For all the push to contactless cards, this release from Visa, noted by Aneace,  confirms the viability of small payments with no signature is not dependent on contactless. Last week, Visa reported that its volume on purchases less than $25 in small ticket segments totaled $27.3 billion in the first six months of the year, an increase of 17 percent over the same period in 2005. Those transactions were performed almost entirely using traditional magnetic stripe cards, not contactless cards. Source: Aneace’s Blog: Visa’s No Signature Required program is working … how will contactless compete? This service is apparently particularly relevant … Continue reading Aneace’s Blog: Visa’s No Signature Required program is working … how will contactless compete?

Good background on the mechanics of Interchange.  “The document examines the differential market impact of interchange fees in Australia, the UK and US. The results suggest that a theory applicable in one country may not be applicable in another and that similar interchange fee arrangements and regulations may well have different implications in different countries.” Source: “Finextra: research – Interchange: where theory and practice collide – Mozilla Firefox” tags: interchange Continue reading "Finextra: research – Interchange: where theory and practice collide"

Courtesy of Payments news, a new study on the international remittance market, with some surprising findings. Visa International, Latin America and Caribbean Region, has conducted a study that “revealed the banking potential of remittance recipients, as well as their interest in establishing more productive relationships with financial institutions. The remittance market reached US$52 billion in 2005, marking a 15 percent increase over the previous year.” The surprise is in the propensity of this group to want bank relationships; something that flies in the face of the traditional view, that as a group, their is a natural distrust of banks. 56 … Continue reading The Banking Potential of Remittance Recipients

Courtesy of Aneace, here is a paper on the evolution of the payment systems. Aneace’s Blog: The Merchant-Bank Struggle for Control of Payment Systems …… article written by attorney Adam Levitin, titled The Merchant-Bank Struggle for Control of Payment Systems, published in the September issue of the Journal of Financial Transformation.The article reviews the factors behind the struggle between merchants and banks, and explores the potential impact of new payments technologies and structural changes such as MasterCard’s IPO. The conclusion in the paper, is that two broad forces are at play that are changing the payment landscape. critical mass of … Continue reading The Merchant-Bank Struggle for Control of Payment Systems

The Wells philosophy is the epitome of customer centricity. Business 2.0: Bank different – Jun. 12, 2006 Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich tells Business 2.0 Magazine that there’s no such thing as bad customers – just companies that don’t work hard enough to turn them into good ones.…he argues, if a customer is truly unprofitable, that’s the company’s problem, not the customer’s. Their approach follows Aneace’s philosophy of treating each interaction, as an opportunity. Every transaction is an opportunity to engage a customer – both to satisfy a transactional need and also to sell him something. And the transaction  actually … Continue reading There’s no such thing as bad customers

JPMorgan Chase AG outline a payment vision. Finextra: comment – Payments 2016 Speaking at the first annual EBAday payments conference in Frankfurt in June, Mark Garvin chief administrative officer JPMorgan Chase AG, outlined a vision of the payments industry in 2016, a time when paper cheques are non-existent, payment by mobile phone is commonplace and biometrics have wiped out fraud.In his keynote address to European bankers from across Europe, Garvin called for a renewed banking industry effort to meet the challenges laid down by the move to a Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa). He urged Europe’s top banks to take … Continue reading Payments 2016

Booz Allen Hamilton predict that the payment online market will coalesce around two or three players. E-Payments To Become Mega-Market Paypal has gained more than a hundred million customers in only a few years since its launch in 1999 and handles more than US$17bn annually. Booz Allen predicts that Google Checkout will take even less time to establish itself as a major player. However, with enormous growth expected in this market there is likely to be room for a further one or two players. So that would be Google, Paypal, and perhaps one other.  More importantly is the threat to … Continue reading The e-payment Market Will Consolidate with 3-4 Players Controlling the Market

Dexit called together their staff this week, in one of those meetings reminiscent of the dot com days.  Nearly half the staff were laid off.  It seems they are serious about selling or amalgamation.  Significant reductions in their terminal acquiring base.  It seems all this years revenue was from one customer – Bell Canada. T.DXT – News Releases July 20, 2006 Dexit Announces Plan to Optimize Operations and Review Strategic Options Toronto – July 20, 2006 – Dexit Inc. (TSX: DXT) announced today that it has  formed a Special Committee of the Board, in response to overtures from several potential … Continue reading Dexit is finished

Aneace is dead on with his argument that the payment experience needs to be enhanced with customer focussed benefits tied to the transaction, to make the purchase experience more compelling.  Aneace’s Blog: Cool payment technology that makes contactless much more attractive for merchants I have no idea why a merchant would want to accept basic, “old way to pay” contactless cards that are not of much benefit, unless someone pays him to upgrade his POS terminals (which is what has been happening for the most part) and if interchange fees are dramatically cut. Giving merchants a simple way to target … Continue reading Cool payment technology that makes contactless much more attractive for merchants