Wednesday, 26 August 2015

Getting Dressed for AGILE

In current day customers are spoilt with so many products and options available. This makes “Innovation and Time to Market” as the only sacred mantras which can help business in attracting and retaining customers. Every organization is looking for methods and ways to reach achieve shorter delivery timelines. In this endeavour AGILE delivery methodology is being looked as the elixir for this. Look around and you will notice that every organization is talking about LEAN and AGILE delivery and recruitment sites are filled with organizations looking for troops of product managers and scrum masters. Every IT professional is expected to know how to play POKER (not the card game but planning poker). If you are setting up a new organization it is very easy to set up an army of AGILE practitioners. However for an organization having a strong infantry force following WATERFALL, it can be very challenging to upgrade into a force of AGILE iron man.

I am not an AGILE evangelist, but with limited experience and knowledge that I have gained I am very confident and positive that AGILE can help in improving the way we delivery IT. In this paper I don’t intend to explain what does AGILE prescribes (internet is abundant with articles to provide information on AGILE methodology). What I want to cover here are pointers that companies should consider while implementing AGILE and what they need to consider when they start AGILE journey. 

Before we move on, it is important to understand that AGILE is not a rocket science. In very simple terms it advocates delivery through CAP (Collaboration, Adaption and Participation).

·         Collaboration between teams working on delivery. Instead of a top down approach for delivery, it promotes people who need to deliver to get together and work out a best way to deliver.

·         Adaption to changing environment. Unlike waterfall where introducing change to a project needs a complex process, AGILE endorses change. It does not mean that AGILE encourages making changes but is not averse to introducing changes.

·         Participation through constant engagement and involvement of business/customers. This I feel is one of the most positive ideas behind AGILE. Keeping customers engaged in delivery process ensures that they are always on-board throughout the journey of product development. This allows them to provide constant feedback which can improve the product and also gives them early view of what is being developed.

Now coming to the crux i.e. how to get dressed for AGILE? To transform from traditional waterfall to AGILE following areas need to be considered. I have categorized them into essential and catalysts. Essentials are the must haves and should be main focus of AGILE transformation process and catalysts are desirables which help in expediting and strengthening of implementation.



Remember without essentials catalysts cannot deliver any miracle. But what I have gathered from discussions with others most of the organizations put more emphasis on catalysts and leave some of the essentials. Believe me we can build an AGILE organization without catalysts, but missing one essential can lead to a disruption of delivery engine. Let me start with catalysts first and then move to essentials.

·         Co-Location – nothing scientific about this, having everyone at same location working together and discussing face to face avoids any type of communication gap and also helps in quick resolution of queries and issues. In current world it is almost impossible to achieve this in global organizations. This does not mean that AGILE teams cannot work if they are not co-located. With so much advancement in communication technologies it is very easy to communicate with colleagues working from different locations. What is important is that teams collaborate and participate regularly.

·         DevOps – another buzz word in software industry is DevOps – Continuous Delivery, Continuous Deployment and Continuous Integration. These are methods which help in delivery process but are not essentials for AGILE. Trying to implement AGILE and DevOps together at same time might create more confusion and resistance in people. Organizations need to ensure that their army of professionals do not start taking AGILE and DevOps as synonyms and there is always a clear distinction between these two initiatives. This does not means that DevOps should have less focus but these initiatives should be clearly demarcated

·         Tools - like with every other initiatives tools complement the process they are meant for. Tools themselves cannot do anything. Tools facilitate or make some processes simpler but they should not be sole of AGILE implementation, focus should be in ensuring that a particular process is followed and not usage of tool e.g. excel can be used in place of Jira etc.

Moving on to Essentials without which AGILE journey will be doomed. As stressed earlier all these are important and there is no order or sequence in which they should be followed, every item under essentials is MUST-HAVE.   

·         Senior Leadership Support – You might find it amusing but fact is that implementation of AGILE needs to follow WATERFALL. What that means is that it needs to follow top down approach. Without support and reinforcement from senior leadership you won’t get required muscle power to change the delivery engine. If senior leadership have apprehensions about how AGILE can change your fortunes than we should be rest assured that you are starting your voyage on a boat which has a hole. It is not just lip service that is required, senior leadership needs to be involved and reassure the teams whenever there are doubts on direction they are navigating. Also it should be kept in mind that this journey is not FOC (Free of Cost), leadership should be ready to put in resources to fuel the movement and on top of it willing to risk few deliveries on the way. Remember such a big transformation requires a constant push and encouragements from leaders.

