Indian Millennials and Payment Technology
Millennials prefer to visit a dentist instead of opening a bank account or interacting with a banker. I have heard this at a cards and payments conference in Mumbai.
Millennials are a lucrative market segment to payment technology companies. It is estimated that India has approximately 400 million millennials with a spending potential of $330 billion.
Let us look at some practical tips to convince Indian millennials to use the payment technology or solutions offered by your company:
A) Rewards and Loyalty Programs
With umpteen number of payment technologies in the market, millennials will choose a product in which the chances of them getting rewards are higher. However, it should meet their expectations of reward schemes, vouchers etc. Your payment technology should be flexible in altering the benefits/features of loyalty programs on a periodic basis and as per the market trends.
B) Techno and Customer-Friendly Customer Care Centers
Train your customer-service staff to handle the most complex queries about your payment technologies. You don’t have to spend massive resources in training your customer service staff on payment technologies, as millennials understand technological issues easily. But, they may not be patient. So payment delays due to technological glitches may result in social media ranting. Give them an experience like no other during sales and after-sales service.
C) Easy and Quick to Use
Millennials are hard-pressed for time and prefer to complete any task in a jiffy. Versatility in payment technologies will be of interest to them. All transactions, simple or complex should be easily executed in the shortest time span. The technology should also be compatible across all devices like PC, laptop, iPads, smart phones, etc. and should provide seamless experience irrespective of the device that is used.
D) Cyber Resilience
In a world where data loss is a looming possibility, it is imperative to ensure that payment technologies are built with the latest cyber security features. This will ensure safety of the data and the payment devices against hacking/phishing and other cyber frauds. The potential for huge transactions using payment technologies by this section of the population may be of interest to hackers. Thus, it is crucial to insulate your payment technologies from cyber-attacks. E) Research and Innovation
A deep orientation for research and innovation will help to create great payment products for millennials.
In recent times there have been lot of innovation in payment technologies. Last year, more than 300 KFC outlets in China put to use ‘smile to pay. ‘Facial recognition helps the outlets to accept payments from a customer’s smile. In Sweden, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips were implanted under human skin of more than 4000 citizens. Those chips function as wallets, keycard, and ID proof, among others. Millennials will not only be the early adapters of such technologies, but will also pass it to others.
It is high time to introduce digital payment technologies to exclusively facilitate the payments of millennials! Are fintechs listening?
