In March of 2011, we sat down with George Wolbert, Director of Business Systems, and an industry expert in payment devices and cardholder correspondence.

What do you consider to be one of your major accomplishments in your career?

The launch of TSYS Card Shop, our card manufacturing solution, provided our clients with a dramatically more cost-effective process for sourcing low-volume card designs.
 
Looking back, what strikes me as a real achievement is that users would never guess the sheer complexity of all the behind-the-scenes mechanisms. The on-demand digital color printing of the cards require us to blend art and science, from writing code for the user interface to getting the colors to match our clients’ logos perfectly. All this required a lot of effort and teamwork, and there are many of us that feel a real pride from bringing this exciting product off the drawing boards and into our clients’ card portfolios.

Is there anything new, innovative or ground-breaking coming from your area that you can share with us? What is a new trend in your field or area of expertise?

We’re at the forefront of one-to-one messaging and personalized products, TSYS Whitespace Manager being the latest iteration of these efforts. It is a new service that enables clients to easily turn statement whitespace into a revenue stream without losing control of their statement content.
 
The joke used to be that TransPromo, the act of putting promotional contents (ie, ads) onto transactional documents (eg, statements) was the wave of the future- and always would be. The funny part is that the potential value has always been there, as advertisers are eager to access such real estate that customers read so carefully.
 
Issuers have often abandoned TransPromo and the term admittedly has some baggage, but that’s because managing the moving parts has proven very difficult for them. Our partner-managed approach in TSYS Whitespace Manager solves these issues as we bring together the components that make for successful selling of the white space on our clients’ transactional documents: geo-demographic analytics, relationships with ad brokers, printing and mailing.

How has the relationship between buyers and sellers changed since your career began?

Choice and personalization are the new norms across industries. The digital age has enabled access to a broad array of information and highly influenced consumer expectations. Sellers continue to innovate with products and services, delivering real-time, personalized solutions that are relevant and timely. The rise in social media further fuels consumers’ desire for self-expression and access to niche markets.
 
Buyers increasingly want products that are made for their specific needs and lifestyles, and they want instant gratification. Sellers who can provide personalized products on-demand will have a distinct advantage in the marketplace.

Where do you see TSYS in 10 years and how are you preparing for it today?

There will be an increasingly diverse solution set as technology and customer preference continue to move forward. TSYS will offer clients an increasing number of methods to allow them to communicate with their customers and provide more real-time communication with real-time calls to action, whether that is for payments or offers.
 
As payment form factors change and evolve, we will continue to focus on the fundamentals of facilitating, safe, fast and convenient payments. Checks were replaced by physical credit and debit cards with magnetic stripes. Now NFC, and EMV Chip cards have made inroads into the mag stripe’s turf. Smart phones are facing stiffer competition from tablet PCs and iPads. Regardless of the form factor of the future, I see us increasingly providing solutions that have a more direct contact with the end-consumer.

What legacy do you want to leave for TSYS?

I want to be remembered as one who embraced technological innovation, and helped to turn the impossible into the profitable. I hope that we continue our efforts to package new and disparate technologies in creative ways in order to help our clients better serve their customers.