- August 2, 2011
- Global Payments Knowledge, Technology, Vendors
- No Comments
- ACI Worldwide, Discover Plan Effect, disruption, Fundtech, payments, PayX, S1, The Disruptive Change Cycle
Disruptive Change in the Payments Industry
For many years the payments industry has been largely stable and predictable; today the industry is changing at a pace never seen before.
Historically industries such as Telecoms and Automotive have experienced very similar change described as “The Disruptive Change Cycle”. Essentially the dynamics of customer & market demand change so fast and unpredictably, that many successful incumbents re-invent themselves, and a good number of New-Wave competitors break through from niche to mainstream.
PayX’s opinion for 2 years now is that the Payments Industry is already undergoing “The Disruptive Change Cycle”. The key questions now are “What does the future payments landscape look like, and how do I take advantage?”. At PayX we are significantly engaged with customers around the world working strategically (PayX-DPE™) to address this very topic.
A recent example of such new level dynamics in the Payments Industry is the recent merger and acquisition flurry of the last few weeks involving S1, Fundtech and ACI Worldwide. S1 and Fundtech originally announced a merger, ACI then announce an offer for acquisition of S1 which if accepted terminates the Fundtech merger. Subsequently S1 rejected ACIW in favour of progressing the Fundtech merger. Such events bring both excitement and concern throughout the payments industry ecosystem. One of these announcements is in itself interesting material; but multiple announcements over just a few weeks swinging potential consequences creates a mix of excitement, concern and uncertainty. These dynamics all then contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy of a disruptive change cycle. As Darwin said ““It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Have a good summer and no doubt it will be a fast-paced Autumn!