Smart Card Alliance Features FIS Senior VP, Bob Woodbury

In this first issue of 2017, Smart Card Talk spoke with Bob Woodbury, senior vice president of FIS, an international provider of financial software, world-class services and global business solutions, and general manager of NYCE Payments Network, LLC and PayNet Payments Network, LLC, both FIS companies. Bob manages the growth of nationwide and international access of NYCE to thousands of financial institutions throughout the U.S. and the international financial community. Bob, who has been with FIS since 2001, has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration degree, both from Rutgers University. The original article appeared in the Smart Card Alliance Newsletter. Read it here.

1. What are your main business profile and offerings?

FIS is the world’s largest global provider dedicated to financial technology solutions. FIS empowers the financial world with software, services, consulting, and outsourcing solutions focused on retail and institutional banking, payments, asset and wealth management, risk and compliance, trade enablement, transaction processing and record-keeping. The company’s more than 55,000 worldwide employees are passionate about moving our clients’ business forward. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, FIS serves more than 20,000 clients in over 130 countries, and our technology powers billions of transactions annually that move over $9 trillion around the globe. FIS is a Fortune 500 company and is a member of Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. FIS is driven by commitment to thought leadership, operational excellence and innovation that champions our clients’ business and keeps them competitive in today’s dynamic and challenging industry environment. We help our clients transform disruption into opportunity, giving them the tools needed to thrive not just today, but in tomorrow’s financial world.

2. What role does smart card technology play in supporting your business?

FIS measures our success through the success of our clients. Smart cards are a key technology enabler for financial institutions, and FIS is a leader in smart card production, having launched over 8,500 EMV card programs for more than 3,200U.S. financial institutions to date. As a merchant acquirer in the U.S. industry, FIS has over 20,000 merchants enabled to accept smart cards for payments and has enabled thousands of ATMs for financial institutions and ATM providers. Finally, as an owner of a U.S. debit network (NYCE Payments Network), and a technology provider to multiple other U.S debit networks, smart card technology provides additional security to millions of transactions a month. Our collective group of customers benefit from fraud and risk reductions in their payments, enhancing the overall integrity of our payment options.

3. What trends do you see developing in the market that you hope to capitalize on?

Specifically related to smart cards and related systemic advances, FIS sees an increasing interest in dual interface cards and technologies that secure other “card” transactions in the industry, including card-not-present (CNP) transactions and mobile transactions. FIS is a front runner in supporting other third party implementations, as well as developing our own solutions, to address these CNP and mobile-enhanced payment advancements.

4. What obstacles to growth do you see that must be overcome to capitalize on these opportunities?

FIS is focused on removing any obstacles that preclude adoption. However, the biggest factors are the multiple technology options being put forth in the industry which create confusion for stakeholders and hinder adoption. As the largest financial technology provider globally, we have a wide diversity of clients and are well prepared to support all schematics, priding ourselves on our thought leadership for our stakeholders.

5. What do you see are the key factors driving smart card technology in government and commercial markets in the U.S.?

Both markets can benefit from smart card technology in a similar fashion to the existing smart card technology markets, such as making governmental benefit card programs more secure. In addition, since smart card technology allows for additional authentication frameworks to be created, the use cases for these markets are unlimited.

6. How do you see your involvement in the Alliance and the industry councils helping your company?

The Alliance and the industry councils have succeeded in bringing the interests and opinions of all stakeholders in the industry into a common forum. Our company values the ability to interact with this diverse group on the variety of topics being addressed. Additionally, the Alliance provides FIS a forum to promote the interests of our clients and assure they are represented in the shaping of the direction of the industry.

7. What are some of the challenges you see confronting the smart card technology industry?

CNP fraud continues to be most prevalent type of fraud that coexists with smart card rollout. To reduce exposure to CNP fraud, merchants, acquirers and financial institutions must work together to create a layered approach to secure all transaction data of the payment ecosystem.

With a continued focus on security, the Alliance is expected to drive scalable solutions that focus on the continued digitization of payments, the rapid expansion of connected devices with applications in the cloud, and the Internet of Things that is expected to reach more than 20 billion devices by 2020.

Visit http://www.fisglobal.com/ for more information.

The original article appeared in the Smart Card Alliance Newsletter. Read it here.