As Managing Director of Mastercard Spain, Paloma Real has only one goal: to accelerate growth, focusing on innovation. Among her priorities are digitalization – since the future of the payments sector is cashless, the promotion of alliances with new players in the payments ecosystem, the implementation of new solutions that make transactions easier, faster and safer.
A Telecommunications Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, Paloma Real has been working in the telecommunications and payments sector for 20 years. She began her career at Mastercard in 2012 and for the last three years, before becoming Managing Director last November, she was head of Business Innovation and Development for Mastercard Iberia.
Question: How far along is the digitization of payments
Paloma Real: The financial sector is in transformation, it is literally going through a phase of digital revolution that urgently requires the development of new technologies in every phase of the process and especially in some segments, such as payment methods.
Phone numbers as the world moves belize phone number library towards even more advanced communication systems. 1. The History of Phone Numbers 1.1 The Early Days of Telephony switchboard. Users would simply ask the operator to connect them to a person or business, and the operator
In this sense, we have noticed how technology
and innovation are having a great impact on people’s daily lives; many daily actions, such as payments, have changed radically in recent years.
Just five years ago it would have been библиотека иностранных данных strange to think of paying with a contactless credit card , from a smartphone or any wearable device, or authenticating a payment through a selfie. And yet today all these methods actually exist: contactless payments are used every day by many people and soon many biometric solutions will be available to everyone, increasing the security of digital transactions.
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Consumers are changing every bi lists day, they are increasingly aware of new trends and are demanding more and more from companies. Have you noticed any particular requests or needs from your customers?
PR: The evolution of consumers
constantly pushes us to rethink our payment methods in order to improve the user experience . We know that payment is not an end in itself, but a means to obtain something. As such, it should be noticed as little as possible, so that the consumer can enjoy the result more and forget about the transaction. Payments must be perceived as safe and reliable, and they must be able to be made through products that we use every day – not only smartphones, but also rings, bracelets, smartwatches…
Security is part of Mastercard’s DNA
.In recent years we have focused a lot on this aspect. Today we have tokenization systems that encrypt the personal data of each transaction in unique codes that are used only once or devices that authorize payments by reading biometric parameters. This allows the consumer to complete a payment or access financial services by taking a selfie or by reading their fingerprint, or to use artificial intelligence to check for payment fraud.
Payments are already a reality on
wearable devices , which are already part of our lives. In Spain, for example, we have made this possibility a reality with the agreement closed with Fitbit Ionic, thanks to which we help users to carry out some of their daily actions through their watches, with just a few steps and clicks. In the future, we will be able to integrate this function on other devices as well.
According to our latest study conducted on 11,915 users of digital banks in eleven European countries, the convenience offered by digital payment systems is the advantage most appreciated by customers. In second place is saving time (76% of those interviewed in Spain) and in third place is ease of use (69% in Spain).
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When it comes to customer needs and requests, how does Mastercard address them?
PR: At Mastercard, the person is at the center of all our innovations. Collecting data through interactions is essential to improve processes and optimize our products, in order to achieve high levels of satisfaction. Our best guarantee is to offer quality service and products that can adapt to new market and customer demands… So it is essential to define a good strategy to manage the customer experience.
We are aware of the importance of developing our products to reach an increasingly informed and demanding number of customers, but we also know that once we have reached them, the future of our relationship will depend on the quality of the experience with Mastercard.
So how important is the implementation of a Digital Customer Experience strategy?
PR: As I was saying, providing a service that meets customer expectations is vital for our company, especially with regard to the process of digitizing payments.
In recent years, we have seen how the growth of digital payments and the convergence of new technologies in this sector has had a direct impact on Digital Customer Experience strategies that concern the online or instore world. Ultimately, it is about anticipating consumer requests and always arriving on time. And this is a fundamental part of Mastercard’s business strategy.
An example is the use of contactless technology that has made payment possible and widespread through a single gesture through the POS. Digital Customer Experience strategies materialize in these payment mechanisms that allow companies to satisfy the needs of customers, who no longer have to carry cash, queue or remember codes or passwords.
You started your career at Mastercard in 2012 and in recent years you have been the head of the Business Innovation and Development department for the Iberia area. How has the company developed in these years, in terms of innovation and Digital Transformation?
PR: Before joining the company, from 2009 to 2012, Mastercard had made a series of acquisitions aimed at accelerating innovation across all departments. As a technology company in the global payments industry, we use technology, our experience and our data-driven insights to make electronic payments more convenient, secure and efficient.
The digital revolution has made great strides
in this field. Mastercard has been a protagonist in the implementation of some of these technologies such as the use of biometric parameters for authentication.
We have also been working for several years on the convergence of payments through the development of artificial intelligence, to make it possible for any device connected to the internet to become a convenient, easy and above all safe means of payment. Wearables will soon make us forget all the inconvenience of coins and credit cards: in fact, by 2020, 62% of wearables will be able to make payments.
In addition, we have been working for many years on financial inclusion projects that use technology to break down barriers and offer great opportunities for economic, productive and efficiency growth, and which have already brought benefits to millions of people around the world.
We believe that innovation can be used as a strategic and technological lever to develop responsible business management processes and global industry ecosystems. We want to be sure that innovation is able to develop greater confidence, self-esteem and the ability to propose creative ideas in people. In this sense, it is a tool for change, for business transformation, administration, profitability and sustainability.
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Q: How does Mastercard differentiate itself from its competitors in this digital age?
PR: Mastercard has led the payments industry for 50 years. We work every day to continue writing the history of this industry, creating new security solutions and accompanying people towards a cashless world.
Innovation, as I said before, is in everything we do. We continue to implement innovative processes, looking for new solutions to improve the lives of our customers around the world. For example, we recently introduced a system with which we use solar panels to bring light to areas without electricity and create connected networks of mobile microtransactions for businesses, thus helping the international expansion of digital payment in areas where it would not otherwise be possible.
We are also pioneers in designing solutions that implement our knowledge – based on data, advanced technologies and our global network – to help build Smart Cities, which are more sustainable and more inclusive. We are helping many cities around the world to become more efficient by incorporating digital payments into their DNA, reducing dependence on cash and increasing the use of digital. Examples of this evolution can already be seen in large cities such as London or Madrid.
In Madrid, thanks to an agreement reached with the city’s transport company, contactless payment is now authorized on all bus lines, with the installation of 2,100 validators. With this system – which is just one example of what has been developed by the company – we have shortened travel times since access and payment have become faster. The costs related to cash handling and issuing passes and tickets have also been eliminated.
Q.: What are the new challenges for this sector?
PR: One of the biggest challenges of the moment is to get companies to adapt to the digital world as soon as possible, as it will be an essential condition in the coming years. This transformation will depend, to a large extent, on the willingness of employees and company managers to adopt new forms of digital payment and to recognize the importance and usefulness that innovation in this area brings to their businesses. It is also our job, as a technology company, to offer solutions that are as simple and useful as possible, so that this transition is easy and successful.
Q.: What is a great success of your company that you like to talk about? And in what other areas are you working to improve?
