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January 22 2018 • Issue 18:01:02

Out with plastic, in with devices:

A new era in payments dawns

authentication process. That's all changing with
the evolution of mobile technologies like near field
communication, growth in ecommerce and the emergence
of the Internet of Things. It's not that wholesale changes
are imminent. "We've been talking about things like this
for at least 20 years," Oglesby said. "It's still going to take
time."

Industry veteran Robert O. Carr concurred. He recalled an
exchange in 1965 with a college professor who predicted
punch cards would be obsolete in five years. "Twenty-five
years later he was finally right," Carr said. "I believe the
plastic card will follow a similar pattern." Carr is founder
and CEO of Beyond Inc. "The growth of cards will slow
beginning in four to five years, but they will still be used
for a couple of decades before they become obsolete," Carr
added.
By Patti Murphy
Visa stated in the 2017 publication Innovations for a Cashless
he expression "paying with plastic" may not World, "Innovation in commerce has always been about
be an anachronism yet. But the phrase, which reducing the friction and providing a better consumer
describes a routine activity for multitudes of experience." Today, consumers spend upwards of 11 hours
T consumers who rely on credit, debit and pre- a day online empowered by the ability to find anything
paid cards to purchase goods and services, may be lost on they need or want within seconds, according to Nielsen.
future generations. Against this backdrop, "the payment experience slips into
the background and becomes part of the overall experience
The market is replete with road signs, like this from a recent rather than an additional step they need to seek out and
Visa blog post: "Invisible payment experiences, like those complete," Visa wrote.
of today's ride share, are starting to become a consumer
expectation rather than a nice-to-have convenience," wrote
Visa Senior Vice President of Internet of Things Avin Contributed articles inside by:
Arumugam
Brandes Elitch ........................................................................................22
Rick Oglesby, founder and President of AZ Payments Steven Feldshuh ...................................................................................36
Group LLC, a Phoenix-based consultancy, agreed.
"Ultimately that's how it's going to work," he said. "The Ken Musante ..........................................................................................38
actual experience of paying will disappear into the Adam Atlas ..............................................................................................40
background."
TOC on page 3
For decades, plastic cards – with magnetically encoded
information, holograms and more recently secure
embedded chips – have been key to the payment

Continued on page 24