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While you were watching track and field, basketball, fencing and swimming we were keeping our usual close eye on the \u201cfaster, higher, stronger\u201d world of payments, banking and the connected economy. And now that your eyes have had a bit of a workout with that compound sentence, here are some of the best quotes from our interviews during the week ending Aug. 9.<\/p>\n
We started in the world of banking architecture. In \u201cGalileo Says Wire Transfers Go Big and Go Digital With New APIs<\/a>,\u201d Galileo Financial Technologies<\/a>\u00a0Chief Product Officer\u00a0David Feuer<\/a>\u00a0told PYMNTS that same-day, faster\u00a0wire transfers<\/a>\u00a0are set to help transform a broad line of business and consumer use cases with real-time notifications. \u201cWhile FedNow brings this real-time API nature\u201d to transactions, \u201cit\u2019s still at the end of the day using Fedwire, which is terrific because as we build this wires functionality on top of Fedwire, we can add FedNow as an iterative feature set on top of it and not have\u00a0to completely rebuild our connectivity to the Fed,\u201d he said. \u201cCreating a developer-friendly interface in front of Fedwire makes it much more easily consumable and quick because it\u2019s bringing that speed of API to a system that wasn\u2019t always API-enabled. Being able to provide APIs in front of it and getting that wire sent very quickly and settled very quickly\u00a0really\u00a0brings that physiological safety to the customer where they know the transaction has occurred and settled and is irrevocable.\u201d<\/p>\n Then we shifted to digital healthcare. In an era where\u00a0digital transformation<\/a>\u00a0is sweeping across industries, the healthcare sector\u00a0finds itself grappling\u00a0with the challenge of modernizing its payment systems. In \u201cThe Road to Digital Healthcare Payments Starts With a Few Cashless Steps, Says Bank of America<\/a>,\u201d Simon Abtalion<\/a>, healthcare solutions executive at\u00a0Bank of America<\/a>, told us: \u201cHistorically, [as it relates to payment flows between patients, providers\u00a0and\u00a0payors,] healthcare has not been a leader in technology adoption nor deployment, and \u2026 for that reason, it\u2019s been challenging to keep up with the evolving needs and expectations of patients.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a big week for retailing interviews. Here we started with an interview with Grubhub\u2019s Kiran Chandran<\/a>, the aggregator\u2019s vice president of product and design, who discussed how transparency will encourage shoppers to trade up. In \u201cGrubhub VP Says in-App Wallet Could Boost Average Check<\/a>,\u201d we learned that the company announced earlier this month the launch of several new features, including an in-app\u00a0digital wallet<\/a>\u00a0that shows consumers the credits they have available, such as gift cards and rewards benefits. \u201cBy seeing it first thing, users\u00a0are able\u00a0to\u00a0better assess\u00a0the credit they have available, which they then keep top of mind throughout the ordering process,\u201d Chandran said. \u201cFor example, a user could open the app, see their available funds\u00a0and be pleasantly surprised that they have more credit than they originally thought. This might encourage them to add a side to an entree or get a dessert or drink with their meal\u00a0as well.\u201d<\/p>\n We also landed an interview with Macy\u2019s. In \u201cMacy\u2019s VP: Restructuring Aims to Elevate Customer Experience and Drive Growth<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0PJ Singh<\/a>, vice president of stores strategy and product management at Macy\u2019s, discussed the company\u2019s reorganization strategy. \u201cIt is rooted in investments and learnings that we\u2019ve iterated over the past year, but more importantly, it\u2019s a signal to our organization that is driving a major shift in culture,\u201d Singh said. \u201cWe believe that a more engaged and inspired colleague community is vital before you go external and reach your customer. As a result, we are taking an inside-out approach to delivering customer experience and challenging ourselves on the things our customers have told us are points of friction.\u201d<\/p>\n On the social commerce side of the house, in \u201cQVC CEO Aims Social Commerce at Gen Z Parents<\/a>,\u201d Qurate Retail President and CEO\u00a0David Rawlinson<\/a>\u00a0talked about how the live shopping brand\u2019s\u00a0Age of Possibility<\/a> campaign, launched in the spring, has enabled it \u201cto better serve the attractive demographic of women 50-plus,\u201d collaborating with 50 celebrity women over\u00a0the age of\u00a050. The campaign has been successful at drawing digital engagement. \u201cSince launch, we have experienced\u00a0strong\u00a0initial reaction to this campaign, with 38 billion earned media impressions, 330,000 new Facebook community members, a nearly 200% increase in the number of QVC social followers\u00a0and\u00a0more than 1 million visits to [the] QVC campaign website,\u201d Rawlinson said. \u201cWe saw strong demand from Age-of-Possibility-related brands in Q2, with collective demand for the existing 12 brands up low-double-digits after the campaign launch.\u201d<\/p>\n And as always, we end with fraud. \u201cIn Putting \u2018Scam Dens\u2019 Out of Business Means Using AI to Fight AI<\/a>,\u201d we learned that Featurespace has been investing in advanced algorithms to underpin fraud prevention efforts. Last year it launched\u00a0TallierLTM<\/a>, the world\u2019s first\u00a0large transaction model<\/a>, which uses\u00a0generative AI<\/a>\u00a0to improve fraud value detection by up to 71%. \u201cWhat\u00a0OpenAI<\/a>\u00a0did around language and words, we\u2019ve created for the payments environment \u2014 modeling what genuine behaviors and transactions will look like,\u201d said Featurespace<\/a>\u00a0Chief Operating Officer\u00a0Tim Vanderham<\/a>\u00a0told PYMNTS\u2019\u00a0Karen Webster<\/a>. \u201cWhen you think about the billions and billions of dollars that come from\u00a0scams<\/a>\u00a0globally,\u201d the money made from illicit gains overshadows the revenues of some of the largest businesses around the globe. \u201cWe have to make sure that we\u2019re using advanced data algorithms and machine learning over this data to combat the fraud and to do everything we can to allow consumers to transact more freely.\u201d<\/p>\n