Payments

There was an interesting statement from one of the banks at this week’s conference: “we wish we could just take a real-time NFC payment direct from the mobile contactless terminal in the merchant and straight through to the bank’s deposit account.” This got me thinking: “why not?” Why can’t a bank take a payment direct…

So yesterday I was thinking that it’s not worth talking about Google’s announcement of a mobile wallet as it’s been covered everywhere. But to not mention it on the blog would be a serious loss of duty so, in answer to my question, it's BIG news.   In fact, it's VERY BIG. Google has announced a…

Just got home from travels and found a leaflet on my doormat. Usually such leaflets get thrown in the bin, but the strapline “start a whole new movement” in orange intrigued me. I wonder what this is about I thought, as I’ve never had junkmail from what I assumed was Orange, the mobile phone operator….

I recently stumbled across a link to a report on Mobile Money in Afghanistan. It's a fantastic and in-depth report on the ground, interviewing Afghanistanis on their views about moving money and its challenges. Here's a brief summary of the introduction to the report: Over half the world's population lives without reliable banking institutions. They…

OK, so I said that banks would absolutely not be disintermediated last week, and it sparked some interesting debate and dialogue. A few folks were incredulous that I could say this; others thought it made eminent sense; some noted that the movement of money could be disintermediated, but the holding of money could not; whilst…

I got an interesting link last week to a new website called Serve.com. It’s the website spawned from the takeover of Revolution Money by American Express for $300 million last year, and goes live today with a marketing blitz across the USA. The service is basically Revolution Money’s MoneyExchange, Version 2.0. If you’re not familiar,…

Mobile featured heavily throughout the International Payments Summit and it is clear that mobile is not only important; it is imperative. This was made loud and clear by a comment from Daniel Marovitz of Deutsche Bank that it used to be that online and offline worlds were separate because, to make an online payment, you…

Ever since I got my iPhone, I’ve been hopelessly devoted to Angry Birds, along with about 75 million other people. 75 million! That’s 75 million playing a game on their smartphone. That’s more than the whole population of Britain all playing Angry Birds. Wow! How did that happen and what’s it got to do with…

Peter Ayliffe, President and Chief Executive of Visa Europe, presented to the Financial Services Club this week his vision of next generation payments, and how far we could become cashless.   The war on cash is the drumbeat of all card firms, and it was notable that Peter made it clear that he did not…