Leda Writes for Fintech Futures: the big sleep

Every Thursday, Leda Glyptis, CEO of 11:FS Foundry creates #LedaWrites. This week it's the big sleep - not a Raymond Chandler book review, rather a look at payments innovation.

How can you really still ask me about “trends in payments”?

Seriously.

Once a month or so I will get a very particular kind of speaking request. The ask is topped and tailed with an expression of how much they love my work and how far they have come on their own transformation journey. In the middle is the ask: can you give us a keynote on payment trends?

No.

Just no.

I can. But I won’t. And you shouldn’t want me to.

The first time I gave a talk on trends in payments was approximately seven years ago and it was definitely not the first of its kind the industry had the pleasure of sitting through. The format was cookie-cutter: hey here are some new techs, new ideas, new business models that may change the way we currently do business so have a look, have a think, keep an eye out, copy, buy and above all think and learn.

There is no silver bullet, the world is changing, learn what you need to know to be what you need to be in the new normal when it emerges.

Remember those?

It felt scary only because we didn’t know how much would come down the pipe.

It was true but we won’t ever remember that because although some bought and some learned, most watched and waited for an epiphany or a fairy godmother.

And when I get called upon, in 2019, to give talks about the payments landscape or any other version of the question, I am not sure if I am being asked whether they have slumbered too long or whether they genuinely don’t know they are asleep and the world has moved on.

Read the whole story at Fintech Futures.