American Express: Innovation Leader

Happy New Year! Football is on my plate today so this blog will be short.

American Express is cranking out innovation at a tremendous pace. I’m very impressed at what Ken and Dan have done here in last 3 years. For example I just received a note in the mail yesterday that all of my Amex transaction receipts will be in my Apple passbook (don’t know why they used the USPS to tell me). Here are a few other innovations

Retailers don’t like the costs of Amex… but they love Amex customers. Amex has a very heavy bias toward business and T&E spend. Although Amex has only 12% of global card payment volume, each Amex customer spends more than 4x the amount of a typical V/MA holder. In full disclosure I own Amex stock, and I’m an Amex points junkie.

Amex is working to expand its consumer base (into mass) through Bluebird and Serve, but I won’t go into that here.. What I’m most impressed with is that they are the first card network that is beginning to deliver value to advertisers and retailers…. Yes, through its massive trove of consumer insight, Amex is beginning to show signs that it can deliver value to retailers.

Following on from my Nov Blog: Retail CRM Enabled by Payments, Amex’s recent loyalty partners acquisition is showing signs of success in coupling merchant transaction data with its DataInsights business. Through this, merchants have new mechanisms to identify customers, incent loyalty and market specific products.

In my view, Amex is at least 5 years ahead of any other issuer/network. Of course they have the benefit of operating as a 3 party network and regulated bank. This allows them to own: the consumer, the merchant and the rules of the network. As such they have many “innovation” advantages over the V/MA networks and issuers; Amex’s network is much more pliable, where the 4 party networks are very hard to change.

This same dynamic is why Discover is the “dance partner” of choice for anyone working to do something unique at the POS. It is also why I see a 3 party network as the winner of MCX (?a NEW 3 party network?).  As I stated previously, innovations at the POS will be less about payments and more about data and re-orchestrating commerce to create new experiences. There are 3-4 entities that each have unique data, none of which have shown interest in pulling it together: retailers, bank, advertiser, telecom.

Amex is the first to start breaking down this data “log jam” with willing participation from retailers. Although their consumer segment is very narrow, margins are tremendous in this top tier.. which means Amex could be in a position to further accelerate its affluent value proposition without mainline retailer participation (ex focus on T&E).

Random thoughts for Investors

  • Data business revenue, enough to move the needle?
  • Affluent card – Net new customers
  • New 3 party network for MCX. Will it kill 40-60% of Visa’s debit revenue (in 10 yrs)
  • Why did Amex buy Serve again? It seems it can justify higher margins through data…
  • Bluebird growth. Can Amex manage value proposition for affluent and a lower mass segment?

Sorry for typos and short blog

V.me: Issuers please give me your customers

16 Nov

Visa is an independent for profit company… they are on a tear with adjusted earnings up over 19% and the stock up over 40% for the year. Who are Visa’s customers? They are a network, created by banks.. but they only set rules.. historically they don’t have direct relationships with merchants or consumers; the issuing bank owns the consumer, and the acquiring bank owns the merchant. Their primary customer is therefore banks (issuing and acquiring).

With the CYBS purchase, Visa gained direct merchant relationships. CYBS at one time handled over 25% of eCommerce transactions. The “big 3” in online merchant services are now eBay (Paypal+GSI), Visa (CYBS) and Amazon. Visa is looking for ways to expand its network, services and revenue base. The expansion is very hard to do if you are dependent on your member banks, hence Visa is looking to establish a direct consumer touchpoint in line with Cybersource’s merchant capability.

In my very first blog (2009 Googlization of Financial Services),  I outlined both the alert service that Clairmail built for Visa, and the advertising/offer engine they had put in place. Neither the alert service nor the ad service had taken off as issuers were not exactly thrilled with expanding Visa’s services or opening the door to Visa’s efforts to communicate directly to consumers. Clairmail has since been acquired by Monitise ($173M in March 2012).  Monitise is the entity that build “Visa Offers” and initially was “the mobile horse” which Visa intended to ride … until they upgraded to Fundamo. Now Monitise seems to be focused on the offers product… (See Visa Mobile Strategy). Visa wants to get into the card linked offers business (Visa Offers, FreeMonee, Monitise,…), and has had the technology working for sometime, they also want to get into the wallet business. (see Battle of the Cloud)

