Payments Testing - March 19, 2024
This is arguably the biggest week for payments in 2018 with both Money20/20 and Sibos taking place right now in different parts of the world.
Over the past few weeks I have been talking about all of the exciting things going on in the payments industry and a look at the agendas for these two big shows would seem to indicate that I have actually under estimated the amount of activity by at least half.
As I have said before, payments is hot right now and the fact that nearly 20,000 payment industry executives have converged on Las Vegas and Sydney is proof positive. Keynote speakers like Sir Richard Branson, who can pretty much go wherever he wants and do whatever he wants, give further testimony to the current focus on payments.
Agenda items from the two events include a wide range of topics including, agile, analytics, AI, APIs, automation, biometrics, crypto-currencies, customer experience, cybersecurity, data privacy, distributed ledger, innovation, IoT, micro services, open banking, personalization, quantum computing, real-time payments, reg tech, robotics, voice tech, web services and doing business with Generation Z.
There is even session on “Fake Testing”, i.e., how data bias and fake software testing affect the software development life cycle.
To be sure, testing and related topics don’t typically get headline billing at conferences such as Money20/20 and Sibos. I'd bet that Sir Richard will not be talking about testing during his keynote. And yet, testing is actually a critical component for every single one of the agenda items from both events.
No new innovations, no new products or services, no new processes or procedures are going to be put in place without a significant amount of testing. The good news is that modern testing strategies and tools are available to support the most aggressive transformers and disruptors. In the transparent marketplace that we live and work in today, organizations that chooses to ignore the fact that testing early, often and completely, run the risk of making the evening headlines, as well as losing clients and negatively impacting shareholder value.
At Paragon, we certainly see an increase in the level of activity from clients and prospects as they work to upgrade and modernize their payments testing infrastructure. There is a common set of goals expressed by most organizations who are looking to improve their testing capabilities:
- I need to automate to improve speed, efficiency and test coverage
- I want to reduce defects and enrich the users experience for my customers
- I need increased flexibility and control over how I manage my test environments
We work hard to try and stay current with all the latest technology changes and payment trends so that we can continue to help our clients meet these goals. It’s one of the reasons that we attend shows like Money20/20 (no Sibos for us this year), so that we can see who is talking about what and stay connected to the buzz in the marketplace.
Not everything that gets discussed at the show will impact our lives, but we want to make sure that we are ready for the changes that are sure to come.
Next week we plan to have a guest blog from Jim Perry, Paragon’s CEO, who will provide thoughts and commentary about his experience this year at Money20/20.
