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Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Mobile banking trends to watch out for in 2012 - Mobile Commerce Daily - Banking - 0 views

www.mobilecommercedaily.com/...-looking-beyond-basic-services

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 30 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Mobile banking will continue to grow next year across a multiple fronts. Not only will more banks jump into mobile with optimized sites and application, but financial institutions will also build their existing mobile programs with a variety of new services.
  • Much of the interest in mobile banking is being driven by consumers, who tend to interact more with a mobile banking solution than they do Internet banking. On average, customers use a mobile banking app three times per week and only use traditional Internet banking two times per week, according Malauzai Software.
  • “We see a demand for mobile via the application and text messaging,” said Jim Simpson, vice president of information technology at City Bank Texas, Lubbock, TX, which has over 30 locations across Texas.
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  • “We are looking to provide innovative services to our customers,” he said. “We have to be competitive and to be competitive you have to offer these services.
  • Banks that feature a rewards program will increasingly look to mobile to drive interactivity for the program and drive customers back into mobile banking apps.
  • For example, City Bank Texas will introduce a new service early next year that enables customers to quickly and easily temporarily turn off their debit card via the mobile app if they have lost it and then turn it back on just as easily. Currently, customers have to find and call the bank’s 800 number to accomplish this.
  • Mobile check capture Many of the big banks currently give customers the ability to deposit checks into their bank accounts using their mobile phones. However, next year more banks are likely to jump onboard and offer this service to meet consumer demand. Malauzai Software’s research shows that a lot of bank customers are investigating remote capture on their mobile phones even if they have not made a deposit yet. For those customers who are using the service, they typically deposit one to two items per month. “We see mobile check capture becoming really big in 2012 – we expect over half of our clients to adopt it next year,” said Robb Gaynor, chief product officer and co-founder of Malauzai Software Inc., Austin, TX.
  • “If we can move certain things to mobile so customers can do them on their own time via mobile, it’s a big advantage. It is a stickiness that gets them to stay with us.”
  • For example, City Bank Texas offers a rewards account that enables customers to earn higher interest rates and ATM fee refunds based on how much they use the bank’s various services. However, because there was no way for customers to keep track of how many transactions they made or how close they are to earning a reward, customers were frequently calling the call center for this information.
  • To address this, City Bank Texas put a real-time reward monitoring service in its mobile app. Now customers can use the app to find out how many more transactions they need to reach the next level of rewards.
  • Person-to-person payments Person-to-person payments have been around for several years but use has been limited because the transactions did not take place in real time. However, with Visa recently changing certain rules to enable two consumers to exchange debit card information in a secure way, person-to-person payments will now be able to show up in someone’s checking account within seconds. Visa is expected to roll out a solution for person-to-person payments in the first quarter of 2012. “With real time settlements, you will see a lot more customers use person-to-person payments,” Mr. Gaynor said. “We see this as the beginning of real mobile banking.”
  • Some banks may try to ease customers into mobile payments to get them comfortable with the idea. For example, City Bank Texas will give mobile customers next year a way to manage their prepaid, loyalty and gifts card via the mobile app.
  • “This is the first step to moving customers to mobile payments concepts,” City Bank Texas’ Mr. Simpson said. “New companies are sprouting up weekly to do mobile payments but the problem is that the debit card is not broken yet – it is still relatively easy to swipe that card.
  • Mobile marketing Mobile offers and deals from retailers and third-party services such as Groupon and others were a big phenomenon in 2011. Next year, banks will be looking to cash in on the opportunity here by providing local offers via their mobile banking apps. Bank customers will be able to opt-in to the service so they can receive offers via the mobile banking app when they walk past a local business making an offer and redeem the offer via the app as well. In the past, banks have been reluctant to allow other business to market to their customers but because of the personal nature of a mobile phone and the ability to serve offers based on a customer’s location, this is starting to change. “We see this as a huge opportunity for banks to start making money through the mobile channel as offers are redeemed,” Malauzai’s Mr. Gaynor said “We feel it can be pulled off in an unobtrusive, value-added way.”
  • Customized apps Currently, a lot of banks have one mobile app for all of their customers. However, next year there will be a growing number of customized banking apps that are tailored to the needs of a specific customer group. For example, regional banks could customize apps based on which local market a customer belongs to. Or, an app could be customized to the needs of college students, who often have a different set of services available to them. “The first generation of mobile apps lost some of the customization found in Internet banking but now we are seeing more customized mobile experiences,” Mr. Gaynor said. “This is an example of how mobile banking is getting smarter and banks are trying to deliver a better mobile experience,” he said.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

