunity is particularly relevant for PFs, who are helping to onboard\nthe millions of small and micromerchants who are not yet accepting electronic\npayments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Existing payment facilitators also shared insights based on\ntheir own journeys. Nina Velleyan, president of Stewardship Technology, advised\nsoftware companies to know their core competencies and own their customers. And\nKasturi Mudulodu, vice president of Product Management for Yapstone, advised\nthe audience to \u201cdo the math and get the facts,\u201d evaluating all options \u2013 including\n\u201cbuild, buy or partner\u201d \u2013 rather than rushing into being a PF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capping off the day during a panel discussion on the future\nof the payment facilitator market, Rich Aberman, co-founder and CSO of WePay,\nsaid that \u201csoftware to manage operations that includes payments is the way of\nthe future.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no easy\nbutton\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Day 2 featured the introduction of the PF Academy \u2013 a deeper\ndive into PF operations, including sales; submerchant contracting; card brand,\nregulatory and PCI compliance; risk management and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kicking off the day, Sam Sherzad, Fivestars lead product manager\nfor payments, shared insights into mitigating the major risk factors of\nbecoming a payment facilitator. \u201cThere\u2019s no easy button to become a PF,\u201d he\ntold the audience. \u201cYou have to iterate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also focusing on risk management, Dan Spalinger, senior consultant\nfor Double Diamond Group & Rich Consulting, warned the audience that when\nunderwriting submerchants, PFs must investigate and use critical thinking, as\neven things that appear to be low-risk may not be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in a session on sales and developing a go-to-market\nstrategy, Kevin Brown, founder and senior consultant for NextB Consulting,\nreiterated the need for PFs to know their submerchants, to be able to fit\npricing to their businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTailor pricing, the way you tailor your software,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day also included representatives from Mastercard, Visa\nand American Express, who addressed their relationships to payment facilitators,\nincluding their rules for the business model and trends that they are seeing in\nthe market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the event, Deana Rich said, \u201cThis year\u2019s PF WORLD\nreally built on the success of the inaugural conference. It shone a spotlight\non the market and its inherent opportunity while it provided more in-depth\ninformation about how to successfully capitalize on that opportunity. The\nspeakers brought rich expertise from across the payments ecosystem.\u201d Rich is\nCEO and founder of Rich Consulting, co-founder of Infinicept and co-creator of\nthe event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been clear for some time now that the payment facilitator market holds significant opportunity for the right companies using the right approaches. The sessions at this year\u2019s event made it clear that software + payments is the future,\u201d said Todd Ablowitz, CEO and co-founder, Infinicept and co-creator of PF WORLD. \u201cThe attendees and speakers at PF WORLD 2019 are in the trenches delivering on a better experience for merchants globally.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch for more from the event in the coming weeks, as we share videos with additional insight from PF WORLD 2019. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Delivering the keynote address, Poynt founder and CEO Osama Bedier described payments capabilities as \u201cplumbing,\u201d telling the audience that you \u201ccan\u2019t create a great customer or merchant experience\u201d without them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[185,646,685,764,923],"class_list":["post-4543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-compliance","tag-payment-facilitators","tag-pf-world-2019","tag-risk-management","tag-underwriting"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6707,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543\/revisions\/6707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}