Digging Deeper Into The Digital Power Of Trust

“Trust” is a bedrock concept of human relationships and civilization — yet it is also flexible, able to change, and be changed, according to the specific needs of the moment.

For the world of payments and commerce, that boils down to finding ways to earn the trust of consumers, which not only results in winning more business from them, but enables the collection and analysis of data, which then drives innovation.

A PYMNTS digital discussion scheduled for Tuesday (Aug. 28), entitled “Data: The Currency of Trust,” will dive deep into issues of trust and data. It features Karen Webster and Arman Aygen, head of technology and innovation at UL. They recently had a discussion about those topics that serves not only as a preview of that webinar, but an overview of all the related changes taking place.

Trust is at the forefront of all kinds of business, and can be used to gain an edge.

For instance, established financial institutions — those legacy banks and credit unions that tend to maintain long-term relationships with customers, who in turn entrust those organizations with some of most sensitive consumer data around — can use that trust as an advantage when it comes to fending off competition from upstart FinTech firms.

“Statistics indicate that consumers still trust their banks more than, for example, tech companies, when it comes to their financial lives,” said Richard Bailey, SVP of engineering at Entersekt, a South Africa-based FinTech firm that focuses on mobile authentication and app security software. During a recent PYMNTS interview, Bailey discussed how banks can add mobile value-added services, and do so in ways that satisfy consumers who are already deeply involved in digital commerce and payments.

But the trick is finding the right balance when it comes to trust.

“People are willing to  actually trade privacy for convenience under one condition,” Aygen told PYMNTS. “That condition is trust. How you build that trust and maintain that trust is the big question.”