More retailers turning paper checks into e-transfers - MarketWatch - 0 views

www.marketwatch.com/...-paper-checks-into-e-transfers

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- When an unidentified $30 debit showed up on her bank statement as an electronic funds transfer, Cheryl Hicks was mystified.
  • Each month, three electronic transfers go through her account -- and this wasn't one she recognized. "It just said ACH debit and the amount," said Hicks, a 33-year-old communications manager who lives near Everett, Washington.
  • Hicks soon discovered her phone company transformed the paper check she sent for payment into an e-transfer, and her bank failed to list either the check number or the recipient on her statement.
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  • Hicks' inability to readily identify the EFT debit illustrates a mounting bookkeeping problem some checking customers are encountering as banks and retailers seek to minimize the handling of paper checks to cut costs and boost profit.
  • "While the EFTs are helpful to everybody and clearly more efficient, I'm not sure the banking system has adequate safeguards," said Kent Phelps, a vice president of software engineering for WitsEnd Software, which develops programs enabling check scanning.
  • Customers lack the ability to set parameters on the practice, he said. "I ought to be able to tell the bank 'I'm going to authorize EFT, but I want to be called if its over $5,000 or will empty the bank account."
  • A fast-growing number of U.S. retailers are scanning images of checks into banks' computer systems and destroying the originals. An estimated 461 million check payments have been converted into e-payments since January 2002, according to NACHA, the Electronic Payments Association.
  • Meanwhile, a law called Check 21 will go into effect next October allowing banks to send checks to each other electronically, eliminating the need to transport them manually from bank to bank, and authorizing check "substitutes" to be used in a court of law.
  • Banks and merchants say electronic check scanning helps detect fraud more quickly, while also saving 5 to 25 cents a transaction, according to NACHA.
  • Some problems arise In bank-to-bank electronic transactions, the check payment moves faster through the system -- meaning consumers should no longer count on a three- to five-day lag time. Otherwise, check-writers are unlikely to notice a change, aside from receiving copies of their returned checks in lieu of the originals.
  • Some consumer advocates warn that many merchants aren't fully educated in the legal ins-and-outs of check scanning. Gail Hillebrand, senior attorney with Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, said she's received complaints that companies have run checks through twice, once as an electronic transfer and again as a regular check.
  • "There are a lot of merchants who don't really know what the rules are," Hillebrand said. "The merchant thinks 'you owe me money, I have this check here because I didn't send it in last month, I'll send it through now.'
  • "The fact that that is inconsistent with NACHA rules and probably illegal, the merchant doesn't know and hasn't been educated."
  • Hicks couldn't find any notice on phone bills that her checks would be converted to electronic transfers, though the NACHA rules governing the process require companies to notify consumers every time they plan to convert a check into an electronic payment.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

With Funding In Tow, MineralTree Launches A Disruptive Banking And Payment Solution Aim... - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...payment-solution-aimed-at-smbs

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 08 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • For SMBs, managing banking and payment processes is not as easy — or as secure — as it should be. So, coming out of stealth today is a Boston-based startup called MineralTree that is looking to fix both of these problems. Tomorrow, at the Small Business Banking Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, MineralTree will officially launch its first product: A cloud-based banking and payment solution designed specifically for SMBs.
  • Backing the startup in its mission to create an easy payment solution for small businesses is a cool $1.5 million in seed funding, raised from .406 Ventures, which has enabled MineralTree to develop its payments solution and make its initial hires, partnerships, and customer acquisitions. The most notable of which is the startup’s partnership with Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California — the first financial institution to implement MineralTree’s solution and offer it to its SMB customers.
  • MineralTree’s Accounting Manager app is a web-based add-on to the SMB’s existing accounting system that businesses can use to manage payables, including entering payment information, associate payments with backup documents, along with the ability to prioritize, recommend and submit payments to the CFO or business owner for approval.
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  • The startup then provides a separate “CFO App” that lets the financial officer, or the executive in charge, to approve and release payments. Both accounting manager and CFO apps are available on the iPad or via a secure web app. In turn, the bank used by the SMB gets a third web-based app that enables the financial institution to manage its MineralTree users.
  • Each of the three apps are linked to the startup’s payment server, which coordinates and manages all payment functions in the system, between customers, the bank, and payment service providers, etc. While it may sound like there are a lot of moving parts, in reality, the MineralTree solution provides an all-in-one, universal platform for all the payment channels an SMB or bank uses, whether it be check, ACH, wire, payment cards, PayPal, or mobile banking.
  • MineralTree’s payments platform is definitely niche, but for the 2.5 million SMBs currently operating in the U.S., this has the potential to solve a lot of problems inherent to the paper-based and snail-slow payment, approval, and accounting processes many are currently working with. It will be interesting to see if the team can convince the big banks that this is a workable solution for their SMB clients.
Dan R.D.

iTWire - Banking's great social media experiment [04Nov11] - 0 views

www.itwire.com/...-great-social-media-experiment

banking 1UE_NS

shared by Dan R.D. on 09 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The amount of money that Australian banks are spending on social media strategies is the equivalent of a “rounding error” when compared to the squillions they spend on advertising, delegates at a banking and finance conference heard on Friday. But the banks understand that although there isn’t yet a credible business case for much additional investment in the area, they can’t afford not to develop a presence on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
  • Speaking at the FST Media Technology and Innovation conference in Sydney on Friday Michael Weeding, head of digital banking for Citibank said that “We are probably not going to have a business case at this point in time” for heavier investment in social media bank. But he reminded delegates that the same once held true for mobile phone investment.
  • In a very short period of time mobile banking has moved from novelty item to mainstream banking platform, and social media could well follow.
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  • Stephen Bowe, head of user experience and digital media for UBank, said that although it wasn’t possible to accurately measure the impact of social media investment as yet, that shouldn’t hold banks back, as it was important to experiment. This was particularly the case speakers during sessions at the conference on Friday warned because the banks no longer owned the financial services space – but were increasingly being challenged by organisations such as Facebook itself, Amazon, PayPal, Google and potentially Apple.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Which Mobile Payments Provider is Right for You? - 0 views

