Competitive Forces Investing in Payment Innovations: Risks and Rewards

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago hosted its sixth annual payments conference, Investing in Payment Innovations: Risks and Rewards, on May 12–13, 2006. The conference explored recent trends in the adoption of payment technologies. The conference addressed the following questions:
What are key features of successful investment strategies in payments? How important are end-user benefits in driving the adoption of new payment technologies? How should payment system participants position themselves to meet global security challenges?
Speakers included decision-makers from financial institutions, payment networks, merchants, payment innovators, venture capital firms and central banks, along with academics.
Recent technological advances offer the potential to improve access to payment channels and the underlying payment processes. This panel addressed criteria that investors use when choosing in which promising payment technologies to invest.
This panel explored the challenges that financial institutions and end users encounter when making cross border payments. Regulatory challenges and payment solutions were discussed.