Payments Testing - March 19, 2024
Back in Las Vegas, this time at Caesar’s Palace for the first ever Diebold Nixdorf TAGxPIX event.
The DN Partner Information Exchange (PIX) program has been around for many years and Paragon has long been a supporter and participant in the group. PIX was specifically designed to help DN resources connect with key industry partners in order to promote the free exchange of ideas and insights, as well as allow Diebold to provide proprietary information about upcoming innovations and releases in software, hardware, security and industry mandates.
The Advisory Group (TAG) was created in 1978 to serve as a beta test group for ATMs. Over the years TAG has developed into an independent user group that includes a wide variety of financial institutions and ATM deployers. As with any user driven organization, TAG has had to adapt to meet the ever changing needs of the members
Vendors and Partners and Customers, Oh My!
The PIX and TAG groups have historically met face-to-face once a year, but separately. For the first time, DN has brought both its clients and strategic partners together in order to facilitate broader discussions on business initiatives and priorities, as well as emerging industry trends. Mobile, core integration, security and the Windows 10 migration are topics on the agenda this year.
One of the key benefits of a session like this is the opportunity for face-to-face networking with your peers about all the issues of the day – as well the chance to reminisce about all the “old days” gone by.
Actually, there is no downside to forums like this. It is in each organization’s best interest to keep the others informed about what they see happening within the industry, as well as what they are thinking and doing about it. Obviously, there are some boundaries here, we can’t share everything with everyone, but I think there is a much more cooperation to be had.
Those of us in the payments industry hear a lot these days about “frictionless payments,” about how to improve the payments process and reduce the friction for consumers. A laudable goal.
However, we need to recognize that a lot of the friction in the payments process is actually coming from within the industry. We still have too many rules, too many “standards” and too many proprietary processes. While it is important for each of us to promote and differentiate our brands, I think most consumers now view the “payment” part of the payments process as a commodity.
That means we need to find ways to process the payment as quickly, securely and cost effectively as possible. That means cooperation. If we do not work together to remove friction from both the inside and outside of the payments process, then surely we should expect someone else will figure out how to do this without us.
So back to Las Vegas. The Diebold Nixdorf TAGxPIX event is just getting started. The agenda is set, the booths are built and the discussion has begun.
I expect to see and hear a lot of interesting things this week and will report more detail for you in the next blog.
In the meantime, it might be worth remembering these words from Charles Darwin: “In the long history of humankind… those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”
