Highlights, learnings, and key takeaways from MAC 2019, Las Vegas

I recently attended MAC’s Level Up Annual Conference for a second year in a row and can honestly say it’s one of my favourite payment industry events.

The president of the MAC conference, Georgia Stavrakis, has done fantastic job spearheading this year’s event. This reflects her strong leadership and dedication to making MAC bigger, better and more relevant. It was extremely well run, but still managed to maintain an intimate and relaxed atmosphere.

This was the second year I presented at the conference and I was honoured to have a chance to speak about current security pain points – a topic that certainly fed into attendees’ other discussions about payments for growth areas.

My presentation also highlighted the importance of a proactive approach to payments compliance for SMBs and referenced our second PCI Acquirer Sentiment Survey, which found that the vast majority of respondents believe merchants don’t have the necessary knowledge to engage with PCI programs and that acquiring organisations are not comfortable with their current compliance rate.

The audience’s questions regarding call centre dynamics and metrics at the end of the presentation were intriguing and really made me think. Answering these questions underlined the need for a Managed Service Provider (MSP) solution.

Another highlight of the MAC event was that we were able to meet with senior operation staff, decision makers and partners. There were ample opportunities for networking and these conversations gave us insight into market intelligence in a relaxed and friendly environment.

This year, I was also struck by the relevance of the topics discussed and the audience in attendance.

Both our co-sponsored welcome reception with PayPal, and our afterparty at the Primrose Bar were well attended. One interesting conversation we had was with David Leppek, a well-known payment consultant and former founder and president of Transaction Services, an independent sales organisation.

David was inspired by the approach Sysnet has taken with Level 4 PCI in the US market. In his view, a white-labelled, high-touch approach with an emphasis on getting merchants certified compliant and genuinely secure is ambitious, but necessary for anyone to expect to change the metrics of payment card security.

The MAC conference provides excellent value for money, enabling us to keep abreast of the latest developments and changes impacting the acquiring industry. It also provides many opportunities for us to get our brand and solutions in front of the right audience. Since this year’s MAC conference was a huge success, we are already starting to plan for next year.

If you would like to learn more about how Sysnet can help your business, please visit our website: www.sysnetgs.com