How NCR is Creating a Passive, Frictionless, Buying Experience with Tim Vanderham

There are 750 million transactions processed every day. Let that number sink in… Across ATMs, self-checkout machines, and online payments, NCR — through both hardware and software infrastructure — is helping you checkout faster. We already have tap-to-pay credit cards and payments-synced watches. So is there a way for transactions to actually get more seamless? And can creating that more effortless experience actually save you money?? Tim Vanderham, CTO and SVP at NCR, said it’s not that unrealistic.

“We're going on this notion of frictionless, passive, and then us as consumers sharing our data where we want to share it so that we get benefits from it in our daily lives. If you're not a bank individual, but you start thinking about what's happening with decentralized finance around cryptocurrencies and blockchain, I can start to leverage that data in ways that I can ask for loans from my financial institution when I'm making larger purchases. It also gives me a way to save an extra $500 for a week.”

In 2021, data is precious currency, especially when you’re a company that moves hundreds of billions of data points at a time. On this episode of IT Visionaries, Tim provides a new outlook on the future of your transactions Tim also goes into how NCR, a company established in 1884, is going through its own digital transformation to deliver customers the interactions with brands they desire. Enjoy this episode.

Main Takeaways

• Into the Serververse: Right now a majority of transactions are done with the swipe of a credit card or through physical cash. But that will change, and one way it will change is through the use of digital wallets on smartphones. These digital wallets will be able to store and read your information without you ever having to actually pull out a credit card.
• It’s Just a Transaction: NCR covers more than 750 million transactions a day, which means that hundreds of billions of data points pass through its system. These data points will eventually allow consumers to use that information to create better financial profiles — meaning if a user routinely invests 20 dollars into an account, the system will be able to automatically do that or that data will be used to create recurring buying profiles.
• From Hardware to Software: When you’re transforming a company that has been around for more than a century, you have to understand the verticals your company operates in. This means identifying where your technology is successful, and where you can improve. For NCR, that means moving away from just hardware products and developing a software platform that allows the three unique industries it serves to operate under one umbrella. 

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