thenextweb.com/...are-and-clover-go-head-to-head

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 16 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • The race right now is primarily between three parties – PayPal, Dwolla, Square and newcomer Clover Pay. Each of these services have its ups and downs, but it’s worth noting that they can all be used for peer-to-peer payments and that’s how we’ll be reviewing them.
  • PayPal Setup: Nearly instant. You can sign up for a PayPal account in just a couple of minutes, then have it funded from a credit card almost immediately after. Pros: Widely accepted payment form, in use by millions. Full-featured mobile app on iOS and Android, including the ability to scan checks for deposit. Tight integration with the USPS and eBay makes for easy collection and shipping. Cons: Often criticized for high fees. PayPal tends to lock down accounts for investigations with a guilty-until-proven-innocent approach. Terms of service disallow many actions, and are quite obtuse in important sections.
  • Dwolla Setup: Signing up for and using Dwolla is quick, but you’ll need to tie it to your bank account to fully leverage its abilities. This can take 3 to 5 business days, depending upon your bank. But, if your bank supports instant transactions, you won’t have the typical transfer lag. Pros: Dwolla charges only $0.25 per transaction, no matter how much money is being transferred. A highly-secure mobile app is available for Android and iOS. Instant transfers to and from your bank account, if your bank is part of the participating network. Dwolla is integrating with merchants, allowing you to pay directly from your account. Instant feature will “loan” you up to $500, charging a $5 fee only if you don’t pay it back before your statement is over. Cons: This could be a pro, depending on how you see it. Dwolla has no debit card function. It’s intended to be used as an extension of your existing bank account. Smaller base of users means that you’re not as likely to find a Dwolla customer for exchanging funds.
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  • Square Setup: For many merchants, Square has been the dream alternative to PayPal. By allowing customers to swipe physical cards with nothing more than a dongle on the merchant’s iPhone, it’s changing the way that many companies do business. Just snag a dongle, install the app, tie it to your bank account and you’re done. Onboarding with Square is supremely simple. Pros: Supremely easy to use. Flat 2.75% fee on any swiped transaction. Goes to 3.5% + 15¢ per transaction if the card is entered manually. Next-day deposits directly to your bank account. Cons: Square is intended as a business tool, rather than a peer-to-peer platform. Your friends will need to swipe a card to give you cash.
  • Clover Pay Setup: Clover came out of the gates with a killer team and a mobile app that’s top-notch. If you can get an invitation to the somewhat-closed beta you can be set up on Clover in a matter of minutes. Pros: Super-simple process for requesting and making payments. Numerous methods for requesting and sending, including face-to-face, by email or over SMS. Fee-free for non-commercial use. Cons: Low limits on funding your account via credit cards, as well as withdrawal to PayPal. $2000 monthly cap on ACH funding or withdrawal. Adoption seems to be slower than other services.
  • Who Should You Use? That’s the real point here, right? You want to know what option is best. Unfortunately, there’s not any one that rises completely above the others. Dwolla and Clover are my two choices for the most promising, but PayPal’s ubiquity keeps it as a necessary thorn in my side. The real answer has a lot more to do with how you plan on using the service.
  • If ubiquity is important to you, there’s only once choice and that’s PayPal. But if you’re willing to give up a bit of convenience, then Dwolla’s $0.25 per transaction and bank-account-augmentation are compelling features. I have big hopes for Clover, mainly because it’s a great team and a beautiful app. But I’ve yet to talk to anyone who’s actually used the service.
  • Finally, there’s an elephant in the room here…and in the image at the top of this post. Google Wallet. Unfortunately there are a lot of factors that prevent Google Wallet from being a be-all, end-all solution. The primary problem? It’s locked to Android right now. And even then it’s locked to only a select few Android phones. It’s a big promise, but one that will take a lot of time to come to fruition.
  • The end result is that there probably isn’t one “great” choice, just yet. But we’re moving in the right direction and that’s important. For me, it’s a combination of (begrudgingly) using PayPal when I have to and reverting to Dwolla when I can. Maybe your situation will be different, but hopefully this has helped you gain some insight.
  • With more phones and more options opening every day for mobile and peer to peer payments, the waters are getting a bit muddied. At the request of some of TNW’s Twitter followers, we thought we’d put together a list of the leading options, including the pros and cons of each. Expect this post to be updated as the landscape changes.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

iTWire - Commonwealth Bank to launch "world first" mobile payment app [24Oct11] - 0 views

www.itwire.com/...orld-firstq-mobile-payment-app

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 23 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • The Commonwealth Bank will launch tomorrow, 25 October, what it says will be "a world-first mobile app that marks a significant change to the way their customers can pay [and that] will combine a number of payment types."
  • In July Comm Bank introduced a revamped mobile banking app for iPhone, Android and Windows 7 and a new app for iPads and Android tablets.
  • "You can expect us to lead very aggressively in the mobile payments space… And we will be integrating NFC as soon as the handset vendors are ready to go."
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  • "There is not a tremendous amount of value in having cool mobile apps that function well but are connected to a back end that predates the Internet. We are the only bank with a completely modernised core banking platform. We believe the notion of real time banking on mobile devices is going to be more important than ever."
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Finextra: Citi mobile payments head Chu quits for LivingSocial [02Dec11] - 0 views

