Category: Business | Page 5

Is $75 Billion In 2016 Mobile In-Store Payments Realistic?

At least one research firm thinks in-store mobile payments, mobile wallets usage, is set to explode in the U.S., despite accounts of slow uptake by consumers and crawling installation of NFC terminals by retailers.

The Business Insider Intelligence’s 2016 Mobile Payments Report predicts volume of in-store mobile payments will hit $75 billion this year and $503 billion by 2020. The authors say despite the hurdles of consumer habit and spotty availability, wallets’ benefits to both retailers and shoppers, such as security, speedier checkout process and app integration will boost usage quickly and heavily.

Visa Puts Signature On Skirmish With Retailers

Visa filed a suit against Walmart June 30, the latest volley in a legal shootout with large retailers over EMV, chip-and-PIN and signature policies. “To me, it’s a clear escalation in the battle, said Rick Oglesby, president of AZ Payments Group and a partner at Double Diamond Group. “It’s never a good thing to be wrapped up in a public dispute with one of your largest and most influential customers, and the networks versus Walmart has been ongoing for many years.”

The suit claims Walmart surreptitiously tested a process in which shoppers were not given the choice to verify their Visa debit card purchases with a signature. It’s the most recent salvo in a battle among Visa and large retailers over the use of either signatures or PINs to verify transactions.

Gaming Payments Gets Serious: Tencent Drops $8.6 Billion On Game Firm

Of all of the various payments hotspots that payment facilitators need to focus on, gaming—and all of its in-app potential—may be the one of the most lucrative. Witness Tencent Holdings Ltd., which this week confirmed plans to drop $8.6 billion to buy an 84 percent slice of the Finnish maker of the Clash Of Clans mobile game.

Games generate one payment for the initial purchase—which, for a popular game, is tantalizing enough on its own—and then a potentially unlimited number of follow-on purchases as players purchase new weapons or characters or cheats or various upgrades. Game companies are generally great at creating the games, but they need help facilitating effortless payments within those games. Enter PFs.

Apple Pay Announcement Looks Like A Zero But Could Be A Hero

As exciting as Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference can be, the news from Monday’s keynote seemed on its face sort of ho-hum for payment facilitators. The new abilities within the upcoming release of the iOS 10 mobile and macOS desktop software updates are for now merely more options that PFs have to consider along with their merchant clients. The long term view of these Apple payment moves is scintillating however, given the higher incomes of iOS and MacOS users and the huge gap between what they spend on apps compared to Android users.

The features will allow merchants to add Apple Pay to their Safari browser shopping portal’s payment suite, and for merchants to develop apps for iMessage users to use for P2P transactions. In the short term, there are challenges. Shoppers with desktops must have not only a Mac, for communicating with the iPhone or Apple Watch that authenticates the payment, but the Safari browser that Apple owns.

CFBP Wants Payments Firms To Police Consumers

In a telling lawsuit, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Monday (June 6) sued processor Intercept Corp. and two of its executives for”enabling unauthorized and other illegal withdrawals from consumer accounts by their clients” and ne having “turned a blind eye to blatant warning signs of potential fraud or lawbreaking by its clients.”

This move is interesting in that it places processors—and, presumably, others in the payments arena—in the role of quasi-law-enforcement. Is a mobile carrier to blame if customers use their phones to make obscene phonecalls, sell drugs or arrange murders? Is a hardware store to blame if someone buys a hammer and uses it to attack someone?

Feds Peer Into Payments Regulatory Crystal Ball—And Get Headaches

For whatever consolation it offers, the feds overseeing payments-related regulatory issues are as apprehensive as payment facilitators. As the payments world is undergoing massive change in new and different ways of handling payments—an area where PFs lead—Justice and Treasury top brass are struggling to figure out the right ways to execute oversight.

