Payments experts got a taste of just how much the Internet of Things could affect personal banking as IoT develops.
Fiserv participated in the 2016 PYMNTS/Alexa Challenge in which 12 teams and 14 companies demonstrating how Amazon Echo, Amazon's voice-activated tech that responds to the name Alexa, could reimagine how consumers interact with their payments and financial services solutions providers. Echo consists of a 9.25-inch tall cylinder speaker with a seven-piece microphone array.
Fiserv entered this demonstration showcasing Alexa's voice-banking skills by connecting it to live Fiserv digital banking and payment services. Fiserv's demo video won Best Use of the Technology for showing how to use Alexa to advance money management and movement at the point of thought.
"The Internet of Things has the potential to bring banking to every corner of people's lives," Scott Hess, owner, licensed products, digital channels for the Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv. Hess said he believes the IoT offers an opportunity to deliver relevant, timely information that helps people keep pace with the speed of life.
On the other hand, the risk exists that people could be overwhelmed with too much content. The challenge for credit unions and other financial institutions is to determine how consumers want to consume financial services through these devices and what content is relevant for each device.
"Part of the innovation process, is gauging feasibility, viability and interest by both consumers and financial institutions," Hess explained. Fiserv is continually evaluating the impact developments such as the IoT have on financial services, he said, and determining consumer demand through research and focus groups.
Hess added, "It's really important for us or anyone else that runs one [an innovation program] to establish a culture of failing is okay. If half of the things we work on do not fail, we are not trying enough things."
Microsoft has called the IoT a game changer, and experts visualize IoT devices reshaping how people live, shop and bank by transforming big data into actionable information, providing efficiency gains and powering retail activities.
Estimates of the size and value of the IoT market vary. Cisco put the number of IoT devices at around 15 billion today and about 50 billion by 2020, and Microsoft estimated 30 billion or more IoT devices by 2020. Gartner predicted nearly 26 billion devices valued at $1.9 trillion by 2020, while the International Data Corporation estimated almost $9 trillion in annual sales by 2020.
Read the full story about how the IoT could enable bank connectivity to members in the July 13, 2016 print issue of Credit Union Times.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Roy Urrico
Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).
