March 17th 2020
CMSPI Commits to Powering Up Merchant Payments Education in 2020
Since inception over 29 years ago, CMSPI has aimed to empower merchants by providing education and transparency in one of the most opaque, expensive and complex industries in the world – payments.
The industry has an intricate regulatory landscape, from PSD2 and Strong Customer Authentication (SCA), to the Durbin amendment and opportunities within debit routing in the U.S. Therefore, staying competitive for merchants is a mammoth task, with them having to consider changes to consumer preferences and payments setups and evolving charging structures. This is why current and regular education is vitally important in remaining a market leader.
This year, we’re committing to increasing our education services with more workshops and a plethora of e-learning materials, from beginner to advanced. We’ll be hosting a range of free educational workshops globally and will offer tailored one-to-one workshops for large teams and a variety of stakeholders.
"Educating retailers is really ingrained in everything we do. Whether we’re advising how to optimize arrangements, running multi-stakeholder workshops with a specific business or delivering industry-leading educational events."
"It’s a real battle for merchants to keep up and education is key, which is why we’ve set out to improve it in 2020 and beyond. Expect to see some exciting things announced to bring better quality, more accessible and regular education to merchants."
Alex Ellwood - VP of Advocacy
CMSPI is the process of developing a fully functioning e-learning program for merchants, including self-paced modules containing video content, tests and written guides. We’re also exploring many partnerships with trade bodies and merchants to ensure access to education is widespread.
To help with this expansion, Jenna Birch will be joining our Advocacy & Insights team as Payments Education Manager. Jenna has been with CMSPI for three years, working as a Payments Consultant and leading the product development team.
Commenting on her new role, she said: “I am excited to make a transition from our consulting team – working with merchants on optimization projects day-to-day – to head up our education efforts across the globe. Workshops, conferences, webinars, e-learning, white papers, guides… we’re committing to super-charging our educational support for merchants. Watch this space!”