Indeed, there’s even talk of adopting a European-like saferoom approach, where startups have a limited window to explore and innovate without worrying about regulators cracking down. It’s a saferoom in the sense that no idea is too risky to not be explored, even for a limited period of time. In other words, regulators are toying with the idea of whether it’s sometimes best to not regulate at all.

With A New Mission, Walmart Pay Goes Live In Arkansas, Texas

Now that Walmart no longer has to pretend to be support CurrentC—thanks to its effective demise, courtesy of MCX’s concession to reality—the largest retail chain announced Monday (May 16) that it had rolled out Walmart Pay across 110 Walmart stores in Arkansas and 480 Walmart stores in Texas. Walmart Pay the concept was announced by the merchant back in December. Walmart Pay has been rolled out in a way very different than Walmart wanted to do a mobile payment, but it’s a model that has been obviously shaped by Apple Pay.

Like Apple Pay, it supports “any major credit, debit, pre-paid or Walmart gift card.” But unlike Apple Pay, it works across iOS and Android devices. And unlike Apple Pay and every other NFC payment method, it can work on a far wider range of phones—especially older phones—that do not support NFC. All the phone needs is the ability to download an app and enough of a camera to scan a QR code. But Walmart Pay suffers a major weakness that Apple Pay doesn’t. As long as the shopper is willing to use the default card in Apple Pay, all that the shopper need do is hold the phone right above the card reader. It doesn’t need to be connected to any network, nor does the shopper have to launch an app, key in a password or manipulate the app in any way. Contrast that with Walmart Pay, which requires the shopper to find and then open the Walmart app, select Walmart Pay and then manually activate the camera and then scan a register QR code—which as many shoppers will confirm, isn’t always that easy to do on the first or second attempt.

Why The ChasePay/Starbucks Deal Makes A Difference

When Chase revealed on Tuesday (Feb. 23) that it had cut a deal with Starbucks to incorporate ChasePay into the SBUX mobile app this year, it signaled that ChasePay needs to be taken seriously. More precisely, it means that the mocha-merchant mobile-powerbroker takes ChasePay seriously, which is perhaps the best endorsement it could get.

ChasePay’s previous big deal was with MCX, which, to be fair, isn’t exactly the endorsement you want in mobile payments to be taken seriously. But for those care about mobile money—and who in this space doesn’t?—nobody disses Starbucks.

Visa Offering More Goodies For PF Merchant Magicians

When Visa on Tuesday (Feb. 9) officially rolled out its Visa Consumer Transaction Controls program, it provided puzzle pieces that payment facilitators are much better positioned to use than others in the payments arena.

What the program does is it allows account holders “to set simple, convenient, and effective spending controls, receive transaction alerts, or even temporarily suspend their accounts using a simple on/off feature,” Visa said. “Spending controls can be applied to different transaction types, date ranges, or overall card spending to offer consumers visibility and control over their money. Alerts can be sent by text, mobile app, or email in when transactions take place.” The magic is that these are capabilities that Visa will support, but others will have to put the programming effort into integrating these apps, mobile devices and anything else. The apps that PF merchants will be using can leverage these or not. Few merchants will see much reason to put in the development talent to make them happen as they don’t directly boost sales. That’s where PF magic comes in.

Apple Envisions P2P In Every Possible Way

With Apple’s P2P rollout and partnerships getting closer, it’s not surprising that Apple was granted a Patent for the approach last month. But what was not expected was how inclusive and extensive Cupertino envisions P2P being, with the capability integrated into almost every iPhone function.

“It’s clear that Apple is planning to provide an OS-wide payments integration that provides merchants with marketing benefits such as the ability to promote certain deals directly into the OS, such as geo-location based promotions into Maps, or via e-mails or instant messages, all with the ability to compete purchase/pre-order with one click based on Apple Pay enrollment and identity information stored on the device,” said Rick Oglesby, a senior analyst with payments consulting firm Double Diamond Group, Oglesby argues that this is the logical next move for Apple, as Apple Pay moves into its second-year year with growing market maturity and acceptance.