www.finextra.com/...fullstory.aspx

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 02 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Dickson Chu, the high profile and often outspoken head of digital and mobile networks at Citi, has quit the bank to join daily deals outfit LivingSocial.
  • Chu joined Citi from PayPal less than two years ago with a brief to kickstart the bank's mobile payments programme. Unusually for the conservative banking industry, Chu was prepared to speak his mind and was an unashamed advocate of the Google Wallet venture.
  • Citi is currently the sole banking partner for the search giant's mobile payments operation, which is straining to make a mark on the high street ahead of the forthcoming launch of a rival programme by the Isis carrier consortium.
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  • Prior to joining Citi, Chu spent six years at PayPal, where he directed the group's mobile product strategy and development.
  • At LivingSocial he will serve as SVP for the company's Merchant Solutions division.
  • Tim O'Shaughnessy, CEO of LivingSocial, says: "Dickson brings a deep background in developing vital business services for merchants, and we believe he is the ideal leader for a new division within LivingSocial dedicated to the creation of the next generation of local merchant solutions."
  • Finextra verdict After witnessing Chu's robust performance at a BAI Banking Strategies panel in October - Citi rounds on Isis, urges other banks to join Google Wallet - it was clear that he wasn't cut out for a long-time job in banking. While the other career bankers on the panel hemmed and hawed over the more difficult issues, Chu was unafraid to speak out, often prefacing his comments with lines like "As a banker I shouldn't be saying this, but..." or "I'm still learning what we can and cannot say as a bank".
  • His departures is not only a loss for Citi, but for the industry as a whole, which needs more people who are prepared to stick their necks out and think the unthinkable as the financial services business is refashioned by new digital technologies and increasingly challenged by new entrants and more nimble start ups.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Intuit GoPayment Now Allows Merchants To Receive Money On A Prepaid Visa Card | TechCrunch - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...e-money-on-a-prepaid-visa-card

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Intuit has made an interesting move today with its mobile credit card reader GoPayment reader. Intuit is allowing merchants to keep and receive funds on a prepaid credit card as opposed to depositing the amount in a bank account
  • Launched two years ago, GoPayment offers a complimentary app and credit card reader to allow small businesses to conduct charges via their smartphones. GoPayment, which competes directly with Square, is available for iOS, Android and Blackberry phones and the card reader simply plugs into the audio jack of a phone or tablet. The credit card data is also encrypted, (and never stored on the phone).
  • Similar to Square, the GoPayment mobile payment app is free and the basic service has no monthly, transaction or cancellation fees, and offers a 2.7 percent rate for swiped transactions. Intuit and Square actually both eliminated the per transaction fee.
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  • With the Intuit GoPayment Prepaid Visa Card, merchants and retailers can have the funds they collect with GoPayment deposited into their GoPayment Card account. They can then use the card to make payments online, in stores and withdraw cash at ATMs everywhere Visa debit cards are accepted.
  • So who does this arrangement work for? For smaller businesses or individuals who don’t have a business bank account and still want to conveniently separate the money they make with GoPayment from their personal finances, this could be a good option. Using the prepaid card can also help merchants start accepting payments quickly as there is no bank account required to sign up. Those who prefer using a business or personal bank account can still choose to have their funds deposited into their bank account. And for the millions of U.S. consumers who are “unbanked,” a prepaid Visa card allows them to accept payments for a business without a bank account.
  • This makes GoPayment especially friendly for fledgling entrepreneurs or businesses who want to accept payments but don’t have a business bank account.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Checks not in the mail PAGE 2 - 0 views

www.marketwatch.com/...-paper-checks-into-e-transfers

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Nonetheless, consumers should keep a close eye on bank statements to ensure everything is correct.
  • "Your bank can basically turn back any transaction within 60 days," said Rob Drozdowski, a regulatory specialist with America's Community Bankers, a trade association of community banks. "It's important to review your statements within 60 days and get back to your financial institutions with any issues."
  • Check regulations, which date back to the 1940s, set no time limit for the bank's reimbursement and don't mandate an investigation. If the bank refuses to investigate your claim on a standard check transaction, your only recourse is to sue.
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  • Consumer protections are in place Still, electronic funds transfers are governed by stronger consumer protections than those for regular check transactions. If, say, the wrong amount is billed, the bank must temporarily reimburse the consumer within 10 days while the bank investigates the situation, Hillebrand said.
  • But even absent errors, some find the switch to electronic scanning an unwelcome change. "I write the check so I can track it with the check number," Hicks said, but the check number didn't appear on her bank statement.
  • "If I wanted to pay everything (electronically), I could call on the phone to pay it, or give them a credit card," she said.
  • When making a purchase at a store, it's possible to stop the electronic check scan before it starts to pay by cash or credit card, but in the case of a mailed payment, the opportunity to opt-out varies by merchant.
  • "With paying bills, it's really up to the company to decide whether they offer an opt-out. In practice, our understanding is almost all companies are providing an opt-out as a customer service, but it's really their decision," said Michael Herd, spokesman for NACHA.
  • NACHA has proposed a rule requiring companies to offer opt-out. If and until that passes, the only option for unhappy consumers is to switch merchants. For her part, Hicks is seeking another phone company.
  • And recently, she tried to pay by check at a Wal-Mart store. The cashier wanted to scan the check, but Hicks said she wanted it processed as a regular check.
  • "They said we don't do that anymore. I said I don't shop here anymore."
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

How Visa Plans To Dominate Mobile Payments, Create The Digital Wallet And More | TechCr... - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...te-the-digital-wallet-and-more