·         Training – one of the obvious must-have is training. Training the team on methodology itself is important. Training needs to be focussed on introducing the new methodology but also focus on highlighting differences with what they are doing now and how the change in process will bring benefits to organization. Organizations should not just invest on classroom trainings but also provide hand holding through coaches and experts.

·         Organization Structure – One of the key to success is that organizations need to be structured towards AGILE delivery. This is one hurdle which is most challenging to overcome.

People tend to believe that implementing AGILE will result in making them redundant. This can not only result in delay in AGILE implementation but also create a force working against the initiative itself. AGILE is just a different way of working it does not make any role redundant. We should remember that chocolate cake cannot be made without chocolate; it does not matter if it is baked in an over or in microwave. So first thing every organization should do is to develop a good screenplay. Talk to various teams and explain them what role they will plan in the new ensemble. Don’t leave them to figure out what they should be doing.

Second item to execute is breaking the walls. To better understand this point let us look at how most of the organizations are currently structured.



Obviously above picture is a very simplistic view of delivery engine but idea is that organizations are structured to create specialized teams which works with other teams by means of handovers created at different stages in form of requirement document, design document, technical specification, code etc. People tend to become oversensitive about their work and try to defend their boundaries in organization. Organizations cannot become AGILE without breaking these walls.


One of the foremost principal of AGILE is collaboration and participation and that requires open mind set and also team structured to work without boundaries. Teams need to have willingness to share responsibilities of others and also happy for others to assist in their work.

Though the name is AGILE, but transformation to AGILE delivery can become dead slow if any of the essentials are not taken care off.


Get the essentials right and add some or all the catalysts and see how AGILE can be AGILE transformation.



