Focus On Innovation

First off, I am excited to have recently joined the MAG and look forward to meeting and working with all of you. Over the last twenty years, I have been fortunate to work for organizations such as InComm, MCX, and most recently FIS where I focused on Real Time Payments. As we grow our innovation efforts and tech engagement, I want to leverage my industry experience as well as my time as a MAG sponsor to develop our opportunities.

I have started to reach out to many of you to better understand what is on your mind, ideas on how we can get more involvement from both the merchants and sponsors, and hot topics of interest. The consistent themes are cloud, security, tokenization, authentication, CBDC, Real Time Payments, and Super Apps. This is our starting point for our monthly Innovation Committee meetings for the first half of 2023 and will be used to target current sponsors that are not part of the Tech Forum as well as new sponsors.

Real Time Payments is a hot topic given what is transpiring with FedNow and the overall opportunities it presents for the industry. The use cases are vast, and we need to ensure merchants are involved in establishing standards and operational requirements. This month we will establish a Community of Practice (COP) for Real Time Payments, and I encourage you to get involved to gather more input and provide education to our membership as this develops. Please watch for more information on this.

Our strategic goal for innovation is to place heavy emphasis on emerging solutions impacting us today and in the future. As the industry changes, we can track a “watchlist” of those changes. The payments industry is moving at light speed, and as fintechs create disruption, we must engage these organizations and understand the competitive landscape. This provides merchants with new ideas and education.

In closing, I encourage you to reach out to me with questions, ideas, or any thoughts you may have. It is an exciting time in the payments industry, and I am glad to be part of MAG to help make a positive change. I can be reached at 480-734-4450 or chris.storbeck@merchantadvisorygroup.org.