Payment Needs with Jessica Pinkston // Cornerstone Hot Takes

We all thought, from a real-time payments perspective, that you would be able to buy a house on a Sunday afternoon, right?

Theoretically, absolutely. But then when we look at it from a use case perspective, it’s not the payment that’s prohibiting you from buying a house on a Sunday afternoon. It’s the availability of the title attorney, it’s your availability and it’s the closing instructions. It’s all of that.

Plus, a wire transfer still has a reputation as a non-revocable payment, which is essential for title attorneys.

Right. So we’re talking about an industry change and not just a payment need. That’s why we’re really looking at what those payment needs are going to be that need to be fulfilled, rather than just how we within the financial services industry think it would be really cool to disrupt.

Right. I think we struggle sometimes with the next new thing because a lot of times we’re a solution looking for a problem.

Yep, exactly.

So I think it gets interesting. What we’re telling clients from a real-time payments perspective is figure out how to set up receive, and then if the use case gets compelling enough on the other side and you decide you want to start sending, that’s when you start having the payments hub conversation.

Agreed on that. And you can’t look at real-time payments as being your differentiator from a product standpoint. It’s going to be expected. You need to have it set up. If you’re looking at it as how you can set yourself apart, it’s online banking, it’s mobile, it’s taking a scan. I’m going to need to be able to do that. You’re going to have a small window before the technology is everywhere.

Yeah. For us, it’s contactless cards, right? I’m still talking to clients who are like, “Yeah, we don’t have contactless cards on the road map.” And I’m like, “You may not have them because there are inventory challenges, but if you don’t have them on your road map, what are you doing?”

Exactly.

Yeah, I think that’s a really good analogy.