During the last six months we have seen a substantial shift in client focus to address their ESG status, particularly in respect of carbon emissions. Much of this change is driven by demand from larger business customers. More and more, tenders, requests for quotes and renewal of contracts are accompanied by increasingly comprehensive and onerous ESG information demands about standards, business policies, environmental declarations, staff training, supplier preparations and so on. This has created challenges for most organisations and especially SMEs who generally don’t have anyone with responsibility for ESG nor the skills, systems, data or processes in place to meet these requirements.

Did you ever hear about a black swan? The black swan theory is used as a metaphor for an unpredictable event. A theory based on thousands of observations of white swans – hence no swans can be expected to be black. Until a Dutch explorer observed a black swan, in Australia.

Some argue that the coronavirus outbreak is a black swan whilst other experts claim it is not. They argue that it was just a matter of time until we were going to get a virus disease like this, spreading across the globe. In any case, what we all can agree upon is that the outbreak is having a major impact on us all, and that our digital transformation is accelerating for both organisations and individuals. But what does it mean for the Payments industry?