I recently read through Accenture’s The Future of Payments: 10 Mega Trends. It has some great information, but it isn’t targeted to the needs of the health and wellness industry. To distill this list into what it means for our customers, here are five ways these “megatrends” will affect you and your health club.

#1 IT’S ALL ABOUT THE USER

Much like the health club landscape is innovating to provide high-end services and exceptional experiences, the payments industry is innovating to make user experiences quick, seamless and visually appealing. This is true for the member as well as your staff. From providing a paperless membership process to accepting payments with mobile devices, these innovations not only save time and frustration for members, but they also reduce back-office clutter and waste. You’ll see these trends emerge in the membership process and for online and in-person payments from your members. In addition to offering more seamless payments capabilities, the user experience for staff accepting those payments will become more and more important.

#2 STAYING AHEAD OF THE CRIMINALS

The unfortunate reality is that just as payment technology companies are innovating, fraudsters are getting more innovative too. It’s more important than ever to stay ahead of the curve in security updates. At CSI Spectrum and Daxko, we have an entire team dedicated to security to ensure our customers can rely on us to maintain the highest levels of security preparedness.

With the fraud liability shifting from card issuers to merchants, EMV compliance and secure credit card terminals are more important than ever for all kinds of clubs, gyms and wellness centers.

#3 GENERATION Z

If you’ve been struggling to accommodate and appeal to millennial members and staff, you better prepare yourself. Generation Z (those born around 1995) is coming and according to Accenture, they’re projected to make up around 40% of consumers by the year 2020. Probably the most notable attribute of Gen Z is that they are the first generation completely made up of digital natives. This generation has never known a world without Google, Facebook and Apple, and they rely heavily on mobile technologies, including for payments.

Gen Z relies on digital tools to make their live simpler, like apps that look up discount codes automatically or those that offer instant person-to-person payments. So, as this generation comes of age, we can expect the trend towards mobile banking and payments to accelerate and the move towards purely digital wallets to take a firm hold.

#4 TREAT YOURSELF

Just as Gen Z isn’t afraid to use digital tools to save money at the online checkout, they’re not afraid to switch around their cards to get better rewards. It’s important for health clubs and other fitness centers to take steps to mitigate the effect different reward cards can have on their overall rates. We help mitigate this for customers by creating a detailed analysis for each customer that includes their personalized mix of card types. This allows our payments customers to proactively account for and offset these increased costs stemming from different card mixes.

#5 HOLD ON TO YOUR HAT

Payments used to be a relatively stagnant world, but like many other industries, it’s being disrupted by younger generations and the pace of new technology. Ten years ago, next-day funding was practically unheard of and now the trend is moving towards same-day funding.

Innovation in the payments industry is constantly evolving and that won’t slow down in 2018. You need a partner that knows your business and is committed to tackling these trends as they happen. We are constantly investigating and investing in future technologies and incorporating what makes sense to the health and wellness industry.

To learn more about maximizing your payments experience with CSI Spectrum, please reach out anytime.