RIYADH: Industry experts used the final day of an international payments and commerce technology conference in Riyadh to urge businesses to think more like their customers and make products as simple to use as possible. 

More than 6,000 attendees descended on the Seamless exhibition, held over two-days at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center, and took part in lectures, panel discussions, keynote interviews that highlight the latest technologies in retail, fintech, payments, and e-commerce. 

Day two, on Nov. 2, kicked off with keynote speaker Nora Albakr, the senior vice president of strategy and excellence at Saudi Payment.  

She discussed the changing dynamics of the payment industry and the future of payment technology. 

Her speech was followed by an interview with Gunjan Bhow, a global e-commerce leader and veteran of Amazon, Disney, and Walgreens Boots Alliance. 

He touched upon the strategies to strengthen customer experience capabilities in e-commerce. 

“The customer has a very specific need and they are naturally impatient and dominated by so many impulses,” Bhow said. 

“If you know, truly, why they are engaging with you, what is even piquing their curiosity and (you) then build an experience to optimize that,” he said. 

“My advice is to know your customer, and by knowing, I mean you should be able to think their thoughts and not just ask them to fill a survey,” Bhow said. 

“Trust is earned by solving really difficult problems for the customer repeatedly…it could be as simple as the speed of our tech support operations or the personalization of a login or registration,” he advised the crowd. 

Following Bhow’s keynote interview, Hazem Alrashed, the vice president of business support for Mobily Pay, hosted a discussion on the digital wallet’s role as an enabler for innovations in financial service, just one month following the launch of Mobily Pay. 

Tamim Alqusair, vice president of business for Saudi Payments, used his speech to discuss e-commerce payments in Saudi Arabia and the impacts on consumers, businesses, and the economy. 

He highlighted the growth in the e-commerce market, e-commerce payments, and services by Saudi payments, and also discussed the new e-commerce and payment ecosystem of 2023 by Saudi payment. 

Seamless concluded with a panel discussion on the silent revolution in B2B payments and how digitalization is enabling profitability. 

Reflecting on the two-day event, Khawlah AlShehri, cybersecurity officer of Saudi finTech and digital broker startup Arib, said: “This is the first year we have participated in this conference and it was an interesting experience. 

“We benefited a lot from being in Seamless, there were a lot of opportunities and many companies contacted us.” 

Arib was launched in 2019 and acts as a mediator between the client and financing agencies such as banks in order to get the customer the best personal financing services in personal financing, real estate financing, and car financing 

“Users register on Arib based on their information and salary and budget that they are able to purchase a choice of car, real estate or personal loan, then it will show them the best financing offers from banks based on where they are,” said AlShehri.