Payments

Tokyo taxis to accept e-money

Colin Henderson

Japan leads the way as Sony Felica, first reported in this 2003 story, becomes operational. Digital World Tokyo – Gadgets, Gear and Good Things from Japan… The deals, which involve BitWallet’s Edy system and East Japan Railway’s (JR East) Suica system, are the latest in a string of agreements from major retailers to accept e-money in lieu of conventional cash for purchases and services. They come as technology for the systems, which are both based on Sony’s Felica touch-and-go proximity smart card platform, is on the verge of becoming a standard feature in cellphones. Continue reading Tokyo taxis to accept e-money

US

Bank of America product sales via the bank’s Web site totalled 3.8 million in 2005

Colin Henderson

BofA clock up some big numbers.  As fractured as the US market is, BofA accounts for a large proportion of it now.  They also have nearly 2/3 of the online bill pay market too. Finextra: Bank of America clocks up 15 million e-banking customers Bank of America says it now has around 15 million Web banking customers, which amounts to more than a third of the entire online banking market in the US. But what I found most interesting is their success at online sales, and account opening.  This provides them leverage to further outpace the competition. Sales of products … Continue reading Bank of America product sales via the bank’s Web site totalled 3.8 million in 2005

Payments, Security

Fraud survey designed to promote “security guarantee”

Colin Henderson

TD Canada Trust in Canada, announce a lightweight and contradictory survey.  In my view this survey is designed to try and highlight fraud concerns, in order to assert their recently introduced ‘security guarantee”.  These security guarantees are all the rage at the moment, and in effect merely confirm that Banks will do what they are legally and morally required to do in any event. Finextra: Fraud fears scaring off Canadian Web banking customers However the survey also found that less than 30% of Web banking users, and under 20% of non-users, were aware of the terms ‘phishing’ and ‘Web site … Continue reading Fraud survey designed to promote “security guarantee”

Payments2 Comments

Paypal introduce UK credit card

Colin Henderson

Paypal as predicted, comes out with a credit card in the UK. The card is not however attached to their Paypal account.

Finextra: PayPal launches UK credit card

PayPal, the online payments business of electronic auction house eBay, is teaming with finance firm GE Money to launch a credit card in the UK.

The new card does however have features that are aligned to internet users.

PayPal says it will offer instant decisions on online applications,
as well ID theft insurance and guarantees against Internet fraud.PayPal has more than 10 million accounts in the UK.

Continue reading “Paypal introduce UK credit card”

Innovation

Chevy shares statistics about the Tahoe campaign

Colin Henderson

Courtesy of the “church“, Chevrolet announce remarkably positive results from the Tahoe campaign.  Earlier predictions of doom and despair for this ‘campaign‘ prove to be incorrect.  In fact the positive  outcomes, with 400K visitors may prove the value in pinko marketing (wiki) that the wisdom of crowds will outfox the otherwise inadvertant tactics of companies.  Those 400K probably comprise a core group of Tahoe interested people. Church of the Customer Blog: Chevy shares statistics about the Tahoe campaign # About 84% have been straight product-pieces favorable to the Tahoe # Of the remaining 16% of submissions, the majority are either … Continue reading Chevy shares statistics about the Tahoe campaign

Innovation3 Comments

Yodlee online account opening reduces Banks reliance on switching costs for retention

Colin Henderson

This new service from Yodlee takes their aggregation based product suite to a new and sophisticated level that aggressive banks will leap on, particularly Yodlee banks.

Yodlee Launches New Online AccountOpening Product: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance

Yodlee AccountOpening enables financial institutions to use their website, self-service branch kiosk and other channels to open new accounts and fund them immediately through an automated process that links credit databases, normalizes data and creates a dashboard in real-time so institutions can immediately assess risk for any consumer opening an account.

Relevance to Bankwatch:
One of the characteristics of internet that Banks have expected has been the promise of ease of switching between Banks'. This new service from Yodlee is ground breaking in fulfilling that promise. This greatly reduces Banks' reliance on switching costs for retention. Banks ability to compete is increasingly on providing a better offer, or customers will leave.

Full release for background:

Continue reading “Yodlee online account opening reduces Banks reliance on switching costs for retention”

US

comscore Study Reveals growth Trends in Online Bill Payment

Colin Henderson

This far into the internet cycle, these are rapid growth statistics reported by comscore. (Courtesy of PaymentsNews). This despite a slower growth in the last quarter of the year.

comScore Study

comScore found that the number of online banking customers grew to nearly 40 million during Q4 2005, a 27-percent increase over the previous year.  Usage of online bill payment services has grown 36 percent during the same period.

Bill payment in particular shows rapid growth. Stats I have seen elsewhere, suggest Bank of America account for nearly 2/3 of the US Bill Payment market, so this growth will have a lot of BofA in there.

Bank bill payment, which consists of a payment through a retail bank at which a bank account is held, continues to grow at a rapid pace, and currently accounts for nearly one-quarter of all online bill payments. Bank of America led the industry in bank bill payment with 5.1 million active bill pay customers, attracting more than half of total bank bill pay customers in Q4 2005. Further, 34 percent of all online banking customers at Bank of America opt to use the institution's bill payment service, second only to Citibank (37%).

Continue reading “comscore Study Reveals growth Trends in Online Bill Payment”

Payments

Visa Waives Signature Requirement on Purchases Under $25

Colin Henderson

In reponse to similar moves from American Express and MasterCard, Visa eliminates signature for credit, and interestingly, debit transactions under $25 for certain (17) merchant categories. Visa Waives Signatures on Small Purchases: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance NEW YORK (AP) — Visa USA on Monday said it will waive the signature requirements for purchases under $25 in a bid to speed up customer time spent at on the checkout line and increase use of its credit and debit cards. Customers previously were allowed to pay without a signature at only certain retailers, such as Starbucks. The San Francisco-based credit card … Continue reading Visa Waives Signature Requirement on Purchases Under $25