It was on September 20 that the 6th edition of Mastercard took place at La Distillerie, in Lisbon. Innovation Forum. Under the hot sun of a busy Lisbon, the future, innovation and technology were discussed. Marked by motto Together Towards the Futurethis was a busy morning.
For Maria Antonia Saldana, Country manager of Mastercard in Portugal, after 2 years of experiencing a pandemic, the balance of this 6th edition could not be more positive. Not only because of the return of face-to-face meetings, but because “the fact that we have brought specialists to share our Know how. Know how of projects that we have done, but also of partners that are making incredible developments and sophistications. What marks this event is this exchange of information between people specialized in different areas”, he says, and then adds: “from the conversations we had during the breaks, we could already see that several entities were very curious to know more about some kind of technology or solution and they were very curious to see that the market is being very challenged and that they too have to speed up their innovations. We are even curious about topics that are probably not yet on the agenda of all entities, such as cryptocurrencies. We were able to show how it is possible with small solutions, or sometimes with small investments in technology, to start offering a new solution to customers.”
In addition to the face-to-face aspect, the 2022 edition brought with it some novelties, among which the parallel sessions that took place during the afternoon stand out. Between 14:45 and 15:25, three relevant topics for the industry were discussed and developed, such as: How to take advantage of the potential of SMEs – with Marcus O’Toole, vice president, Head of the Small Business Segment in Europe, from MasterCard; Open-Banking: the starting point for Open Finance and Contextual Payments, with jozef klaussen, Vice President and Product Sales at Aiia, the European Mastercard company, a leader in open banking; and Cyber Risk: Boosting operational resilience and protecting the digital ecosystem, with Samuel Ojeme, Director, Cyber and Intelligence Solutions from MasterCard. “We chose these three themes because we believe that they are the main themes, at this moment, to help Portugal, in essence, to have an even better digital transformation”, reinforces Maria Antónia Saldanha. For the Country manager Mastercard in Portugal, the objective of these parallel sessions, in master class and with smaller audiences, it is to become something more dynamic and interactive, “they are questions, answers, practical cases. It is being able to start a conversation that tomorrow could give rise to other conversations and, who knows, to the implementation of actions and decisions made together”, he concludes.
Maria Antónia Saldanha – Mastercard Country Manager in Portugal
And because the motto of this meeting was the future, it is with an eye on it that the sequels are made. “The future will naturally go through better payment solutions, or better purchases, in the electronic commerce”, begins by saying Maria Antónia Saldanha. “If we cover the different sectors, such as mobility, restaurants, small businesses, the world will be increasingly digital. Just think that the simple method of payment has become as simple and natural as other routines. The future will clearly go through changes like this,” she adds. It is then that, precisely towards the future, and with its sights set on it, Mastercard took advantage of the day to show and demonstrate some of its solutions. EITHER click to payfor example, is the solution to Easy Pay that the brand is developing so that anyone, when making an online purchase, does not have to enter their card number, for example. Another bet is “on the solutions of the tap on the phone for the physical merchant, for everything that is stores. Also one of the solutions that we are very excited to grow is what we call card on file. EITHER card on file It is nothing more than the solution we have in subscriptions. Subscribe to a transmission, subscription to a taxi service… that is, when we save our card in an application, and whenever we want to use it, it is already loaded there. It is very practical. We know that it is one of the solutions that even made the transmission grow so much In parallel, we have a set of solutions that are also practical for the commercial side. These are some of the novelties that I highlighted”, shares the Country manager.
Balances made and future projects on the table, it was inevitable to conclude that this was a successful day. As was said this morning, this was the key moment to support the industry to face the future with the right momentum. For Maria Antónia Saldanha, September 20 was another step towards that future: “On the one hand, because we show the way and show what tools we have at our disposal to follow this path. Not forgetting the fact that we have brought together so many different entities. Entities that, perhaps in other forums, compete with each other or that compete with each other on a day-to-day basis, but here they wanted to sit together and side by side, sharing, because they came to listen to information that will be useful for developing their businesses, to help them become more competitive. So this was definitely another day in the future.”
Source: Observadora
