Fintech Leaders Talk The Future Of Payments, Establishing Customer Trust

Some of the top leaders in the fintech space convened Tuesday at the Benzinga Global Fintech Awards in New York City to discuss payments for the next generation.

That future is here today, and building trust is essential.

"The title of this panel is 'Next Generation' that is supposed to be on kids. But I'm going to say we are all kids when it comes down to this," said moderator Asael "Oz" Meir. The CohnReznick partner used the point to dive into how companies in the fintech space can assure trust with their customers.

Trust Through Communication

"Part of earning customers' trust is to be over-communicating on what's going on with the system and updating each side," said Marwan Forzley, CEO of Veem. "We learned that the more you communicate...the more likely customers are going to trust you because they see payments moving."

Dan Sheinfil, VP of Merchant Services and Integration Management for CheckAlt, a company valued at $35 million, touched on how his company processes roughly 65 million payments for a total value of more than $5 billion per year. He explained how CheckAlt strives to establish trust with the consumer and their financial institution.

One of the key components Sheinfil mentioned was developing customer trust through security. This is achieved first through individual efforts, with aspects like partner API adding further assurance.

"Now that we've established a level of trust we can show you how easily [partner API] interacts with each other," Sheinfil said.

As the industry moves forward and matures in real-time, Forzley reminded the audience that progress will be an "active walking forward" that comes in phases.

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