France-based Worldline has entered a new collaboration with HEC Paris and the HEC Foundation to explore the future of payments. Specifically, the three entities will work together on the creation of ‘The Future of Money’ Chair as part of a three-year partnership that hopes to further the development of knowledge about payments through research and education.

Furthermore, the partnership will also explore the possibility of training new talent in the sector. The project will be headed by Associate Professor of Law and Artificial Intelligence at HEC Paris, David Restrepo Amariles, who will coordinate research around innovation in payments and digital currencies, payments infrastructure, technology ecosystems, data analytics, regulation, and new business models in the payments industry. The resulting projects will focus on the development of prototypes, the submission of publications in academic journals, the creation of media articles and case studies, as well as the organisation of international conferences.

It's also worth noting that the Chair will contribute to the creation of a unique teaching certificate in the payments industry that will be offered to final-year Masters, MBA, and Executive MBA students starting in spring 2024. HEC Paris will become the host of a new ‘Future of Money and Digital Assets’ centre that will support a team of academics and experts from different backgrounds, including start-ups, investors, regulators, banks and central banks. According to the official Worldline press release, the centre will host researchers on campus, and organise workshops and conferences on themes such as payment problems and techniques.

It will also support entrepreneurship, innovation, and development in partnership with the HEC Paris ecosystem and the HEC Incubator based at Station F. Through this partnership, Worldline will be able to take part in three master's level elective courses at HEC Paris. Worldline experts will address various topics based on concrete use cases developed by the group.

These topics will touch on subjects such as digital strategy, money and payments regulation, and technology. Other recent news from Worldline In May 2023,  Worldline provided the European Central Bank with a front-end prototype for the digital euro. In essence, Worldline has delivered an offline person-to-person (P2P) payment use case that has the potential to allow individuals to perform digital euro payments even when none of the parties involved has network access.

The successful presentation of the prototype aims to reinforce the technological feasibility and industrial scaling potential of the offline scenario thus contributing to a more resilient payment system. In March 2023, Worldline launched VABOX (Voice Alert Box) to facilitate instant payment voice alerts for merchants in India. The device was launched by Worldline partner banks Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Punjab National Bank, and Union Bank of India.

In the initial phase, Worldline India revealed that it would be rolling out half a million devices that will prompt instant voice alerts for QR-code-based payments. For more information about Worldline, please check out their detailed profile in our dedicated, industry-specific Company Database. .