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • It’s no secret that credit card companies are shelling out big bucks and aggressively forming partnerships and deals to start cashing in on the mobile and digital payments innovations currently taking place. American Express, which recently debuted its own digital payments product Serve, has been particularly aggressive on the partnerships front, striking recent deals with both Foursquare and Facebook. Mastercard has bet on NFC with a partnership with Google for Google Wallet and bought online payments gateway DataCash for $520 million last fall. And Visa has made a number of major moves in the mobile and digital payments space of late; including making an investment (and taking on an advisory role) in disruptive startup Square, buying virtual goods payments platform PlaySpan for $190 million, and acquiring mobile payments company Fundamo for $110 million. We sat down with Visa’s Global Head of Mobile Product Bill Gajda and the company’s Head of Global Product Strategy, Innovation and eCommerce Jennifer Schulz to discuss how the financial company is planning to compete in both mobile and digital payments.
  • In May, Visa announced its plans for the digital wallet. We’ll explain this initiative later in the post, but part of this platform would allow you to access your loyalty points, credit cards and more from your mobile phone at the point of sale. And the third pillar of Visa’s mobile strategy is incorporating value-added services like real-time alerts, contextual services, and offers at point of shopping based on where you are.
  • Gajda explains that Visa is licensing mobile payments applications PayWave for integration with the ISIS wallet and the company is actively looking for other ways to integrate with NFC into the company’s mobile payments structure.
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  • Of course, some aren’t so bullish on NFC, notably eBay (who owns PayPal) CEO John Donohoe, who in a recent earnings call said merchants refer NFC “not for commerce.” And odd statement considering PayPal just dipped its toes in the NFC pool with support for Android.
  • Gajda tells is, “I think for some people NFC will replace the actual physical credit card but it will be a long time before NFC replaces all payments.” He believes that we are going to start seeing more traction by end of this year but says the capability of “taking credit cards and putting them on mobile phones will represent the long tail” in payments. But he adds, “the pieces are in place for NFC to take off.”
  • The second part of the Visa’s mobile strategy involves the digital wallet and the mobile web. Gajda says that as e-commerce ramps up on mobile phones, there is a need for one-click, simple username and password checkout experience in a transaction being made on a mobile device. That’s an area where PayPal has been working hard to dominate in but Visa sees room for other players. Should we expect a PayPal-like, one-click mobile payments technology coming from Visa soon? Perhaps, the company hasn’t been afraid to enter PayPal’s territory in the past, launching a peer to peer payments service earlier this year.
  • Gajda tells us that the biggest challenge of mobile payments in the current market the massive amount of fragmentation in the mobile industry. He explains that with all of the various mobile operating systems, specific manufactured phones, applications and more, keeping up with pace of innovation on the development side is a major challenge for Visa.
  • Visa actually tested a partnership with retailer The Gap earlier this year which alerted customers via SMS of discounts in stores near them. Gajda tells us Visa is working with a number of other retailers and banks on similar deals which will be announced soon.
  • Gajda says there are a number of other factors at play in the mobile payments place that need to be highlighted when talking about mobile payments. International is a huge growth area in mobile payments. He tells is that outside the U.S., there are a large number of people who have mobile phones but don’t have banking relationship or credit card. In fact, he says there are 2 billion people in world that have phone, but don’t have a bank account or credit card.
  • In these markets, Visa’s goal is to bring prepaid accounts, purchasing power and other financial services to basic phones. These could include topping up a mobile phone with airtime, buying transit tickets, peer to peer payments. And this goal was the mean reason behind the purchase of behind the $110 million purchase of Fundamo. The company’s platform delivers mobile financial services to unbanked and under-banked consumers around the world, including person-to-person payments, airtime top-up, bill payment and branchless banking services.
  • MOBILE Gajda explains that there are three prongs to Visa’s mobile payments strategy. One of these is NFC, and focuses on payments using a mobile phone at a physical store. For background, NFC (near field communications) enables people to make transactions, exchange digital content and connect electronic devices with a simple touch. As we’ve seen with Google Wallet, Android phones such as the Nexus S are being built with NFC chips, making your cell phone a mobile wallet. Visa recently joined the ISIS network, a NFC mobile payment network that is a joint venture formed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. ISIS will soon launch in a number of markets, including Utah and Texas.
  • Connecting with the small business world that don’t yet use credit cards or are new to the system is another area where Visa feels there is strong potential, especially with mobile payments. That’s why the company invested in disruptive mobile payments company Square and took an advisory role in the company. Gajda says that the power of Square is that it is enabling small businesses and independent workers such as doctors, designer and other merchants to start using credit cards and grow their businesses. It would make sense for Square and Visa would somehow work to harness the power of their partnership (As of April roughly two-thirds of transactions using Square’s payments service were through Visa credit cards.), but it’s unclear what the two companies will reveal any new co-produced products soon.
  • Schulz explains that the idea behind the wallet is that consumers want control over their wallet and want to have payment information and access available to them at all times. She believes that the digital wallet will click to buy incorporated on retailers’ sites is essential to the future of e-commerce in both the U.S. and emerging markets.
  • DIGITAL Visa’s digital payments guru Schulz outlined her strategy for digital payments at the company, which centralizes around the creation of the digital wallet. Schulz says that because of the fact that e-commerce is being more easy and convenient with customers, especially with m-commerce, the underlying payments infrastructure has to evolve.
  • And Visa’s answer to this is a new digital wallet initiative. Here’s how it works. Users will have an account, and they can add their credit card numbers (and cards from other credit card companies such as American Express and Mastercard). Visa is partnering with a number of financial institutions to offer this product to their customers.
  • Users can also load their loyalty points and rewards cards, as well as organize their shopping lists. Schulz describes it as a “wallet in the cloud.” But she says the key to the success of the wallet is a seamless, one-click payments experience for the consumers. So Visa has partnered with a number of large-scale retailers (which will be announced soon) to integrate what Schulz refers to as a ‘new acceptance mark’ on a merchant payments page.
  • So there will be a button you can click on, which will prompt you to sign-on and then will sync your digital wallet with the purchase in your shopping cart. So for example, imagine you had a camera in your cart, and Visa offered a 20 percent off at camera’s purchased at BestBuy, the wallet would sync and show the discount in your cart. The same works for loyalty points and more.
  • Visa competitor American Express is also working hard to innovate both at the large retailer level, as well as among smaller retailers, with GoSocial.
  • She compares the digital wallet offering to “two-hand clapping.” ” You can have a digital wallet,” Schulz explains, “but you need a merchant solution of click to buy, and Visa’s going to transform that experience.” And Schulz highlights another recent acquisition, Playspan, has helping drive a simplified commerce experience, a.k.a. click to buy, within game or within app.
  • Of course adding another checkout experience to online retailers’ sites can be a complicated and time-consuming process. But that’s where Visa’s $2 billion acquisition of CyberSource comes in. CyberSource is said to process about 25 percent of all e-commerce dollars transacted in the United States, and operates e-commerce for hundreds of thousands of retailers. Schulz says this relationship has helped speed up the pace of implementation.
  • Creating the digital wallet, both on the mobile and web platforms, is no easy task. Visa has a name for itself in the credit card industry but the fact is that the brand still has to attach innovation to itself in order for people to take these products seriously. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why Google’s Mobile Wallet news created waves, even though NFC technology is in its early stages.
  • But he says that there is still so much room for innovation around how we pay with mobile phones. “With the rise of smartphone usage, we are already seeing a lot of innovation around commerce,” he explains. “It’s inevitable that this will extend to the payments around the sales in mobile commerce.”
  • While Visa, American Express and others are looking to capitalize on the changes taking place in the payments industry, it is a challenging effort. Local commerce is a big part of this, and everyone is trying to find a way to close the redemption loop. But e-commerce, amongst larger retailers, is also a multi-billion dollar market that Visa hopes to continue to play in with products like a digital wallet. And in-store payments, whether that be through NFC, Square or others, represent another market.
  • I’ve been talking to a number of executives of payments companies and founders of innovative payments startups, and while their objectives are different, they all seem to agree on one thing. It’s early and there is still much more innovation were going to see in the next few years in the online and mobile payments space.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Finextra: PayPal aims to become your digital ID; unveils new bank, vendor, currency par... - 0 views

