The payment processing industry has become a big focus of the economy with the advent of the internet. As retail and other forms of commerce have increasingly moved online, a range of payment solutions to support internet-based selling has sprung up. Flex Payment Solutions offers payment processing solutions to high risk merchant accounts. You can check the webpage to get the complete details.
Now, all eyes are on the future of the field to better predict where it and other key parts of the economy are moving. To aid our readers in understanding this fast-evolving space, we’ve looked to the example of Oleg Firer. The work of the veteran of the payment processing industry helps to illustrate a variety of trends that could directly impact the economy.
Professional history
Let’s first take a look at the background of Oleg Firer, as it can provide an informative context for the payment processing industry as a whole. Born in Odessa, USSR in 1977, the future entrepreneur and his family left the Soviet Union when he was just 11-years-old. A long and arduous journey of a refugee eventually brought them to their new home in New York. There, Firer was forced to overcome the many challenges of learning to live in a strange and new place. He learned a new language, made new friends, and adapted to a new society whose customs were unfamiliar to him.
That process, however, also taught him how to rely on his strengths for quick learning and adaptability. With those skills in hand, he began working at the age of 11 and finally took a job at a franchise electronics store at the age of 15. At 17, he was promoted to a general manager, the youngest person in the position in the company. When the company underwent a merger, he left to start his own wireless supply firm. This ability to move from place to place and identify opportunities along the way would be a trait that would serve him well throughout life.
Eventually, the young entrepreneur set his sights on the fast-growing payment processing industry. He founded his first major firm in the space, United Payments, by identifying other companies that were in a distressed state and unable to capitalize on their existing customer bases. He bought up these companies and combined their customers under one umbrella, making a name for himself as a forward thinker in a field that was constantly looking to evolve. When his company was bought out by Net Element, he was installed as the CEO of the NASDAQ-listed company. Since that time, he’s continued his search for ways he could improve services to customers, move into new areas of the industry, and increase the company’s growth and valuation.
Emergence of digital wallets
One of the major developments in the payment processing field in recent history has been the emergence of digital wallets. This has been helped along by the emergence of smartphones, which have, essentially, placed a sophisticated computer in the pockets of most shoppers. Where a digital payment could previously only take place through the use of a relatively clunky computer, these types of transactions are now accessible to most people through a mere tap of their phone, or even a watch, to a payment processing station.
The payment industry has incorporated this into its operations by emphasizing digital wallets as a way to hold all of a person’s payment methods in a single place. Consumers have responded by increasing their usage of such payment methods and aligning themselves with companies that provide them the most convenient payment options. The development has illustrated not only the appetite the public has for innovation in the payment processing field, but also how willing it is to change its purchasing habits when provided with the opportunity.
Developing related services
The payment processing field is not just a customer-facing industry, it also works to create tools for merchants to better handle their business operations. This fact has opened up a number of opportunities for companies in the field to develop services for businesses. Under Oleg Firer, Net Element has been at the forefront of this kind of innovation.
One example has been its work with its cloud-based restaurant management and payment acceptance solution, Aptito. The company not only provides foodservice companies with convenient and effective ways to process payments, it also presents them with a host of related services. This includes digital menu management that’s easy to customize via iPads and other tablets. It also provides an iPad-based point-of-sale system that allows businesses to interact with customers in a streamlined and efficient manner.
Further diversification
Another interesting way in which Net Element is trailblazing in its industry is through its push towards services that are not as related to its core payment processing model. This kind of move helps to show the ways in which the payment processing field is evolving beyond the narrow scope of its conception into more and more places in the economy.
In this case, the company is illustrating the move through its recently announced merger with Mullen Technologies. The merger with the manufacturer of electric cars represents a new area of operation for the payment processing group. With the firm already ramping up development on its first production facility based in California, onlookers have expressed a good deal of excitement over what the development could mean for Net Element and the payment processing industry as a whole. It seems likely to indicate, at the very least, that further diversification could be in store for the company and others in the field who find similarly high levels of success.
Payment processing as a field has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years. Where the industry was once the purview of cash and in-person credit card transactions, it has now expanded to include a host of sophisticated technological solutions. This evolution has been helped along by the advent of digital wallets, the development of related technologies within the field, and further diversification to outside endeavors. Looking to the work conducted by Oleg Firer throughout his life provides a telling glimpse into the ways in which leaders in the field have capitalized on its potential. Those interested in tracking the ongoing developments in the payment processing space may want to follow future work by the Net Element CEO, as it can provide more information on where the field is headed.
More about Oleg Firer at https://grenadaembassy.ru/en/ambassador-oleg-firer/