Neither of these services are to the best interest of issuers, which is why we see a hodgepodge of small banks without the resources to properly digest the strategic impact, or build the technology themselves in this recent V.me “50 bank pilot”. Let me be crystal clear on what I believe Visa’s strategy is:

  1. establish direct consumer service
  2. start with eCommerce (autofill) functionality to speed checkout and improve conversion
  3. add alerts to give consumers knowledge of card transactions
  4. add incentives/offers in 18 months (they already have built the service)

This is why Visa hates the Google service.. it steps all over their plans online.. as well as at POS (not in scope for this blog).

Take a look at V.me terms and conditions. They have done a great job in obfuscating their strategy in this document, as it clearly states that issuers have control

These Terms do not amend or otherwise modify the cardholder agreement or any other terms and conditions of your Issuer. In the event of any inconsistency between these Terms and your cardholder agreement with your Issuer, these Terms govern as to the relationship between you and Visa solely with respect to V.me and your cardholder agreement with your Issuer governs as to the relationship between you and your Issuer. You are responsible for ensuring that your use of the Services complies with your cardholder agreement with your Issuer.

Visa Alerts is the service where banks should start to become concerned. For the first time, visa is creating a list of consumer names, emails (above) and mobile phone numbers. Alerts will start with card usage, and then they will morph into incentives and offers based on spending patterns. These incentives will be offered completely separate from the issuers. In the V.me privacy policy “We share some information, but not your full card number, with merchants you pay with V.me” and “We may contact you about your V.me account, service updates, and new V.me features”.

I’ve got news for the V.me participating banks.. why don’t you just give Visa your customer list and give them permission to use it as they want? You have just given Visa much more.. They can now act on transactions they see on the switch.

I see Visa quickly expanding the service beyond eCommerce to physical commerce primarily around offers and alerts. You will be able to redeem offers across any card stored in your V.me wallet.  This means that V.me will work without eCommerce merchant adoption… and could be a stand alone offers platform. Of course they don’t want to lead with this… but it is indeed where Visa sees the best margin.

Banks.. get serious about this. Why would you want to let Visa step all over your brand and start delivering services to consumers directly? This is the start of a major tipping point for Visa… the Top issuers are fuming… but Visa may be able to build consumer adoption ahead of banks pulling the plug on it.

There is certainly no reason to worry.. take a look at the participating merchants https://www.v.me/shopping/  not exactly a whose who of online merchants. Why is this? well my merchant friends are also aware of Visa’s efforts to do the incentive business and the last thing they want is another entity switching consumers to the lowest cost provider. V.me on an eCommerce perspective is fine.. but what Visa doesn’t realize is that Google, Paypal an Amazon all have this today. (ex Google has autofill in Chome browser and Android…). If Visa has trouble signing up its own CYBS merchants.. what issues do you think they will have in signing up with those on GSI?

EMV Battle Impacts Mobile Payments

20 September

Most of everyone knows of the EMV efforts in the US, with Visa implementing a liability shift on October 1, 2015. In this model, any merchant that is presented with a chip and pin card, but is not capable of processing it (as an EMV), will bear fraud loss.  There have been very BIG swings in strategy over the last 6-8 months. The big issuers were all dead set against EMV.. saying they could not afford the cost to re-issue. Now all are on board… why? This is what I’m thinking about today….

Merchants have always loved PIN Debit (see blog). PIN was the cheapest transaction type prior to Durbin, and post Durbin PIN still has the unique advantage of allowing the merchant to route without going to Visa at all. Remember PIN Debit leniage was from ATM networks. Merchants also like the fact that 96% of PIN Debit fraud losses are assumed by issuers..

Visa/MA hate PIN Debit.. the countries where it has taken off like Canada-Interac, Australia EFTPOS, China Union Pay… have domestic clearing networks. This means that transactions are no longer routed through Visa/MA. In the US we have 8 debit networks (see blog). It makes little sense to continue all of these separate PIN debit networks if merchants can route directly to banks… The banks were thus looking at consolidation similar to what was done in countires above. In other words, banks were planning to take Debit back from Visa/MA in a bank owned network. After all, Bank margin improves in the PIN model (post Durbin) when payments are routed directly to them (they don’t pay a network fee ~10 bps).

