Apple and Goldman Sachs announced the forthcoming launch of high yield deposit account focused on increasing the value of Apple Card’s Daily Cash rewards. Operating as a kind of rewards sweep account, customers that register for the new account will have “their Daily Cash [move] into a new high-yield Savings account from Goldman Sachs”.
I hope to finish part 2 – Power of Bank Networks tomorrow (12-15 pages). In the meantime I have to recap a few key developments this week.
Continue readingPart 1 – Assessing the Environment and Setting the Focus (part 2 – Power of Bank Networks)
© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner. Please do not share unless you hold an enterprise license.
Must read FT article “How JPMC’s plan to kill credit cards split the bank”. The article discusses Jamie Dimon’s internal mandate to drive a new payment network. I was shocked with the level of internal org quotes here. In my view, Jamie is the best bank CEOs in history (based on performance and talent coming out of JPMC). As a former banker, I know how hard it is to move the ship. However, FT is wrong. Chase’s efforts ARE NOT about killing credit cards, but rather creating something much bigger.
This is a long blog..
Continue readingShort blog – 80% confidence
© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.
Phase 1 of TCH’s token efforts will be in SRC model. A bank branded “wallet” acting in the DCF role for TCH PIs . Just as VAC has enabled the elimination of physical hardware for acceptance, issuers see a plastic-less future for cards. They want to own the issuance of cards and want much more than a token, they want the entire “wallet”.
Go to market is either as:
As Apple is set to launch the iPhone 14 today, I was thinking about the significance of ApplePay’s innovations to V/MA and how these innovations benefit the entire network of merchants and consumers. Making payments easy is hard… Apple is the lead “innovator” within the V/MA networks at the consumer touchpoint (with Google, Samsung, PayPal and others in the mix). Their “wallet” and branded integration into both POS AND mCom is unrivaled and represents 93% of all mobile wallet payments in the US (2021).
This 2021 Pulse Network Debit Whitepaper provides the best public view on performance (US Only), with TPV CAGR over 50%. Quite frankly, when it comes to mobile payments, it’s silly to talk about anything else by ApplePay in the US
© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.
Friday I was a tad “let down” in the Sionic/TCH/MX release of Pay-by-Bank. Per my blog on Google/TCH launch and Google P2P I was anticipating something much bigger. To be clear I firmly believe that TCH is working on an “ApplePay Competitor”, which will entail TCH tokens inside of Google’s phone, but this will be 3-6 months out. Per the blogs above, I see neither pay-by-bank nor TCH Tokens in Google Pay as a threat to V/MA.
Today I thought I would drill down into “pay by bank”, the dynamics of why it works in some markets, and why I see little threat to V/MA in replacing core cards in eCom or at POS.
Big picture thoughts on a key service where banks will lead in the future
© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.
Existing businesses spend significant energy on remaking things that work. Moore’s law has justified this investment in chipmaking, as has Tesla’s investments in batteries and manufacturing processes. These area of focus are where products performance is critical to the customer and incremental capability provides differentiation. But what about banking and payments? What provides differentiation? Which investments are driving performance critical to the customer? or operational efficiencies? (see Changing Economics of Payments)
Note: existing subscribers have all notifications turned off by default. To update notifications, please visit Member Login –> Notification Preference above.
© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.
What are the new Durbin’s legislative prospects? A: Not at all likely (<10% probability)
Top retailers spent this week meeting with Bank CEOs trying to convince them to support the new Durbin legislation. Their pitch was to enable bi-lateral deals, “new products” and avoid network rules (see blog). Banks did not seem to bite, as they remembered the lessons of Durbin 1:
I now have 70% confidence in the forces shaping Durbin (still no threat to V/MA).
© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.
© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.
A highly technical “what if” scenario involving a long-sought after change by top US card issuers. I’m fortunate to have the exec teams of just about every payment network, processor and FinTech read this blog. I have 3 main drivers for writing today:
Note I DO NOT think this scenario is likely, but rather possible (30% probability). Historical context is key and the only reason I’m spending time on this today is that 27 bank CEOs have been discussing this for over 10 yrs.