In this dynamic age of payments, nurturing the right human-centered skills for the future workplace will have a profound impact on the industry, explains Roshan Moonsamy, Chief Financial Officer at BankservAfrica.
In recent years, new payment innovations have emerged, progressing at different rates and establishing distinct positions in the market.
Propelled by new technologies, changing customer behaviour, and evolving regulations, significant industry changes are anticipated to accelerate.
To thrive in this era, it is imperative to look inward at the enterprise-wide requirements to navigate the new demands. With AI and automation fundamentally changing how we operate – understanding the skills and expertise is essential for adaptability and knowledge trust.
Getting to the heart of the matter
For forward-thinking organisations, digital transformation is the cornerstone of their business strategy. It has the advantages of building a competitive edge and becoming more agile in the face of big disruptions.
Even with the intense focus on implementing new technologies to accelerate innovation and boost efficiencies, it remains imperative to prioritise people.
Focusing on people, the heart of the organisation, brings the benefit of fostering the necessary skills and expertise needed to navigate the fast-changing payments landscape, quickly overcome any challenges, solve faster, lead with empathy, and keep customer experience and product innovation at the forefront.
In the payments industry, this has other positive effects, which is nicely put in an EY 2024 report, ‘The future of the talent agenda in payments’: ‘In the early days of the payments sector, the focus was predominantly on the deep technical skills required to build products and maintain services. However, the pace of innovation is such that technical skills change quickly. Instead, there is an increased focus on human-centered skills’.
When we look at payments, we need to consider the multitude of use cases, some obvious to us, others completely unknown. Nurturing the curiosity to find out and learn about the knowns and unknowns helps us uncover the gaps that we can potentially address through payments.
At the same time, a thorough understanding of our customer and markets by empathetically immersing ourselves in their worlds will deepen our understanding of their problems and strive to address these effectively – whether through engagements or the types of solutions offered.
These are part of the skills evolution in our highly dynamic landscape where uncertainty is almost the norm. Here, embracing the ‘learn fast, fail fast’ mindset when dealing with new technologies or new environments is beneficial for building resilience and overcoming challenges.
In my own field of finance, the days of only dealing with data cleansing and reconciliations are over. Leveraging the digital transformation effect by utilising digital tools responsibly is assisting us in many ways – from streamlining processes for improved efficiencies to cutting costs. The organisational-wide digital transformation programme, initiated last year, has also yielded positive results surpassing the organisation’s digital transformation scorecard goals.
Leading for sustainable change
Building the skills of the future in payments means breaking away from the traditional. Underpinned by transformational leadership that fosters a culture of continuous improvement and growth. This paves the way for even more innovative and agile thinking.
Finally, an appreciation of the diversity of thoughts from employees of different backgrounds and experiences should not be overlooked. With the broadening of the payments ecosystem and the sprawling marketplace of knowns and unknowns, breaking the echo chamber is imperative for delivering solutions that solve real-world challenges and are accessible to people from all walks of life.
Cultivating a spectrum of perspectives, ideas, and approaches will drive creativity and inspire solutions for the evolving landscape.