www.finextra.com/...fullstory.aspx

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • PayPal has taken the wraps off its single sign-on digital identity service for online shopping, PayPal Access. The move comes as the San Jose-based payments operator unveils a series of new partnerships with a host of banking technology suppliers at the BAI Retail delivery show in Chicago.
  • PayPal Access is designed to simplify the checkout process by enabling the company's 100 million account holders to sign in at participating retailers' sites with just their PayPal user name and password.
  • The initiative is a key element of X.Commerce, a new division of PayPal parent company eBay, that aims to provide a common set of APIs for building consumer-facing online merchant services.
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  • Commenting on PayPal Access, Damon Hougland, general manager of identity & informatics, X.commerce, says: "Results from early adopters show that consumers are more willing to engage with merchants because they can use their PayPal account to check out instead of having to deal with the hassle of entering name, address and payment information. This has huge implications for mobile commerce and merchant sales among new and existing customers."
  • Separately, PayPal is introducing a series of new relationships with banking technology suppliers as it bids to make it easier for banks to incorporate its services into their offerings. This morning it announced a partnership with NCR and S1 that enables people to make real-time person-to-person payments from cash machines.
  • Other vendors lined up for the PayPal treatment include mobile outfit mFoundry, account opening specialist MeridienLink, community banking vendor BanVue, and airmiles operator ezRezSoftware. The latter partnership envisages the creation of an application that would enable consumers to convert their airmiles points into cash for spending on the Web.
  • Dan Schatt, general manager of financial innovations at PayPal, explains: "With this partnership, airline and other reward programme members will have access to the entire 'catalogue' of merchandise the Internet offers by using their rewards anywhere PayPal is accepted."
  • Set for take-off in 2012, United Airlines' frequent flyer programme, will be the first rewards scheme to allow PayPal account holders to use miles as a currency.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

BankSimple invites first customers and changes name to 'Simple' - The Next Web [08Nov11] - 0 views

thenextweb.com/...ers-and-changes-name-to-simple

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  • BankSimple has announced a few things, including a name change. The company is now called “Simple” and has started rolling out its first invites to the service.
  • Using Simple, you can make purchases with a Simple Visa® card, pay bills, earn interest, set up and track savings goals, and much more. Simple replaces your bank, but we are not a bank. You use our mobile and web apps and speak with our customer relations team when you have questions. We partner with chartered banks that hold your deposits in FDIC-insured products. They take care of money, we take care of customers, and together we’re delivering a new type of financial experience that’s easier, faster, and friendlier.
  • With a focus on customer service, Simple aims to make the banking experience a better one for consumers, focusing on both web and mobile experiences. To date, online banking hasn’t been the best experience, with companies like Mint helping you manage your money more effectively.
Dan R.D.

