The third-annual CardFlight Conference wrapped up last week in Naples, Florida. The event brought together merchant acquirers, financial institutions, independent sales organizations, major payment networks, global hardware manufacturers, and distributors for sessions on emerging payments trends and business development tools. Attendees from dozens of companies heard from experts on the key trends they’re watching, shared best practices with their peers at merchant acquirers and other payments firms, and learned how to grow their small business portfolios and maximize profitability.
Over the course of three days, we dove into the latest trends and best practices in our industry with representatives from Google, Ingenico, PAX, Verifone, and Visa — to name just a few. Built around the theme of “Navigating small business software solutions and payments,” the conference was packed full of panels and keynote presentations examining everything from scaling payments to emerging technology to merchant retention.
In this post, we’ll share a few of the key insights from some of our sessions this year, including:
CardFlight Founder and CEO, Derek Webster, took the stage to update attendees on the growth of SwipeSimple over the past year and to share a sneak peek of our product roadmap.
CardFlight is a strong partner. Our scale enables us to offer more robust support and feature development.
SwipeSimple merchants enjoy a broad range of modern payment acceptance capabilities, and our usage stats show that they take advantage of them.
Elie Toubiana, a senior software engineer and one of the first employees to work on Uber Eats, joined us Wednesday morning to break down emerging payment integrations and how companies can scale their own payments at Uber Eats speed.
Elie shared how payments are at the heart of the Uber experience – from in-app payments in the Uber app for iOS or Android, or in-store. With Uber Eats, the core goal was to make the ordering experience — from browsing for food, paying for your order, and accepting the delivery — as easy as the first time you hailed a car with the Uber app.
That goal took a lot of engineering work to achieve, since the process for ordering food and getting it delivered involves more stakeholders (restaurant, delivery person, finding an individual address rather than a pickup spot, etc.) than hailing a ride.
We also heard from Michael Chall, Head of Business Development, Global Technology Partners at Visa, on what it takes to create best-in-class point-of-sale experiences for merchants.
Michael shared stats around the recent growth of contactless payments...
… and demonstrated how the market is poised to maintain the growth rate, since the POS systems for the most popular merchant types are contactless-enabled
For more from Visa about contactless payments, view this PDF.
In addition to the presentations listed above, CardFlight Conference 2020 hosted several panel interactive panel discussions with a diverse range of payment industry insiders.
This panel featured a conversation with James Derby (Payroc), Mike English (Beyond) and John Shipley (Clearent). It was moderated by Marla Knutson (CardFlight).
Key takeaway: Having a one-stop shop payments solution for small businesses helps create a “sticky” experience because it enables the merchant to accept payments in pretty much any way they want, rather than relying on an ad-hoc mix of solutions.
Mike Hackney (CDE), Shobhit Kumar (POS Portal), and Wally Sebastian (The Phoenix Group) joined Natalia Leonardis (CardFlight) to find out how distributors can help merchant service providers scale their business.
Key takeaway: The best partner relationships are the ones that utilize technology to make the rollout more efficient in surprising ways.
Peter Wagener (CardFlight) sat down with Denise Fox (EMS) and Heather Nowak (First Citizens Bank) to discuss the impact of smart terminals on the payment industry.
Key takeaway: While smart terminals require providers to establish new rollout processes, the benefits to the merchant make the change more than worthwhile.
Alex Paull (American Express) led this panel, featuring Sarah Adams (First American Payment Systems) and Scott Paape (Talus Pay).
Key takeaway: It’s too risky for merchant service providers to NOT adapt as a way to better pitch new clients and retain existing ones.
This panel featured Mark Bunney (Ingenico), Tony Lucento (Verifone), and Ken Schember (PAX Technologies) in conversation with Derek Webster (CardFlight).
Key takeaway: Hardware manufacturers are looking to evolve their small business solutions from single-function terminals, into robust offerings including software and services throughout the merchant lifecycle.
CardFlight Conference 2020 wasn’t all keynotes and panel discussions. We also squeezed in some time for a fishing expedition, time on the beach, cocktail cruise, spa appointments, and more.
Here’s a visual highlight:
Thanks to all the speakers and sponsors for helping to make CardFlight Conference 2020 a success!
This year’s CardFlight Conference created a space for payments industry leaders to learn from and collaborate with each other while enjoying thoughtful conversations, engaging sessions, and a few beautiful days in sunny Florida.
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Complete speaker list:
