The PAYTECH Book

Why Personal Financial Management Will Be Embedded Into the Next Generation of Payments

By Szilvia Egri

Founder, Femtechlab Ltd

Innovative payment solutions have evolved at a rapid pace in recent years. As a result, even the card-based status quo is facing challenges. We found the following three trends to be the most significant driving forces behind this process:

1. BigTech and FinTech players are demanding a front seat in the payment innovation race.
2. The European Union’s second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) regulation is stimulating competition in the market by creating new roles of financial intermediaries. To add more spark, instant-payment infrastructures are being built, setting out a new playing field.
3. Evolving technologies like computer vision, speech recognition, machine learning and biometrics promise a seamless shopping experience that makes the payment itself effortless and even “invisible”.

This chapter will elaborate the last trend.

The best practices presented in this chapter will show you how payment is increasingly fading into the shopping experience. It also points out the potential drawbacks, and how the new ways of payment may deprive customers of financial control.

Finally, this chapter argues that the redesign of personal finance management (PFM) solutions is also required in a way which vests customers with informed decision-making power. This new generation of PFM not only tracks and structures payments and provides insights after purchase, but is ...