Coming Soon to a Bank Near You: Cloud Computing [02Nov11] - 0 views

www.readwriteweb.com/...k_near_you_cloud_computing.php

cloud banking 1UE_NS

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  • The financial services industry is warming up to the idea of using the cloud for some of its critical computing needs. More than half of bank transactions will be supported by cloud-based infrastructure and software by 2015, according to a recent report from Gartner.
  • That is the expectation of about 39% of financial services CIOs worldwide, according to the survey. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 44% of CIOs for banking firms expect that more than half of their institutions' transactions will take place via infrastructure that lives in the cloud, and 33% expect most of them will be processed using some type of SaaS application.
  • For banks, the cloud can offer far greater computing power and scalability. Migrating critical operations there won't be without its risks, however. Security and stability are always a concern when moving to the cloud, and that's especially true when highly sensitive data like financial transactions are involved. It simply requires that systems are architected in a secure and fail-proof way.
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  • As Gartner Managing Vice President Peter Redshaw summed it up, "Successful new cloud services can displace the existing and dominant process for design, distribution or transacting in a disruptive way, rather than just incrementally improving them."
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Great mobile payments and branchless banking Videos - a limited collection - 0 views

mbanking.blogspot.com/...e-payments-and-branchless.html

3BT_NFC mobile payments videos

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 28 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • It is often said that a picture paints a thousand words - well if that is the case, I suppose a good video can write a book. In the early days of mobile banking some crude mobile banking video's were made - a clear indication that the product specialists could not describe what they wanted to build to the video producers. But since a few years ago, some brilliant little video-clips were produced - either to advertise a new service or to inform or educate stakeholders. Below are some of the best clips that I know of:
  • The first mPesa advert (according to rumour produced on a very small budget). (Watch here) One of my favourite adverts, ever, is the one used for the launch of the product (Watch here). Telenor has subsequently produced a few more masterpieces (Watch here and here). The documentary produced in collaboration with the Worldbank for Wizzit in 2007 was also one of the great videos (Watch here) A delightful little ad (that I really enjoy) was produced for MTN in West Africa in 2010 (Watch here) Great Airtel Money ad (Watch here) Using local comedians in a series of adverts for mKesh in Mozambique was very successful (Watch here and here) A simple, but very cute advert for BSP bank in PNG, was produced recently (Watch here) The energy and pace of the Gemalto advert for their NFC product is a lot of fun (Watch here) And many others (Watch here, here, here and here)
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

NFCNews | Turkcell brings road toll payments to T11 smart phone - 0 views

www.nfcnews.com/...ll-payments-to-t11-smart-phone

3BT_NFC mobile payments

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  • Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile operator, has announced the launch of a SIM-based NFC road toll payment application on the Turkcell T11 smart phone.
  • Developed in collaboration with Bank Asya, the app allows users to migrate their plastic KGS toll payment cards onto their T11 smart phone to pay for fares when crossing bridges and freeway turnpikes.
  • ment cards onto their T11 smart phone to pay for fares when crossing bridges and freeway turnpikes.
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  • Turkcell subscribers with a T11 can request a Bank Asya KGS application and upload cash through the Cep-T Cüzdan mobile wallet application on their mobile phones, rather than having to visit a bank or payment point at the turnpikes, according to Turkcell.
  • Turkcell’s Cep-T Cüzdan NFC-enabled mobile wallet is now being offered by three of Turkey’s leading banks: Yapı Kredi, Garanti and Akbank, and is available on Turkcell’s T20 and T11 smart phones, along with the BlackBerry Bold 9900. 
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Apple quietly begins iPhone as wallet in-store trials - Computerworld Blogs [08Nov11] - 0 views

blogs.computerworld.com/...hone_as_wallet_in_store_trials

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  • The mobile wallet is becoming a reality. Apple [AAPL] has already begun plotting to turn your iPhone into an iWallet which uses iTunes as your virtual bank.
  • The company this week begins rolling out its EasyPay payment system in US retail stores. Available inside Apple's own Apple Store for iOS app, EasyPay lets users purchase accessories at Apple retail stores just by scanning in the barcode and completing the transaction on their iOS device.
  • Payment is taken using your Apple ID. Users need to enter their ID and then payment is taken using the credit card associated with their iTunes account.
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  • This is a much bigger deal than it may seem, as World Payments Report 2011 informs: -- 15% of all card transactions will be mobile by 2013.-- 20 billion credit card transactions take place each year.
  • PayPal should be shaking in its boots. And as for Google Wallet? One day, you'll be paying for your public transit fees using iTunes and your iPhone.
  • There's three ways Apple may choose to create a payment infrastructure. It is possible there are more, but we'll settle on three for now:
  • -- NFC support in the iPhone 5Advantages: NFC is fully supported by the credit companies.Disadvantages: NFC isn't yet ready for prime time, but is expected to reach a much wider market by 2013.
  • -- Bluetooth-based payments: Advantages: It is possible now to use Bluetooth to make secure payment exchanges.Disadvantages: There's no agreed financial Bluetooth-based transfer standard, meaning there's no back-up or insurance in case of fraud.
  • -- Over-the-airAdvantages: Does it matter if you wave your device across a terminal? Why not pay from where you are? You could buy goods and services in this way.Disadvantages: I would argue that Apple's devices would still require RFID tags in order that payment status be easily verified. If RFID is required, then NFC makes sense.
  • What makes Apple's iTunes approach effective is that by using its existing credit service as a bank, it achieves an immediate potential user base of hundreds of millions of people, while also offering an extra layer of protection between banks and customers. If fraud takes place, Apple's insurance should protect a customer, reducing the risk to the banks.
  • Tie these NFC systems up with Apple's other in-development mobile technologies and there's lots of potential scenarios.
  • Some statistics may be of interest:-- 50,000 Dutch nurses now use NFC  to track and manage home healthcare visits.-- The Museum of London already offers interactive NFC services.-- Over 60% of manufacturers plan to put NFC in cars.
Dan R.D.