Visa read the tea leaves… So how can Visa/MA stop the bank and merchant love affair w/ PIN? Force EMV…

The Merchant Stick? How will Visa “force” merchant’s to accept contactless? (See Visa Document)

Domestic and cross-border counterfeit liability shift. Merchants that cannot accept an EMV or contactless card when presented one by a customer will bear the liability of a fraudulent transaction instead of the issuer after October 1, 2015.

The Merchant “Carrot”?  Visa TIP program

TIP program allows merchants to be excused from validating their PCI DSS compliance for any year that at least 75 percent of their Visa transactions come from chip-enabled point-of-sale terminals. There are also subsidies for terminal upgrades … To qualify, terminals must be enabled to support both EMV contact and contactless chip acceptance, including mobile contactless payments based on NFC technology. Contact chip-only or contactless-only terminals will not qualify for the U.S. program

Visa’s effort to include contactless in the TIP program is very strategic. To gain the benefits of TIP, merchants must reterminalize with both contact and contactless EMV capability. Why? Well for one reason there are no contactless debit cards out there… yes everything is a credit card. These of course carry much higher fees… The other advantage of TIP is that the PCI-DSS wavier is like a “get out of jail free” card. Merchants can’t get the card without contactless… If this weren’t enough… not only does VISA want contactless.. they also want signature.

Visa says PIN not necessary – Green Sheet

“There’s a lot of confusion around the myth that EMV means ‘chip-and-PIN,'” Stephanie Ericksen, Visa Head of Authentication Product Integration, said in a blog published Jan. 13, 2012. “It doesn’t in many countries, including the U.S. That’s because, in the U.S., we can rely on online processing where transactions are transmitted in real time to the issuer for approval. With that in place, there’s no need for the offline authentication that was the genesis of chip-and-PIN.

From Chip and PIN to Chip and Choose? Visa wants  encourage signature as these transactions must be routed through them.. my position (and that of most non network people) is that AUTHORIZATION and AUTHENTICATION are completely different problem sets. The availability of real time approval means nothing if you don’t know WHO you are approving for WHICH CARD.  PIN answers the “who” question and the chip is the account number or “how” you are going to pay. I just can’t believe that Visa has come up with this story.. but they must in order to support “contactless”. Most consumers don’t know that today contactless transactions have limits. These limits are set by the issuer, in Europe they are typically around $25. However the issuer can choose to increase the limit (no PIN required), or require a PIN with a contactless payment.  All of this is a little absurd for Visa as PIN is always viewed as key to authentication, AND Visa just waved the signature requirement for mobile payments. So no signature required for Square.. but Visa wants it optional at the merchant POS so it can retain the volume?….  Expect some Regulatory involvement here.

Large Merchants are very, very aware of this strategy to improve the credit transaction mix and make mobile/contactless payments a “premium” service. The top 20 retailers have put their foot down and said “no way” will we be putting contactless readers in our store (MCX members particularly). The terminals that they are ordering DO NOT have contactless capabilities.. only EMV chip and PIN. Most retailers agree that signature is a worthless authentication mechanism. Visa clings to signature in order to ensure transactions are routed through them. Expect MCX to look toward a PIN model..

So this EMV “battle” has many sides to it.. it impacts mobile payment adoption, EMV rollout, plastic re-issuer, consumer behavior, consolidation of national PIN debit networks, …

Comments appreciated.

PayPal vs Google (at POS)

3 Aug 2012

Paypal COULD do everything that Google wallet does today.. so why won’t they? (Note I’m talking about the Physical POS… not online)

I’ve had a PayPal debit MasterCard for 6 yrs, when I use it at any merchant PayPal deducts from any stored balance I have, and then hits one of my stored payment instruments. I use this card exclusively on international trips because they have always offered the best cross border fees (.. and just 3 years ago paid an interest rate higher than any of my banks). I looked on the back of my new PayPal debit card and see that JP Morgan Chase is the issuing bank. Given that Chase has over $10B in assets, this card costs the merchant $0.21 + 5bps in the US. This is a great deal for retailers. A REALLY great deal.

