People in payments

While Canada’s payments community is still navigating what the end-state will look like, payments modernization will be a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment across systems, structures, and networks, with no ecosystem player left untouched.

Broadly speaking, modernization is taking place at a time of increased competitive pressures spurred by financial technology, changing consumer preferences, skills shortages, and evolving ways of work. Further complicated by the predictions of an economic slowdown, these factors may both help and hinder Canada as we attempt to understand and execute increasingly complex enterprise-wide transformational agendas, such as payments modernization, effectively.

The capacity and capability to excel at managing ambiguity through industry evolution will become a critical condition to success; and this is why we consider it crucial to focus on the ‘people side’ of payments.

This paper represents the start of a journey. Included is our evaluation of the current situation, with inclusion of a framework to help leaders evaluate and address gaps in their current talent strategies, and identify opportunity for collaboration across the industry. Our objective is to start a conversation about how Canada’s efforts to modernize payments are accelerating an equally significant talent transformation in financial services; and in doing so, ignite the interest of the payments community to tackle the need to find tangible solutions.