Microsoft: Microsoft Perspectives on Payments and Core Banking in Financial Services

The following is an excerpt from a blog post by Microsoft’s Director of Industry Solutions, Colin Kerr:

Payments is an Information Business
In my teens, I remember TV commercials for Yellow Pages in the UK. The publication would list local retailers by category, and then you could call to see if the retailer had the item in stock. Maybe if they were a ‘nice retailer’ they would but the item aside for you (a boy wanting a new bike for Christmas is the commercial that sticks in my mind).
Fast forward to 2013 and the world has changed a bit. Yellow Pages is online, and phones are cellular – and ‘smart’ – but bicycles still have two wheels and are more popular than ever. In the past, payments was a transactional business, but now with the development in social media and mobile devices, it has become an information business. Consumers make decisions about what, where, and how to buy in different ways these days. Now days if my ‘digital native’ children wanted to buy a bicycle the process would be quite different (at least, after first asking if I would buy it for them).
(Read the full article by Colin Kerr)