Musings from the CU Suite

Written by Anthony Demangone

I was discussing payment systems with my colleague Randy Salser over lunch. EMV. Facebook. Amazon. The question was this: What is the next big disruption in payments? 

It was a good discussion, but unfortunately, neither Randy or I had a crystal ball. What's the next big thing? We really couldn't say for sure.

But it got me thinking.

Nassim Taleb is the author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. In his book, he argues that most of us have no idea what's coming next, but that many of us may fool ourselves into thinking we do. We focus on what we know, and discard things we don't. When change comes, it is unpredictable, highly disruptive...but somehow makes sense after the fact.   

Add to this some thoughts by Peter Sheehan. He's spoken at a number of NAFCU conferences, and he's written a couple of books.  A few years ago, he said something that has stayed with me. Every time there's been a major innovation in technology, the thing that "takes off" has been around for a while.  He gave the example of a world summit in London devoted to the problem of transportation and horses. The population explosion was problematic, especially when everyone moved around by horse. The Mayor of London estimated that London alone would need 1 million additional horses in roughly 20 years. Did that come about? No.  The automobile took off, and the need for horses actually declined. So what's next? Chances are that when it takes off, you've already read about it somewhere.

So where does that leave us? Taleb says most of us will never be able to see what's coming next. And Sheehan notes that when it comes, it isn't something completely new. It's been around for a while.

Well, Coach Quig might have some good advice.  He was one of my high school football coaches. And as I've written before, his favorite saying was that you had to "keep your head on a swivel."  It was usually uttered by Coach after a player was flattened by a blocker. 

But it is good advice. Things are changing quickly. What will be the amazing thing in payments? I don't know. But it likely exists.  So keep your head on a swivel, because when it starts to take off, it would be good to see it coming.