Payment Interfaces of the Future

How users will interact with systems in tomorrow’s digital society will be very different from what we are all familiar with today.  Although touch screens, monitors and keyboards will remain relevant, new types of interfaces will emerge that will alter how we interact with devices and may radically impact how payments are made. 

Here are a few emerging interfaces that I think could become important in the payments arena.  Some may seem far-fetched, but the technology is already in place to make all of them a possibility.  In my opinion, these revolutionary interfaces could enter our everyday lives sooner rather than later, and they may play a more important role than you might think. 

Voice Payments

Voice interfaces have been around for decades and voice payments are already available from a handful of vendors.  But historically, this technology hasn’t been one that users embrace.  That’s at least partly due to the fact that previous computer generated voice experiences have been difficult to communicate with. Traditional Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems are only mildly helpful and only marginally informative, and sometimes they’re outright annoying.  Even when voice technology has been an option, most users have chosen to stick with their mouse and keyboard.

That’s changing.  Products like Cortana, Siri, Watson and Echo have revolutionized the nature of voice-based interfaces. Even so, we have only begun to tap the potential of these interfaces.  As powerful platforms become adept at analyzing swaths of unstructured data, voice systems should gain ground as preference of human-computer collaboration in many situations.  

Within a short period of time, voice interfaces will become smarter, more helpful, and easier to work with.  As integration with this technology grows in our homes and surroundings, it will become a mainstream form of interaction. When it does, payment opportunities will emerge to support this shift. 

IVR systems already generate transactions in a variety of ways today, but look for much more sophistication over the next few years as our new “digital helpers” gain the intelligence to help us make payments, preventing human mistakes, avoiding accidental overdrafts, suggesting better purchasing opportunities, and improving our financial decision-making abilities…

This post can be read in its entirety at Jack Henry & Associates' Strategically Speaking – http://goo.gl/3QJvhC