Welcome to our second podcast. 

Today we’re speaking about a topic dear to our hearts at tomato pay on our second podcast focusing on payments with the thoughtful, experienced, and very insightful Nina Mohanty. 

Nina is a recognised name across the fintech community and an advocate for better financial inclusion and literacy. Currently, Nina works for Klarna in Strategy and Expansion. Previously, she worked at payments giant Mastercard, and other well-known fintechs such as Starling Bank and Bud. She also featured on the Women in FinTech PowerList and co-hosts the Breaking Banks Fintech Podcast in her free time.

You can find our full interview with Nina over at Spotify and Soundcloud, plus a small overview of the podcast below.

What is Nina’s take on the future for payments?

“The future of payments will be very social” 

Nina believes that money, in general, is inherently a social interaction.

That’s why she thinks social payments are the next big thing. This will incorporate aspects of social media and typically will be made via an app or website. To move money around the consumer only needs a username, an email address, or a phone number.

There has been a lot of innovation in the payments sector. Now with all the available data circling our society, Nina thinks that it is possible to start living in the future by not only optimising forecasting and financial insights but by also optimising the payments realm. 

As many banks still live in the past, Nina believes that Open Banking has created an opportunity to optimise every aspect of our financial experiences and help us start to, “actually live in the past, present and the future at the same time”.

The impact of Covid-19 on the payment evolution

''There is always an educational process that goes with any new technology”.

Nina believes that Covid-19 did not function as a sort of switch completely changing our attitude towards contactless payments. Rather, she thinks that it has opened up a space for payment behaviour implemented over a decade ago that has been trying to gain momentum ever since. 

A similar phenomenon happened with the use of QR codes for payments. They have been very popular across Eastern Asia for a long time, but have now found their way into central Europe. This happened through the implementation of Track and Trace systems, and new hygienic ways of displaying menus, placing orders, or even pay at restaurants that have to accommodate Covid-safe interactions.

Nina believes that open banking powered payments will become increasingly important when shopping, as the increase in e-commerce brought on by lockdowns has shown the sector’s resilience and interest in innovation.

Why are fintechs so important to making new payment methods possible?

Nina sums it up nicely in one simple statement: “To foster, empower and embolden positive and safe competition in the industry”.

As traditional financial services worry about updating archaic processes and their current user experience, fintechs have been actively, and loudly, pushing for change. Nina describes fintechs as “pacers for the financial industry” that everyone needs to keep up with. 

She is also eager to remind us that fintechs working on infrastructure are fundamental in lowering the barriers of entry for other fintechs. They play a huge part in serving niche groups of people, therefore accelerating the rate of financial inclusion across the world.

The evolution of payment methods is a hot topic right now. We believe it will be the driver of accelerating financial inclusion and putting money back into the user’s pockets.

You can find our first podcast about the future of Open Banking at our blog, and over at Spotify. If you would like to feature on our next podcast or simply share your thoughts on payments and Open Finance with us do not hesitate to email us at info@tomatopay.co.uk.