Q&A: Russell Masterton – Global Head of Strategic Verticals, Ingenico
Ingenico is the global leader in payment acceptance and services. We support our customers, and their customers to do more with payments.
Active in 32 countries, with over 3,000 employees we have been at the forefront of the commerce landscape for over four decades. Russell Masterton, Global Head of Strategic Verticals, talks to us about evolving consumer trends and the impact of these on how retailers think about in-store payment.
Can you tell us a bit about your background?
I’ve spent over 15 years in the payments and retail technology space, helping businesses connect with their customers through smarter, more seamless commerce experiences. My journey with Ingenico has taken me across multiple roles — from business development to leading strategic verticals — and across markets worldwide, working alongside retailers, partners, and technology providers to simplify the complex world of payments. What I’ve enjoyed most is collaborating with people who are passionate about improving the customer experience and looking at payments as a driver of innovation. Today, as Global Head of Strategic Verticals at Ingenico, I’m focused on helping our partners and clients navigate an ever-changing payments landscape, supporting innovation that drives growth and lasting customer relationships.
Subscribe to TRBWhat does your company do? / What is your USP?
Ingenico provides a payments platform for enterprise retailers that provides flexibility with implementing a payments solution for their complex environment. Our approach leverages years of our experience and knowledge and lets retailers build the consumer experience that will enable them to be successful. Today 14 out of the top 25 global retailers have chosen Ingenico as their payments solution based on our platform and experience.
What’s special about the platform and your approach?
One of the key aspects of the platform is the payment software. What we have learned with working retailers is that the payment software and support is for the success of the implementation for the retailer. If the payment software cannot meet the ongoing retailer’s requirements and customization needs, it will not be able to enable the retailer to manage their business and the payments consumer experience. In addition, Ingenico has built a comprehensive lifecycle and support model so that we can support retailers at any point in time in their journey whether it is at the start or when migrating to the next generation platform.
Ingenico is also continuing to invest in the payment software to make it easier and faster for retailers and partners to use and support new capabilities as the market continues to evolve such as new payment types that consumers want.
What advantage does it add?
One of the key advantages with the platform approach is how we approach the lifecycle with the retailer. Ingenico is focused on how we can shorten implementations and the associated support costs for retailers. A great example of this is backward compatibility with our software. If a customer is using a previous generation of software (i.e. Tetra UPP) – it is much faster for them to implement with the latest Axium ARC payment software due to backwards compatibility with the software and the same APIs for integration. This can significantly lower the TCO for a retailer and meet their timelines.
How does a product/service implementation actually look like and how do you measure success?
Ingenico will work closely with the retailer in planning, design, development and implementation for the project. A project manager, solutions engineer as well as sales will be part of the team with supporting the retailer on the project. From a success perspective, Ingenico will work closely with the retailer to jointly define the success metrics of the project.
How are retailers using your systems to gain competitive advantage and what does best practice look like? Can you share a case study with us?
Retailers are focused on implementing a solution as quickly as possible so they can meet their business objectives and provide the optimal consumer experience. Ingenico can assist retailers with leveraging our experience with hundreds of implementations from around the world. This can help enable the retailers to meet their timelines and reduce risk with a new implementation.
An example of this is a Global E-Commerce Leader came to us looking to extend its reach into physical retail by opening brick and motor stores in the UK as well as globally. They needed expertise from a payment technology partner in planning, design, and integrating into their ECR systems while meeting their project timelines. Ingenico was able to provide this expertise for their implementation, and the customer met their timelines while reducing their deployment costs for the project.
Retailers whenever possible should leverage payments partners expertise and knowledge so that retailers have a successful project.
Are there other companies you partner with?
Based on best meeting merchant needs and complexities within their store environment, Ingenico has put together a world-class partner ecosystem to help address these needs across retail, hospitality and unattended market segments. This includes working with industry leading POS ISVs, gateways/PSPs, system integrators and acquirers.
What challenges and opportunities do you see in UK retail for 2024 / What challenges are retailers facing in 2024?
The retail market continues to be extremely dynamic due to consumer trends evolving. Some of the key consumer trends includes:
- New Consumer Payment Methods. Consumers want to pay the way they want to pay – it is no longer enough to support Credit or Debit cards and merchants need to support other alternatives in the store such as Buy Now Pay Later.
- Digital ID. Consumers love to use their smart phones to manage their lives and be able to take payments anywhere. An evolution use case is having the consumer’s ID in their smart phone – no more need to have a physical wallet with them.
- Biometric Payments. As consumers become more accustomed with using hand or facial recognition with their consumer electronics, it is natural that this will come to payments to create a more streamlined and faster payment experience.
Each of these trends can impact a merchant’s environment and how they serve their customers. Merchants need to take this into account when implementing a new technology and constantly test and adapt the implementation via pilots to create a successful implementation that consumers will use and delight in.
What is on the horizon for you as a company?
For Ingenico to continue to be successful in retail, we are evolving to a solutions company. While terminals are key part of the offer – merchants value what software and services can do for them at any stage in the lifecycle of their estate. Whether this is customizing the software for the merchant, assisting with deployment or supporting the merchant, a solution approach enables Ingenico to better meet the merchants’ needs and their success with the implementation.
Any final thoughts?
Ingenico’s success in retail is shown each and every day where consumers pay on Ingenico’s terminals. Ingenico needs to continue to align with merchant needs and consumer trends to offer the best solution and support for merchant’s success. In addition, continuing to work with the best industry payments partners, will provide flexibility for merchants in implementing the best payments solution for their needs today and in the future as the market continues to evolve.
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To find out how Ingenico can help your retail operation, visit them online here or check out their channels below.
