Modernizing Payments to Enable Unified Commerce

Laura Treude, Director of Group Payment, DOUGLAS

Laura Treude, Director of Group Payment, DOUGLAS

Laura is the Director of Group Payment at DOUGLAS, where she leads payment strategy and operations across all countries and channels. With a background in marketing and finance, she ensures seamless, secure and customer-centric transactions while driving financial performance. Her responsibilities span the entire payment value chain—from defining customer scoring rules to managing fraud prevention, payment methods, terminals and cash logistics.

She oversees the implementation and readiness of payment solutions across online and retail channels, continuously evaluating innovations like mobile checkouts for strategic integration. Laura is also responsible for post-purchase processes, including dunning and collections in DACH e-commerce and maintains a streamlined, scalable infrastructure designed for efficiency, minimal interfaces and reduced hardware complexity.

Challenges in Unifying Online and In-Store Payments

One of the most pressing challenges remains the absence of truly omnichannel-capable technology stacks. Solutions must operate seamlessly across digital and physical touchpoints while integrating effectively with the legacy systems many businesses still depend on. For this reason, a significant gap remains in the ability to collect, unify and activate customer data across channels. This gap hinders efforts to improve payment acceptance rates by recognizing returning customers and customizing the payment experience.

Compounding this issue is the fragmented availability of payment methods across touchpoints. Inconsistent offerings between online and in-store disrupt the customer journey. While certain markets have seen progress, Switzerland’s Twint or PayPal’s growing footprint are notable examples, the broader European payment landscape still feels fragmented. Many current solutions fall short in terms of widespread adoption. In this sense, I am excited to see how Wero, the unified and instant payment wallet developed by the European Payments Initiative (EPI), could mark a turning point over the next years.

Another challenge, often underestimated, lies in consumer behavior. While digital checkout flows allow for guided, step-by-step onboarding to new payment features, in-store experiences offer far less opportunity for controlled customer education, always ending in worse adoption. Encouraging behavioral change in physical retail is simply harder, and yet, essential for truly unified commerce.

Balancing Fraud Prevention with User Experience

The most effective, but probably not the simplest, approach requires deep expertise: maintaining a careful balance between achieving high acceptance rates to maximize sales and mitigating the risk of payment defaults from customers who are offered deferred payment options but may either be unwilling or unable to fulfill their obligations.

Managing this effectively requires a combination of experienced professionals and advanced fraud tools. These tools should incorporate artificial intelligence—a capability long embraced by fraudsters, who face fewer regulatory and compliance constraints. AI enables dynamic and adaptable rule-setting, essential for staying ahead in an evolving threat landscape.

However, one fundamental challenge remains unchanged: often before effective fraud prevention, there comes fraud detection. You first need to know what to protect yourself against.

Modernizing Payments while Ensuring Scalable Compliance

For finance executives, my advice centers around three strategic imperatives: lead with data, embrace intelligent automation and design for adaptability.

First, establish a strong foundation of clean, centralized data. High-quality data is the backbone of effective risk management, accurate forecasting and a more tailored customer experience. Without it, even the most advanced tools can fall short.

Second, embrace automation and AI, not just to drive efficiency, but to elevate decision quality. These technologies have the power to strengthen fraud detection, streamline credit assessments and significantly reduce manual errors.

However, their success depends on team buy-in. It is crucial to foster a culture where human oversight complements automation rather than resists it. Too often, I still encounter legacy thinking, the belief that “what has always worked will always work,” which can silently undermine innovation.

Finally, build with adaptability in mind. Regulatory frameworks, customer expectations and market dynamics evolve rapidly. Scalable, modular systems paired with a flexible organizational mindset are key to staying resilient in the face of constant change. Finance modernization is no longer optional; it is a competitive imperative. The leaders who act decisively today will, in my opinion, define the standard for tomorrow.