Friday, 10 July 2015

Take Haggling out of Estimation

*********************************************************************************************
Haggle ˈhaɡ(ə)l/ verb - gerund or present participle: haggling dispute or bargain persistently,  especially over the cost of something.
**********************************************************************************************
Estimation (or estimating) is the process of finding an estimate, or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable. The value is nonetheless usable because it is derived from the best information available
**********************************************************************************************
After spending some time to thinking about what will be a good start for this paper I finally decided to just put meaning of two words haggle and estimation. I am sure all of us at some point of time in our IT profession have been part of hopeless discussions either asking or providing justification on an estimate which someone thinks is higher than imaginary figure or is less than this imaginary acceptable figure. I am sure many of us will not agree to comment suggesting it is a hopeless discussion. People passionate about having these discussions will ask, what about governance and checks which are required to ensure that we do not overspend or under-spend allocated budget? I don’t dispute that we should not have any governance or checks around estimation process, cost plays a very important factor in success or failure of any delivery so it needs to be questioned and agreed. However it needs to be done with some rationality and should not end up in a haggling exercise similar to making a purchase at flea market.
 Consider a typical project estimation review meetings in your organization, my guess is that it will involve people from different business units, architecture teams and technology products sitting together and reviewing the effort (doesn’t matter if it is man days, hours or dollar value) for various projects. Depending on the budget at stake people involved in discussion could range from CEO, Directors, Vice Presidents, Product Leads etc. It is a simple rule, more money more scrutiny hence more questions all this translates to more time spend on examining estimates. Everyone comes to these meeting with a figure in mind which is based on individual knowledge and what is reviewed is an estimate which in most cases is submitted by an expert based on vast wealth of knowledge gained through years of work.
 These review meetings are supposed to ensure that whatever number has come out of estimate exercise has considered everything that is required and is worth spending compared to benefits that will be delivered by the change. However in high number of instances these end up in discussion on confirming that number that is estimated is the actual number and why can’t it be reduced further to an acceptable figure. Worst is that most of the times these questions are raised by the person in group who has no idea about what that estimated number is going to deliver. Laughable are situations when someone is asked to justify why estimate are less than an imaginative figure.
 It is like IT professional being asked to review an estimated provided to construct a bridge on a river. Normal human tendency is to probe others so what this IT professional will do is try to use his frame of reference which probably might be to create an application for Android phone which has been downloaded by 1 million users. What type of questions can we expect in this review meeting… Why can’t you construct the bridge in 1.5 million dollar instead of 1.7 million dollar?
 I call such discussions hopeless is because no one is going to win these debates and what is lost is time which translates into cost for all people participating in such discussions. Sometimes I wonder if anyone has performed any analysis on how much money is wasted in having such discussions. I will like to reiterate that we should blindly believe the person who is performing estimates we should definitely question the person who has estimated. But what should be scrutinized is what is behind the numbers and not number value itself. And most important should be scrutinized by someone who understands the underlying complexities on whatever is being estimated. 
But now things are changing for good and most of the organizations have realized that instead of wasting time in estimation we should invest money and time in delivering benefits. And AGILE estimation approach is a very positive step in this regards. I think AGILE estimation method helps to resolve two of the main problem we have been facing in waterfall estimation-
  • Smaller Chunks – In waterfall model we estimate for a fully furnished house with all fittings completed, but in AGILE what we estimate is each room separately. Though I am still taking baby steps in AGILE delivery world, however I feel user stories are an excellent way of compartmentalize requirements. They provide small and manageable chunks to estimate and deliver. Someone mentioned to me that we should make estimate “palatable” in other words should not give a heart attack. Estimating user stories is a good way of making estimates tasty. I am sure we have encountered situations where requesting for 50,000 for one thing makes life a hell however requesting 5,000 for 10 things is like walking on roses. 
  • Removes Black Box – In standard waterfall process requirements are written by person A in BRD, person B provides estimates based on BRD and later person C questions the estimates. Problem in this model is that all the three person work in a black box just handing off expected end products. In such situations if estimates are within an acceptable range everything is smooth however if it is not then we get into long discussions with all form of WHAT, WHY, HOW and WHERE questions. On other hand AGILE estimation process promotes is that A, B and C all work in collaboration during estimation as well. Here again person B is going to estimate however not the differences is person A and C are aware of what that estimate is based on.
  •  Comparative – One of the most important reforming estimation technique promoted by AGILE delivery is that it is not re-inventing the wheel every time. Unlike waterfall model in which every project is estimated as an individual entity, AGILE estimation is based on comparative estimation. Past experiences and learning are not lost, every user story is estimated compared to other user stories within the project or to ones which are already executed. So estimations becomes an apple to apple comparison exercise which reduces time significantly. 
  • Reduces Re-estimation – one of the draw-back of waterfall model is to estimate for all or none at first. One of the reason why everyone is so much focused on ensuring estimates are as close to actuals is because budget approval are taken based on estimates. And these numbers are based on All-Or-None approach. In number of instances what happens is after realizing that estimates exceed acceptable range we start to figure out how to break requirements into phases and look at famous MoSCoW categorization of requirements. And after investing lot of time in this re-estimation is done and this cycle keeps going on unless the estimates come within acceptable range. AGILE on other hand avoids this because user stories breaks business need into small manageable chunks for estimations and based on that these user stories can be prioritized and delivered.
 I will like to end this paper on a simple note that estimate is just an educated guess whatever scientific method and automation we build around this, it will not turn it into a true reflection of actual effort. So our focus should not be in ensuring that estimates are always palatable but to deliver benefits what underlying change will deliver.

Sunday, 3 May 2015

Credit Cards In Social World

Living in a world that is shrinking every other second can be very challenging.. I am not referring to any scientific theory.

This is the new world of social networking where distance between two human is not measured in miles of km but in number of connections between them. Whenever I in a public transport I see almost 80% hooked to FACEBOOK, TWITTER, WHATSAPP, BLOGS or some other social networking site busy commenting, liking, twitting or sharing some thing. These social networking sites are bringing people across the world together and shrinking our planet earth. I am certain that this is situation not just in Singapore but also across every nation and every city in this world.

