Our Confirmation of Payee Product Owner, Anu Raman, recently discussed innovative strategies to enhance payment systems and create seamless payment experiences for end users at the Women in Payments 2025 EMEA symposium.
The Women in Payments EMEA symposium is an annual event that provides perspectives from leaders in payments, supports diversity and gender equality, and covers topics impacting all aspects of the payments ecosystem. Held over two days, this year’s event was attended by representatives from across the payments industry and focused on the theme of ‘Architect your future’. Key topics included the global political landscape, payments trends, and risk management and artificial intelligence.
Focusing on the theme of ‘Building for the consumer’, Anu joined fellow industry experts Marta Gallego Mena from Visa, and Susie MacKenzie from Corlytics to explore:
- How we can guarantee immediate, seamless and secure payments for end users in an evolving payments landscape
- Ways in which we can ensure cross-border interoperability of payment solutions
- How regulators and the industry, within and across borders, can work together to ensure continued positive customer experiences.
Immediate, seamless and secure payments
Anu initiated the conversation by explaining that customers want the ability to make payments that are, first and foremost, trustworthy, safe, and reliable but are also simple to use, readily available, and integrate seamlessly with their online and mobile devices. Whilst these requirements have remained consistent over the years, how the payments industry has responded continues to evolve; embracing technology, expanding payment options, and prioritising security and convenience to provide instantaneous, frictionless, and safer transactions.
Cross-border interoperability of payment solutions
In response, the panellists agreed that the ongoing challenge to achieving this is the establishment of strong, interoperable regulatory and governance frameworks that prioritise and protect consumers, wherever they may be in world. Globalisation has made this especially important, increasing customer and end-user demand for frictionless and safer payments across borders and jurisdictions. Global standardisation, such as ISO 20022, and increased collaboration between global regulators and the payments ecosystem, play an essential role in achieving this interoperability, facilitating more controlled, efficient, and secure processes so that everyone, within and across borders, has the same payments experience.
In similarity with the global standardisation of payments, Anu talked about how the standardisation of the rules and guidance for the implementation of Pay.UK’s Confirmation of Payee service, is vital to its successful and seamless delivery. Confirmation of Payee is an account name-checking tool that helps to reduce misdirected payments and provides greater assurance to end users that their payments are being transferred to, and collected from, the intended account holder. Launched in 2020, the standardisation of its rules and guidance means that end users receive the same reliable, secure, and frictionless customer experience, whatever bank or building society they belong to. Our role as an independent organisation at the centre of the UK payments ecosystem was key to achieving standardisation, enabling us to collaborate with the industry to understand and meet our customers’ and end-users’ needs.
The simple and relatable service has since evolved to become a valuable and effective tool in the fight against fraud and we are working with other countries, who are rolling out similar tools, to understand its interoperability.
Collaboration between global regulators and the industry
The panellists concluded the session by exploring the obstacles of working across a diverse, global ecosystem when trying to achieve a cohesive, efficient and secure payments experience for end users. Currently, global governance and regulatory frameworks are fragmented, with a need for one common payments language. It was agreed that the main challenge associated with this is how regular and consistent collaboration is facilitated between the payments industry and global regulators to identify alignments and non-alignments across jurisdictions. This complexity is further compounded where the rules and regulations are not tailored to the available products and services. Whilst regulatory compliance is essential, the development of new products should always be driven by the needs of the customer and industry trends.
Anu said: “Good customer experience, no matter where you live in the world or with whom you bank, is essential for establishing end-user trust in payment products and services. By working closely and consistently with the wider payments ecosystem, including global regulators, we can better understand customer needs and deliver secure, interoperable and seamless solutions that protect end users from fraud and enhance confidence at every touchpoint, globally.”
