Archive
PF Magic: Square Is $150m In The Red, But Still Worth Billions
If you’re still not convinced of the power of the PF model, prepare to be so. Square, perhaps the leading payment facilitator, with 2 million active customers, has finally made it’s financials public via its S-1 filing, and its losses are staggering.
How could this company have attracted private valuations in excess of US$6 billion? Simple: by being a great company with a great plan in an emerging market. Despite being on target to accumulate half a billion in losses in a four-year period, it is a robust business, with solid management on the brink of profitability. Its losses do not result from negative business factors, but rather because management is so excited by its opportunities that it is taking a Amazon-esque approach, forgoing short-term profits to invest in its many future opportunities. One should view the magnitude of the losses not as a negative, but rather as indicative of the magnitude of the opportunity.
Read MoreThe Non-Intuitive World Of Authentication And Social Media
A cyberthief walks into a bank branch, fully prepared to impersonate his intended high-net-worth victim. Not only is he equipped with fake IDs in the victim’s name, lots of personal information courtesy of social and search engine research, but the thief has even taken the precaution of breaking into his victim’s social accounts and replacing his thief-like face for the victim’s on the victim’s own social sites. If anyone tries to check on the Facebook or LinkedIn site of the victim, the thief’s face would be confirmed.
The banker in this case sits beneath a tiny video camera, one that is aimed at the seat where customers sit and specifically the facial area of those customers. Controls of the banker-facing screen allow the image to be precisely aimed for customers of varying heights. And while the banker is pitching her safe-deposit boxes and other bank services, software does a quick check on the thief’s face. Sure enough, it matches the social media images—but the software notes that those images were all recently changed. The software’s database maintains a record of the last 10 images of everyone it can find—and that history of images foiled our thief’s efforts.
Read MoreWhy Did Most Merchants Miss The EMV Deadline? Many Reasons, But Complexity Is The Top
With the liability shift and October already here, where are all the EMV-compliant merchants? Many are still waiting for software updates. And why is that, given how many years everyone has known about the October 2015 cutover? Seems that the U.S. payments processing space is a lot more complicated than even the payment itself realized, according to Randy Vanderhoof, who, as executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, is the industry’s chief EMV cheerleader.
Vanderhoof concedes that most U.S. merchants—60-65 percent, he said—are not EMV compliant today and he blames that on several factors, but payments complexity—and good old-fashioned procrastination—are at the top of his list. “The U.S. market is the most complex payments processing market in the world because we have multiple parties involved in managing the retail POS systems and multiple parties engaged in the processing and acquiring of payment transactions,” Vanderhoof said. “In other countries, other markets, the major banks who were then issuers were also the acquirers so they owned the terminals in those merchant locations. They invested in the cards and the terminals and their own banking acquiring network. In the U.S., financial institutions are separated from the merchants and acquirers. This means that there needs to be independent investments and alignments.”
Read MoreApple Pay Penetration Stats: The Less We Know, The Better It Is
Although there is no question today that mobile payments are increasing, to what degree is challenging. This confusion was magnified this month when Bloomberg quoted the Aite Group as saying that ApplePay accounts for one percent of all U.S. retail transactions.
Aite denies ever having said that—the analyst said that he said that it was much lower than one percent—and indeed Aite says that Apple Pay represents a tiny fraction of one percent of current U.S. retail sales. IDC estimates that Apple Pay today accounts for about one-tenth of one percent of all retail in-store transactions in the U.S., while Javelin puts that figure at about half—roughly one-twentieth of one percent. When moving from Apple Pay to Google Pay, the estimated slices get even thinner. Crone Consulting president Richard Crone sees Google Pay representing about one-third of Apple Pay transactions. IDC analyst James Wester put Google Pay’s figures in an even more vague area: “Google Pay is so small to be incalculable. I can’t even estimate what it is because it is so small,” he said.
Read MoreState Money Transmitter Rule Slams PFs, ISOs
Late last month, Pennsylvania issued an advisory that its money transmitter regulations are violated when payments companies–payment facilitators and ISOs–collect money from consumers and forward it to nonprofits and religious organizations. And yes, this advisory is as crazy as it sounds.
Whether or not other states follow the Keystone State’s lead, this decision will have devastating consequences for emerging payment companies, especially those who do not have the resources of traditional old line processors. Many may well be faced with the prospect of either banning Pennsylvania consumers or leaving the nonprofit and religious processing space.
Read MoreFinancial Futility: Why Chip & PIN Sucks For Small Merchants
Given the huge importance of small merchants in the U.S. (especially one-location shops, which account for overwhelmingly more retail locations than any other merchant size segment), it’s impressive how little attention has been paid to how inappropriate chip and PIN is for those merchants.
In the wake of the U.S. EMV liability shift that kicked in on October 1, there’s been no shortage of debate about Chip and PIN vs. Chip and Signature. Once again, our old friend, the Durbin Amendment, is having its say. And for all the high-minded security-oriented thoughts being dished out, along with the many biased special interests trying to influence the debate, the small and micro-merchant have been left out, as usual.
Read MoreSome Interesting Odds And Ends From Money2020 Announcements
At any industry event such as Money2020, companies try and roll out new offerings—even if what they have to say isn’t that new or interesting. But in reviewing the self-perpetuating avalanche of accolades, found a few interesting tidbits with that Monday dateline.
New stats from eMarketer: In 2015, mobile payments will total $8.71 billion in the US, with users spending an average of nearly $376 annually using their mobile phone as a payment method. By 2016, total mobile payment transactions will reach $27.05 billion, with users spending an average of $721.47 annually. Total mobile payment sales will rise faster than average spending per user in 2016 because of the growth in the number of overall users of the technology.
Mozido confirmed a gateway platform that is optimized for trade between the U.S. and China. Less significantly, the company also announced the availability of it HCE product.