At the end of 2023, Global Payments, a global leader in providing payment services and technologies, published a comprehensive report on technological trends that will influence the business environment locally and internationally.

The report highlights the increasingly widespread evolution and adoption of artificial intelligence, contactless payments, and the phenomenon of live shopping.

The results were obtained through detailed interviews with 541 respondents from North America, Europe, and Asia, including professionals in online commerce development, experts from top financial institutions, and representatives of enterprises of various sizes, including notable companies such as Amazon Web Services, American Express, Discover Global Network, Goldman Sachs, Mastercard, Visa, and Tripleseat.

It is noteworthy that, regardless of the direction of the global economy, businesses of all sizes are adopting initiatives to facilitate payment processes, implementing the latest technologies to combat fraud or strengthen their relationship with consumers at every transaction.

The report represents a summary of global payment experts' perspectives, providing an overview of the latest innovations and trends in payment and commerce, accessible to the Romanian market.

The Global Payments report highlights five top opportunities that will have a major impact on businesses in 2024.

Artificial intelligence revolution: as important as the emergence of the internet

61% of the surveyed companies are excited about the impact of artificial intelligence on their business.

For companies, the three most anticipated applications for artificial intelligence are in Customer Care (43%), fraud detection (43%), and marketing (40%).

In the field of commerce, generative artificial intelligence could rewrite the rules. According to McKinsey, this technology could add between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion annually to the global economy. The management consulting company estimates that the technology already manages about half of customer interactions.

Generative artificial intelligence could handle another quarter. An AI-powered customer service chatbot could answer common questions about payment balances, order status, or returns, allowing customer support teams to deal with more complex or sensitive issues. Productivity in Customer Care centers could increase by up to 45%.

Artificial intelligence also opens up the opportunity for more efficient fraud detection. Currently, these systems have too few authentic fraud cases from which to learn. Through artificial intelligence, synthetic examples based on real cases can be generated, leading to improvements in fraud detection systems. In this case, AI is like a coach for an athlete who needs to prepare for rare but critical situations during the game.

Artificial intelligence will also play an increasingly important role in contactless payments, which tend towards fewer interactions. Amazon's "pay-by-palm" technology allows customers to pay by scanning their palms on a POS in some of the company's stores.

Through biometric authentication, generative artificial intelligence, and machine learning, palm payments can speed up the checkout process for shoppers. The technology authenticates the customer's identity and processes the payment, representing another step towards making the payment experience "invisible" to customers.

Integrated payment solutions will drive repeat transactions and improve the buying experience

44% of companies stated that integrated payments will be extremely important to them in 2024.

With integrated payments, customers can make purchases without leaving the online platform, social media channel, or preferred app. With advances in fintech, integrated payment solutions will continue to evolve in various industries in 2024, including healthcare, utilities, and real estate.

Security and fraud prevention will face new challenges

62% of companies say reducing fraud levels in payments is an urgent concern, more than any other issue.

In the next decade, card fraud is estimated to cost the industry over $400 billion. And every dollar lost due to fraudulent transactions costs companies $3.75 due to refunds, disputes, and other indirect costs.

Another dimension of security is data privacy. In 2021, there were over 4,100 cyberattacks globally, equivalent to approximately 22 billion exposed records. Among credit card users, 44% reported at least two fraudulent transactions in 2022.

Artificial intelligence has the power to protect companies against real-time attacks and help authorities catch hidden criminals behind digital identities. Amazon Neptune is a web service that can create a fraud graph and detect relationships between multiple people using email addresses and accounts, phone numbers, preferred points of sale, and other information that hackers could exploit.

Thus, it can quickly map a complex network, identifying perpetrators behind some of the most coordinated and destructive digital attacks.

To combat fraudulent tactics, companies use various security and prevention measures, from multifactor authentication to tokenization or data encryption.

Live shopping enters the market strongly

26% of the analyzed businesses already use the power of live commerce. 17% claim to have introduced live shopping sessions in the last 12 months, and 23% plan to do so this year.

In 2022, products worth approximately $500 billion were sold through livestreaming, eight times more than in 2019.

Consumers worldwide interact live with merchants in online shopping sessions. Encouraged by what they see, they make purchases on the spot. Live commerce has the potential to attract more customers to a brand but also creates instant demand, helping businesses differentiate and perform in a crowded market environment. A Chinese livestreamer sold beef worth $650,000 through live-streamed events, multiplying sales by 30 times in two years.

As with all forms of social commerce, the risk of fraud, identity theft, and other security issues exists in live commerce, especially considering how dependent it is on popular content from social networks and influencer recruitment.

Moreover, the use of social networks has exploded in the last two years, rising to about two and a half hours on average per day (according to datareportal.com).

Next-generation digital experiences captivate customers before they realize what they need

36% of companies have introduced cashierless checkout in the last year, 44% currently use the service, and 21% are considering using it in 2024.

The "tap-to-pay" payment method will be most important for hotel networks in 2024. 65% of hospitality/accommodation businesses say they plan to optimize this payment method.

In recent years, businesses have improved their technologies to accelerate customer transactions. According to Juniper Research, contactless payment transactions will increase to over $10 trillion by 2027.

The latest type of contactless payment entering the market is phone-to-phone payment. Customers make a payment using their phone's or smartwatch's NFC technology, bringing the device close to the merchant's phone. Thus, merchants can accept contactless payments without the need for additional hardware or payment terminals.

Such improvements are the result of efforts by payment and payment technology companies to provide customers with innovative, smooth, and secure experiences. Self-checkouts, contactless payments (phone-to-phone), or payment gamification (discounts using certain payment apps or tools, rewards, cashback, etc.) reduce human interactions and introduce elements of fun into the payment process.

Thus, payment technology no longer represents just the conclusion of a sale but the preparation for the next one. (Photo: Freepik)