If you could replace the content of your wallet with apps, would you? [03Oct11] - 0 views

thenextweb.com/...our-wallet-with-apps-would-you

1UE_NS

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  • In an age when everything is going virtual and digital, we could be looking at a future where wallets may be as uncommon as Filofax organizers and paper address books.
  • While loyalty cards should be baked right into Google Wallet, the chances are not every single retailer will be included in the equation. The cross platform app Key Ring is the perfect solution to get rid of all those loyalty cards crowding your wallet (or key chain) and put them all on your phone.
  • Rather than use traditional business cards, there are several virtual options that can replace the need to print out a stack of cards. It’s more environmentally friendly and you won’t have to worry about forgetting your cards. CardCloud, which we’ve written about in the past, is available for both iOS and Android and allows you to email your business card to users who don’t use the app, and record the location where you exchanged business cards – making it the most well-rounded app of its kind.
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  • Expensify is a good option to scan receipts, and additionally allows US users to link credit card and bank information to the app to record their payments as they happen. Available for Android, iOS, Blackberry and Web OS, the app allows you to scan receipts on the fly, by simply taking a photo of the receipt.
  • Although there is nothing currently available, Google Wallet isn’t the only app vying for your attention in the mobile payment space. Isis has AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile backing its mobile payment system so it could prove to be competition for Google in the US. Zoosh, a service created by Narette is also aiming to turn your phone into a replacement for your wallet. Banks are also catching up with the times, with Movenbank, dubbed “the world’s first cardless bank” launching its Alpha site, just this past weekend.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

The Paypers. Insights in payments. [02Dec11] - 0 views

www.thepaypers.com/...746052-16

3BT_NFC mobile payments

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  • The Dutch consortium of major banks and MNOs which in 2010 signed a letter of intent to jointly introduce mobile payments at the checkout in the Netherlands have taken their initiative one step further.
  • The partnership, which includes financial services providers ABN AMRO, Rabobank and ING as well as KPN and Vodafone, will notify the initiative for approval to the European Commission in Brussels.
  • It is expected that the EC will communicate its vision in the first quarter of 2012. After that, the consortium can start the actual execution of the plans. It is expected that Dutch consumers can experience payments with their mobile early 2013.
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  • The consortium was established to develop a user-friendly and secure mobile payment service in the Netherlands. For technical support a central services organization (Trusted Services Manager/TSM) is set to be established by the partners. The creation of a legal entity which will host this TSM is currently in preparation.
  • In 2010 the six original consortium partners signed a letter of intent, followed in mid-2011 by a cooperation agreement. T-Mobile, which was part of the initial group of six, has recently decided not to become a shareholder in the legal entity to be established and therefore not to continue the cooperation. T-Mobile and its parent company Deutsche Telekom strongly believe in the potential of mobile payments, but will decide in a later stage how to bring this service to the market.
  • The other five partners however have fully reconfirmed their commitment to the Sixpack initiative. In view of the competitive aspects of collaboration between the biggest banks and mobile operators, the consortium informed the Dutch Competition Authority (NMa) of the initiative in an early stage. In the coming weeks the Sixpack initiative will be notified to the European Commission (EC) in view of the requirement to test the founding of the TSM for competition law aspects.
Marc-Alexandre Gagnon

Visa Acquires Mobile Financial Services Company Fundamo For $110M In Cash | TechCrunch - 0 views

techcrunch.com/...mpany-fundamo-for-110m-in-cash

3BT_NFC mobile payments

shared by Marc-Alexandre Gagnon on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Visa this morning announced that it has agreed to acquire Fundamo, a specialist mobile financial services provider to network operators and financial institutions in developing economies, for $110 million in cash.
  • In a separate announcement, the giant payments technology company said it has entered into a new, long-term commercial agreement with Monitise, a provider of mobile money solutions for financial institutions in more developed regions.
  • Here’s how the duo of agreements was pitched: The combination of acquiring Fundamo and expanding the relationship with Monitise will enable Visa to deliver best-in-class mobile financial services and payments capabilities to consumers across the full spectrum of uses, geographies and mobile environments from basic services on simple handsets to more advanced services for smart phone owners.
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  • Privately-held, Cape Town, South Africa-based Fundamo says it boasts more than 50 active mobile financial services deployments across more than 40 countries, including 27 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
  • Fundamo’s platform enables the delivery of mobile financial services to unbanked and under-banked consumers around the world, including person-to-person payments, airtime top-up, bill payment and branchless banking services.
  • The combined Visa Fundamo platform will add enhanced functionality and new services to existing mobile financial services subscribers for globally accepted payments solutions.
  • Fundamo’s deployments currently have a base of more than five million registered subscribers and the potential to reach more than 180 million consumers with mobile financial services.
  • Fundamo CEO Hannes van Rensburg and the executive team will continue to manage current and future Fundamo implementations as members of Visa’s mobile product organization.
  • Monitise and Visa, meanwhile, say they will debut a mobile banking solution in the U.S. for clients of Visa DPS, the company’s debit and prepaid processing platform.
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