With this avalanche of social networking site swooping down on us, something that we need to ponder and deliberate is “are we doing enough to mould our credit card industry to blend into this new world”? Both as a credit card customer and also as a member of this credit card industry I feel that we are not doing flexing enough muscles in this area. In this paper I am putting some thoughts around some areas where we can use these social networking mediums in providing a better experience and offer new services to credit card customers. There are 3 main areas in which we need to design our social media ventures –

·           Engage “participate or become involved
·           Collaborate “work jointly on an activity or project
·           Communicate “share or exchange information or ideas

Later in the paper we will see in more details on what can be done in each of these areas. But before going into some more details, first and foremost principle we need to understand is that every social media opportunity is not same. What this means is we cannot have same social media strategy for FACEBOOK as that of TWITTER, each one of the tool is meant to be use for different purpose. Defining a common social media strategy is like taking finding a venue for a group which includes non-vegetarian, vegetarian, teetotaler, drunkard, smoker, non-smoker all at same time. With this mix it is not possible to keep everyone happy at the end you will make one of the group low. Being one of the most non-socially active person in my social network I am not the authority to decide what strategy will work best for which tool. However one thing is for sure that all these tools have there own nuances which if not understood can lead to a failure.

Let us now move on and start thinking about being social..

SOCIAL OFFERS

There was a time when people did not bother to let others know about their plans for dinner or family outing and term check-in was mainly used in terms of boarding of an air flight. But now in this socially connected world people love to “check in” into restaurants, food courts, movie halls and what not. And not just that you will see people share photos of what they ordered for dinner at restaurant they just checked in. Now think if someone from your credit card bank posts a comment on your wall and recommends a good dish at restaurant you checked in or recommends a movie at the theater you checked in. And by the way, you also receive a post informing you that you can get a 10% discount if you make payment using mybank credit card or send a personal message to the customer through whatsapp or twit a discount voucher, which can be used at that shop?


Isn’t this exciting? With just one post we have not just made our customer happy but by posting on that FACEBOOK WALL that belongs to our valued customer we have also left graffiti for friends and family members to come and see what we have to offer. To achieve this we probably don’t require someone with credit card knowledge but someone who likes to eat food or watch movies.


Every bank has a customer service help line for our customers to call for help. And almost all banks have one toll free number, which can be used when customer is in same country as bank, and an international number, which can be called for help when outside the country. This is a service, which was par excellence when we had landline phones or non-smart mobile phones. In this socially connected world, yes our customers are on smart phone for most of the time of the day, however they are no making phone calls. And when you go outside country making an international call to call for help might itself be a complex process. It is much more cheaper to get a free wifi connection or a cheap data plan compared to keeping phone on international roaming or getting a new number in every county you visit. Also who cares to remember customer service phone number?

Now think, of having a twitter handle, which is easy to remember e.g. @saket_mathur, and can be used by our customers to tweet for help. Consider a scenario where our customer is in a problem and has lost his card and now needs some help to comeback to his country. In this situation how can we expect him to call a help line number and go answer myriad of questions from selecting language preference, entering credit card number, selecting that call is not for fee waiver etc etc. instead of this we have him tweet for help and we immediately enter into conversation and try to figure out how to get him out of problem.

Isn’t this more meaningful service being offered? Remember happy customer will share, retweet, like a good service. To achieve this we probably don’t require someone with credit card knowledge but someone who is in love with twitter.


Gone are the times when people used to meet once in a while and bank problems were of least interesting topic to discuss. But now in this new world, every incident irrespective of where and when it occurs is available for everyone to read and comment. And with so much of time being spent on social networks people tend to start making preconception about others. Also we need to remember that more than 50% of our customer are not going to call us to inform their displeasure and unhappiness but will post it on facebook their part of the story. I don’t think we do anything about this (unless the post is picked by some journalist), in this shrinking world ones image can be built or spoilt by “words of mouth” or “posts of facebook” or “tweets on twitter”.

Now think if we have someone who looks for negative and positive references to our bank and is able to start a conversation with the customer to understand the problem and help to salvage the situation by resolving the issue. It is important to note that SOCIAL LISTENING does not mean we into a melee with unhappy customer, instead try to understand the problem and resolve it in a mutually acceptable way. Remember when we go social it means we are SOCIAL every thing we do is SOCIAL i.e. seen, liked, retweet by the world. Don’t just look for bad press but also positive feedback, imagine sharing a good feedback about yourbank and immediately receiving a thank you note from the bank. You will feel that someone is listening to you.

Isn’t this more reassuring to our customers. To achieve this we probably don’t require someone with credit card knowledge but someone who is able to understand customer problem and able to resolve problem as a human and not based on documented scripts and rules. 


