Coming to Barclaycard Payments and an era of accelerated e-commerce - Harshna Cayley’s story

Shaping e-commerce for the future is top of Harshna Cayley’s agenda in her new role at Barclaycard Payments as the Head of Gateway. With an acceleration towards doing business online, e-commerce is a key growth trend.

We hear from Harshna as she reflects on her journey to Barclaycard Payments and how she plans to put the lessons she’s learnt along the way to good use. She also provides her take on five key consumer trends that we should embrace for the future.

“I started my career as a software developer and since then I’ve worked across financial services, retail and loyalty gaining valuable skills and experience over the past 20 years. My previous roles have grounded my payments knowledge, expanded my commercial skill-set, enhanced my drive for customer centricity and built my passion for simple, seamless experiences for all. Added to this, I’ve worked in a fast paced environment for both large and small organisations and had the opportunity to lead and partner with global teams.”

Building the roadmap for e-commerce

“So now, as I start my new role as Head of Gateway, I am able to draw upon these different experiences and help build the roadmap for the future of e-commerce. There’s really a revolution around e-commerce growth and, to me, that’s my north star in terms of where our business needs to be. In my position, I’m responsible for the strategy, vision and commercial management of our suite of gateway products - the technology used by merchants to process Card Not Present, Card Present and omni-channel payments. That means I’ll be working closely with our customers to build a vision that resonates as well as winning propositions that power customer revenue, reach and relevance.

“I want to understand what our existing and future clients see as their pain points and interrogate the data and insights we have to delve into the opportunities and challenges out there. Barclaycard Payments has a fantastic heritage and a long history of product innovation. When you add this to our current assets and capabilities, I believe we’re in a good place to make an impact and continue to expand our e-commerce capabilities.”

What businesses want from a gateway provider

“Getting your gateway service right is crucial for any business. According to Barclaycard's Cost of Acceptance whitepaper, trust is the number one consideration in selecting a payments provider (24% placing it as their prime consideration). Critical factors for merchants looking for a payment gateway service into their own e-commerce systems are ease of integration, onboarding to digital wallet and other checkout solutions, high quality service and competitive pricing.

“It's also important for e-commerce businesses to strike a balance between effective fraud protection and the customer checkout experience. This is about having the right support from your payment gateway provider, as well as the right gateway technology.”

Five key trends that are here to stay

“Like many, I’ve watched with interest how the pandemic has shifted and accelerated consumer behaviours and believe that many of those trends are here to stay. When we think of how these trends impact our business customers, five key areas on top of my list to embrace include:

1. Contactless payments are now a permanent feature in our way of life and have accelerated across all generations and also around the world. SMEs in particular need to understand this as they can be a key differentiator for them.
2. A frictionless omni-channel experience is no longer an option but a pre-requisite for doing business and payments is an integral part of this. The journey needs to be highly digital and simple for the consumer, so choosing the right payments partner is paramount.
3. Advances in cloud and digital-enabled technology brings scope for businesses to scale and grow. They need to leverage new cloud-based technology and look to payments as leading the way, particularly when we think about the innovations coming from Open Banking
4. Financial inclusion is a hot topic and we need to ensure all areas of society are served in the right way. We live in a world with digital technology and payments need to be accessible to all geographies, industries and segments – everyone should be included.
5. Climate, environment and societal impact on how we all do business in a greener way is crucial for the future. The way we operate, along with our partners, is something we all need to give careful consideration to.

“2021 is such an exciting time to be in payments. We’re seeing the growing and lasting trend towards e-commerce and then on top of that, our customers are looking for help to consolidate their payments needs with one unified provider. That makes the role of my team and I in continuing to develop our gateway technology so important; it’s a pivotal in this new shopping era.”