Why is PayPal pushing out its own Plastic? Unbranded? Obviously they really don’t like the standard debit interchange (above) and want a bigger cut (than $0.21 flat fee) from the retailer. (see PayPal at POS)

Why won’t PayPal expand its online wallet to allow me to select any card for any given purchase? In this I mean creating an app that works like Google wallet, prompting the customer “what card do you want to use”? The answer is that they want to drive the underlying account selection decision to ensure the instrument with the lowest cost is selected.

Take a look at your payment instruments in PayPal today, they let you define a DDA account as “primary” but NOT a card. In other words PayPal incents you to link DDA in order to get money out.. then PayPal looks to leverage this account whenever possible (sometimes taking take settlement risk). The most costly customer for PayPal would be an Amex customer with no linked DDA and a PayPal debit card (for ATM withdrawals). See my related blog on PayPal’s funding mix (estimate 150bps)

PayPal is a payments business.. not an advertising business. Their goal is to maximize revenue. This is not a bad thing…  But their recent moves are a “replay” of what happened to the bank payment networks as they pushed to ramp up merchant fees and grow interchange revenue at the expense of retailers.  Why on earth would any merchant agree to take on Paypal’s new plastic? If it is above $0.21 it makes no sense at all… UNLESS Paypal is driving incremental sales.

PayPal today could create a Virtual “wallet” tied to either a Sticker or a Card that would work across Android, iOS, Blackberry, … and do everything that Google has done.. Why won’t they? Because the instrument must operate as a debit card, and the interchange “arbitrage” could kill them. In other words they will bear the cost of 350bps for a CNP Amex transaction and only charge the merchant $0.21 flat fee.  If they rolled this out, I’m sure they would have MASSIVE success.. but if customers unlink DDAs and delete debit cards they would risk a funding mix that is “unsustainable” because they have no other revenue channel.

Google

The true “payment innovation” from Google has little to do with payment and much to do about risk management and monetization of data. Google drives business to retailers today.. google helps consumers find the right product… they also “know you” from your history. They can use this information drive value to consumers AND to retailers.. they are also willing to take a very big risk that the benefits of Google will out weigh the COSTS of WALLET. Google Wallet will likely loose money on every single transaction. If you never accept an offer, incentive or coupon.. never search.. never use maps to find a business, never use Zagat to find a restaurant, never watch you tube commercials… they will likely loose money on you.   However Merchants will ALWAYS win.. no matter what, they will have the lowest cost payment when accepting a Google payment.

This is either INNOVATION OR INSANITY.  From my perspective, what Osama and team have done is fundamentally game changing.. ! Bearing costs, giving consumers and retailers complete control.. in the hope that they can deliver value in other services. Payment is now just a small part of an overall Commerce Process. For example, a “new” feature of Google Wallet that has not received enough attention is the “saveto” API release at Google I/O . Google allows merchants to store 3rd party offers and payment types in the wallet. These offers don’t have to be created by Google.. it is a true “wallet” function. 

As I stated yesterday,  Visa, Mastercard, Amex, all of the banks are REALLY worried about data. Google will be in a position to deliver value to consumers independent (or dependent) on the card you use. Few other companies can do this… Consumers will always have a choice.. no one will be forcing them to use their Google wallet.  But why not? Why didn’t the banks use their information to help me earlier?  Why did the banks and payment networks stop retailers from passing their real costs along, of delivering incentives that they could control?

This “aggregate” model is something ANY company could do in short order.. Square is doing it, Revolution Money, LevelUp, … but no one else can make it profitable.