A standard practice that almost all banks follow before coming up with a new product launch is market research and probably engaging an external consultancy firm to tell us what our customers wants and how should we design our product offering to make our customers happy. In most of the cases a sample will be selected (this sample based no statistical theory will be indicative of complete customer base). If this sampling and market research was reason for success and failure of any product then I don’t think any product will fail at all, however we know many times every after following all steps we end up with a product which our customers discard. With this new generation which is stuck to social media, it is much more easier to reach out to all customers. And the best thing is majority (much more than sample used for market research) are ready to engage and collaborate with us.

Now think of a scenario where mybank wants to launch a new affinity credit card, for this if I want to decide charity organizations, which our customers will like to partner with. Instead of spending thousands in market research, we can probably create a blog explaining the product features and ask customers to provide comments and list of charity. This type of partnership between customers and financial organizations is yet to be seen. Very soon we might also be engaging customers to perform USER ACCEPTANCE TESTING for new products, at the end they are the real users. We all like to be asked for feedback and everyone feels proud when feedback is used to improve something.


To start with this is not about we providing social security support to all customers, instead it is about how can we use information available in social networking sites for improving security measures. We like it or not but it is not good posts, blogs, tweet that are shared, posted, tweeted on social networking sites but also negative. Every bank spends millions of dollars to ensure there systems and procedures are leak prove and are capable of identifying any activity which could result in money in wrong hands. Think about using posts and tweets made by customer or even friends list to identify customers, which potentially are or might use our banks servicing in supporting wrong causes. With ears and eyes on social networking sites we could be able to identify and avoid many unpleasant events.

What next?... This is not meant to be a complete list of ways we can ENGAGE, COLLABORATE and COMMUNICATE with our customers. I am sure many of us will like to consider concerns about our personal data being used by banks, it is definitely a challenge that needs to be reflected in carving the social media strategy, but one thing we should consider is that someone checkin into a restaurant wants everyone to know that he is going there to eat food and does not want to keep it a secret.

This is just a thought for all of us to see how we can start molding and deliberating in our own circles on using social networking for beneficial for the customers and growth of business. Probably soon we will allow customers to login to bank account using facebook login or will use twitter handle name as customer identification or will have our risk and fraud strategies based on what customers posts or who are in their friends list.

It is just a matter of time and some money to come closure to our customers.


Author – Saket Mathur (Vice President, Barclays)

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Payment Industry - Challenges and Opportunities

Location                 – Somewhere on Planet Earth
Date                        – January 08, 2015
Jack, Ramesh and Sally are waiting at bus stand for bus to arrive. While waiting they glance through the advertisement display at the bus stop, showing marketing material for a store nearby.

Jack and Sally write down store address and takes photograph of item they want to purchase.
Ramesh takes out his mobile phone and takes a picture of QR tag show at the bottom of the advertisement.

Later all three visits the store to purchase the item they wanted to purchase. At the store Jack & Sally shows the picture of item they want to the store agent. Store agent guides them to the section where the item is on display. They both pick up the article and proceed toward payment counter.

Ramesh goes through similar route with a difference that he shows the QR code to agent who reads it on QR reader to guide Ramesh to the isle where item is on display.

All 3 go to payment counter and are bombarded with display of credit card offer, one promoting 5% cash back, another bank offering 1 mile per dollar amount, yet another offering free delivery service and so on. Like all credit card lover Jack, Ramesh and Sally have at least 10 credit cards in their arsenal, so now they have to decide which credit card is fit for this purchase. Which card will give them the most benefit from this purchase; standing at payment counter they are not thinking about what benefits they will get out of the purchase made but are applying all mathematical calculations and statistical analysis to decide how can they save the most on their purchase today.

Finally based on some logic they decide which card to use, makes payment and go home happily thinking they made the best deal. But what is not clear is why all of them used different bank card credit card.

Now let us go to future…..

Location                 – Still on Planet Earth
Date                        - January 08, 2x15

Jack and Sally are waiting at supersonic mass rapid transport station waiting for a high speed magnetic propelled bus. While waiting, they glance at the 3D holographic advertisement display for a store at undisclosed location on planet earth.

Ramesh is wearing strange glasses, on closer look they are the latest release of Google Glasses running on Cadbury operating system. He focuses his glass on the holographic advertisement and blinks two times activating his glass payment application. Payment application will perform a retina scan to authenticate Ramesh. Once authenticated, he is given list of various credit card offers which he can avail to make purchase of the item. He selects one of them and confirms the purchase just by few gestures which are recorded by his GOOGLE Glass. Items are delivered to his house in few hours.

