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P2P payments go mainstream, and I am referenced

I was written about in “P2P Payments Go Mainstream in Canada,” by Pete Reville in PaymentsJournal:

One of the biggest hurdles in the adoption of mobile payments is consumer comfort. That is to say, in order for consumers to adopt digital payments there has to be a level of trust, familiarity, and acceptance of digital payments that will entice consumers to use digital methods over older, more “engrained” methods. In fact, one of the biggest barriers to digital payments has always been a perception that the “current method works just fine” or “I see no need to switch”.

Courtesy of PaymentsJournal

Well, things are changing. We’ve all read the stories of digital payment successes in place like Kenya and China. Alas, in economies that have had card based systems in place, adoption of digital – phone based – payments has been slower to gain popularity.

With all this in mind, I was very interested to read a commentary in Forbes about the adoption of P2P payments in Canada. In this piece, Canada Embraces Digital Payments, With Some Behind-The-Scenes Help, by Alan Zeichick from Oracle, he points to the rapid rise of one P2P solution, Interac e-Transfer.

Person-to-person (P2P) payments are one of the fastest-growing segments of business for Interac. Its P2P service, called Interac e-Transfer, saw 371.4 million transactions in 2018, representing a 54% increase over 2017. The amount of money involved is significant, too: CAN$132.8 billion in 2018, a 45% increase over 2017.

There’s more. It’s a nice piece. Thank you, PaymentsJournal.

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Canadians love digital payments, cash not so much

Canadian banknote

Like consumers and merchants all around the world, Canadians have embraced digital payments instead of cash and checks. The growth rate is staggering, as evidenced by statistics provided by Interac, which processes many of those payments.

Digital payments are used for payments from an individual or business to another individual or business. For example, a person might buy artwork from a gallery in Montréal, using a mobile wallet or an app that person’s bank provides. Interac provides behind-the-scenes technology that facilitates these payments with a high degree of security.

Person-to-person (P2P) payments are one of the fastest-growing segments of business for Interac. Its P2P service, called Interac e-Transfer, saw 371.4 million transactions in 2018, representing a 54% increase over 2017. The amount of money involved is significant, too: CAN$132.8 billion in 2018, a 45% increase over 2017.

Interac overall processes about 16 million transactions per day, the bulk of which are debit card transactions made at the point of sale. That growth has back-office technology implications—the rapid increase in online transactions is prompting Interac to move its core software to the cloud. A shift to cloud-based services ensures it can handle future growth and will strengthen the always-on resiliency of its platform.

Why the fast growth in Interac e-Transfer use? It starts with more consumer and business acceptance of digital payments in place of cash and checks, owing in part to their convenience, reliability, and security. With that interest, more financial institutions have signed up as partners, so they can offer customers the ability to transfer money and make digital payments right from their bank accounts.

Also, more businesses are relying on digital payments for business-to-business transfers. Approximately one in six Interac e-Transfer transactions are conducted by a business, which lets them eliminate reliance on checks and allows invoices to be settled in real time.

Read more about this in my story in Forbes, “Canada Embraces Digital Payments, With Some Behind-The-Scenes Help.”

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Unlock the power of “yes” to drive creativity and innovation

Duncan Wardle

Next time you hear a bad idea in the office, try saying “Yes.” That is, fight that impulse to say, “No, and here’s why your idea isn’t going to work.” That negative response shuts down creativity, says Duncan J. Wardle, former head of innovation and creativity at Disney.

Instead, try replying with a positive “Yes and …?” Ask encouraging follow-up questions—not to point out your colleague’s flawed thinking, but to help create a collaborative environment. Build a process that fosters creativity and imagination, and see where that leads.

More on the power of “Yes and.” Those words “transform the power of your idea into our idea,” Wardle explains. That transformation makes the idea bigger and accelerates its potential opportunities. It encourages collaboration, and from that collaboration, we can create new products, businesses, and processes.

Plus, by saying “Yes and,” we demonstrate to our coworkers that we honestly want to explore new ideas, not shut them down. That’s why he encourages asking questions that turn the discussion into an impromptu brainstorming session. Don’t throw up roadblocks meant to trip up your colleague. Instead, throw out your own ideas too. Be collaborative: “Here’s an idea, let’s see how to make it work.”

This is one of four techniques that Wardle offered to attendees at a packed session at Oracle OpenWorld. Read more in my short article for Forbes, “4 Techniques To Unlock Creativity, Including Saying ‘Yes’.”