PayPal’s new POS “hope” is to re-engineer the customer experience at the POS, allow merchants to throw away their custom POS terminals.. As most of you know I believe Square Register was by far the best POS experience I have ever seen. From PayPal’s June Video it looks like they agree and have replicated the Square Register “voice” experience. While the customer experience is FANTASTIC.. it did not bring the customer into the store.. nor is payment cost competitive with Google.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=CMByV-k9Oc4]

Investment take

PayPal has enormous runway left for them globally. I don’t see Google wallet denting current growth for 2 years. However this is VERY disruptive. IF google is successful in getting all Android users to register with a payment instrument (like Apple does in the App Store), and Google pushes Wallet out beyond NFC phones, it could result in a Tsunami wave which Paypal could not overcome in mCommerce.. This is a scenario where there are 3 primary mCommerce payments options: Apple Passbook, Google Wallet and Amazon.  For physical commerce.. nothing will impact this world in next 5 yrs if it does not entail a physical plastic card. NFC phones and payment terminals just aren’t materializing fast enough.  IF google creates physical plastic.. watch out…  In this scenario Google should  be pursuing an unbranded card.. “let the consumer decide”.. .”let the retailer influence” these are themes not heard in the payment world and would seem to resonate.

Retailers Discourage Credit Cards

9 July 2012

WSJ Article Today: Price of Plastic Going Up?

Merchants may soon begin to impose a surcharge each time a customer pays with credit card, a practice Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. currently prohibit…. [But provision will likely go away as part of impending settlement].

The “accept all cards” rule is likely to undergo a huge change, with implications for Visa/MA earnings, new retailer led payment networks, mobile wallets, issuer loyalty programs, EMV reissue, and “new products” (ex. Instant credit, pre-paid, decoupled debit, …).

Take a look at this excellent GAO Report to gain detailed insight into the battle being fought.

 Several of the large merchants that we interviewed attributed their rising card acceptance costs to customers’ increased use of rewards cards. Staff from these merchants all expressed concerns that the increasing use of rewards cards was increasing merchants’ costs without providing commensurate benefits. For example, one large merchant provided us with data on its overall sales and its card acceptance costs. Our analysis of these data indicated that from 2005 to June 2009, this merchant’s sales had increased 23 percent, but its card acceptance costs rose 31 percent. Rewards cards were presented as payment for less than 1 percent of its total sales volume in 2005 but accounted for almost 28 percent of its sales volume by June 2009.

This will have an impact on Visa’s volumes if card issuers don’t start immediately renegotiating the rates with the top retailers. This taken together with Durbin (see previous blog), retailer driven payment networks (ex See Target RedCard), Retailers acting as banks (see GDot/WMT), Google/PayPal at POS (as MSBs), Pre-paid cards, …etc. We have a VERY exciting time in payments that the banks will be challenged in responding to.

Why will this impact Visa’s US volumes? Well if signature debit it dead, consumers will use PIN debit (just like Canada and Australia). In the Post Durbin world, Retailers don’t have to route PIN debit transactions through Visa at all. If retailers aggressively reprice credit card transactions (adding fee of 1-2%) we will have consumers shift spend back to debit.. a PIN debit… This also is happening at a time when consumers aren’t exactly fond of banks and fees. If the top 20 US retailers add fee to credit card use, this could impact Visa’s growth buy 2-6% in 2 years. The main dependencies here are Issuer’s ability to lower interchange for these retailers and survival of Signature debit (over bank controlled PIN Debit).

Certain merchants obviously benefit from access to ubiquitous consumer credit facilities, and these merchants are unlikely to add on any fee. But retailers in non-discretionary and low margin segments will likely move aggressively to stem the growth of loyalty driven credit card use. I would also expect retailers to add lower cost payment options, instant credit (ex paypal’s BillMeLater) and new products which may replace some of the “lost” loyalty benefits (ex Target RedCard).

I maintain that Banks have the facilities to win in payments (see blog).. but winning is more than leveraging your user base and ubiquity to extract tolls from merchants.. and more about delivering value. Unfortunately Banks are working to restrict growth of new payment mechanisms by enhancing control points (ie ACH) .. they have seen this coming and are looking to lock any door they can. If you lock the door.. someone will just jump through the window.

BIG winners if there is a settlement on passing credit card costs:

  1. Payment service providers not dependent on credit, or offering alternative PayPal, Google, Square,
  2. Instant Credit
  3. Retailer Led payment networks
  4.  Pre-paid,
  5. PIN Debit

Loosers:

  1. Anyone dependent on a credit card (NFC, issuers, loyalty, …).

For my mobile friends.. this may give you additional context on why many merchants don’t accept NFC?