Sally likes the necklace shown on one of the advertisement and uses her NFC enabled phone to tap, which initiates her mobile payment application. Using finger print authentication her mobile payment application verifies her identity and presents her top 3 card offers available to make the purchase. She selects one of the offers and confirms purchase. That evening she wears the necklace to her friend’s house. Her friend likes the necklace and wants to buy same for herself. Her friend taps the necklace with her NFC enabled ring and instantly gets a message on her phone to confirm her purchase by entering her password. However story does not end here, merchant gives Sally a $2 cash back to thank her for getting one more customer.

……End of story J

Intention of this paper is not to tell a story or to foresee the future but is to highlight that the journey to buy something will not remain same. There are 3 main areas or challenges that will force all the banks to rethink and revamp how they interact with customers.

Brand Management will be the biggest challenge all banks are going to face. If you will read the future payment process it is very clear that none of the instruments customers will use to make payment are owned by a bank, usage of credit card plastic will be reduced. What we will see are products like GOOGLE glasses, wearable device and mobile devices being used for making purchases.

Brand image plays a significant role in deciding which credit card should one select from a pack of cards. But in future people will use products owned by companies who are absurdly do not have financial transaction as main line of business, however will own the touch points on how customers will make a financial transactions. These touch points won’t be affiliated to any banks hence will not be inclined to promote any bank.

In new customer journey the brand value gets diluted, it does not matter if you are a premier customer holding a high value card or holding a very basic card. What people will be fascinated about and see is making a purchase using a GOOGLE glass or an Apple phone or an NFC enabled ring. For a customer it is no longer making payment using Barclays, HSBC or Citibank credit card instead they are making payment using GOOGLE, Apple, Tiffany etc. I am very sure that nobody will be interested in showing off a Tiffany ring branded with some bank name or logo. So using these products to promote the brand image is out of the door.

It is not just banks but even merchants will face similar challenges. Instead of marketing and advertisement driving customer decision it will be products themselves selling itself. As mentioned in the possible future purchase process, a chip within a necklace will be used to make the purchase. So the customer will also be a salesperson and it will be these customers who will be instrumental in building an image or a brand.

In future brand management will be replacement with a much bigger and complex process “Trust Management”. It will be almost impossible to differentiate banks based on service offerings as all banks will be in a position to offer more or less same set of services. So key to success will be to act as a financial partner for customer and able to support all financial needs of customer and not just one or two.

·       Customer Authentication is one area that will entirely change; some of these changes are already in prototype stage. Signature and PIN will be things of past replaced with more secure ways of authentication. However these new ways of authentication will not be so simple and will require huge investment to be made by financial institutions. Instead of each bank making these changes, I think customer authentication will become a service offered by a central authority probably a government agency or even card schemes.

We will soon have terms like KMC (Know My Customer) replacing or adding a new flavour to KYC (Know Your Customer). With authentication being managed by central agency it will relive all financial institutions of investing millions of dollars in capturing and verifying finger prints, iris data etc. Other potential use of such a central authentication process is that it can be used by every service which requires authentication of an individual e.g. health industry, government services etc.

·       Rewards and Offers are used by most of the financial institutes as a DANGLE to attract new customers and to retain existing customers. Majority of these are around reward loyalty of customer by giving cash back or bonus points if customer makes more than x amount in a month or quarter etc. This area will change to being more “TRANSACTIONAL” in nature. What that means is that every transaction customer makes will be an individual independent decision. Offers and rewards for each transaction made by customer will be individual and dynamic and not like now which are based on simple rules and same for all customers. With support of new technologies we will have capabilities to use both internal and external data and give a unique and customized offer to the customer.

As mentioned in one of the customer journey when customer decides to make a purchase he will be presented with multiple offers being offered by credit cards he hold and he will be able to decide on the fly what he wants to do. In simple terms it will be like bidding process where banks will try to win the customer by giving best offer.

We will also see rewards around “Customer Get Customer”, where customer will be rewarded if another customer makes a purchase because of him or her e.g. Sally driving purchase for her friend.
Other trends which we are already seeing are wearable becoming common payment instrument probably we will have to stop calling Credit Card as Credit Card instead start referring them as Credit Anything.
  
Author – Saket Mathur (Vice President @ Barclays)

Dated 09.01.15