Category Archives: Cards

Debit Fees – Newton’s third law in banking

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2016 – This post is 4+ years old now.. I wouldn’t take it too seriously.. but good historical context

1 October 2011

First… 2 paragraphs of venting and perspective.

I was quite surprised to see BAC’s $5/mo debit card fee on the national news today. Personally, I think it is a great thing.. customers should pay for services they want to use.. sticking the merchant with the cost of debit leads to some very poor incentives. One of the biggest “innovation stifling” problems we have in the US is that consumers don’t care about prices, for things they should (payments,  health care, fraud, education, … ). The cause? the direct costs are hidden. Once consumers bear direct costs for services, market forces can take hold.

This is not to say I’m a supporter for HOW the Durbin change came about.. Dodd-Frank, Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act represent the most sweeping changes to financial regulations in the United States since the Great Depression. From my perspective the timing could not have been worse. Did Congress think  the banks would just sit on the sidelines and patiently suffer? After being forced by regulators to act in good faith and “acquire” ailing community members like Country Wide? To suffer again as State AGs and the CPFB go after them for a few billion more (robo-signing).  Retail banking is becoming a very unattractive business, particularly in the lower mass market segments.  For the recovery to take hold, we need banks to be healthy…  these are not a bunch of “fat cat” millionaires.. but a core component of commerce that is instrumental in managing the lifeblood of our economy.

Debit Reaction.. equal and opposite

Well the banks have reacted to the finalization of Durbin fees. As I related in my previous blog on Debt, the fee plans have been in the works for some time, and for good reason: the lower mass segments are no longer profitable. US banks are well capitalized…. with excess liquidity, and a cost of funds near zero. There is very little incentive for them to seek to increase their deposit base (improve liquidity ratio). The core issue in retail banking profitability is asset quality (few qualified people to lend to… who want a loan). This is even more true now that Dodd-Frank has virtually gutted retail banking fees.  Two excellent articles below detail the role of transaction revenue and service fees in retail banking.

http://www.bai.org/bankingstrategies/payments/general/protecting-dda-profitability

http://www.novantas.com/article.php?id=317

http://www.standardandpoors.com/ratings/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245235038776

Of course not all consumers will be paying this $5/mo cost. For example, the folks reading this blog will likely have account relationships that warrant a fee exception. Mass market customers will likely be up in arms and seek to move their accounts.. believe it or not.. this is what the large banks want to happen since many of the lower tier customer segments are no longer profitable.

See this American Banker Article for more detail on alternatives to mass market customers

In the next phase of bank plans, expect the Visa logo to disappear from the standard card issued for a base checking account. The card will operate as ATM card, just as it did 20 years ago. As a side note, the banks (and PIN Debit networks such as Star, Pulse, NYCE) will be working with merchants and processors to expand adoption of PIN Debit separate from the card networks.

Market Forces in Payment

Now that consumers have to bear the costs of using a Debit Card. They have new choices:

1) Use credit card. This would be best for the banks, and perhaps best for the consumer as they collect merchant funded card reward points. The looser here is obviously the merchant. An important point  to make here is that this is exactly the strategy behind new NFC based mobile payment types.. there are NO NFC enabled debit cards.. banks and the networks want you using your phone for payment to drive credit card usage.  This is also the strategy behind Visa’s new EMV mandate, to drive retailer reterminalization. This will be a subject of a future blog.

2) Leave the bank and use pre-paid cards. This will certainly be the path for many lower mass customers

3) Pay the fee

4) Improve your relationship with the bank to meet a threshold and avoid the $60/yr fee.

5) Shift your transactional relationship to new “non bank” structures like PayPal or Google Wallet (both of which are licensed MSBs in all 47 states).

Downside for banks

CEOs make decisions based on data they have. The first 4 options have all been through. I would profer that creating a market for new competitors has not. I outlined in my previous blog “Banks will WIN in payments.. but WHICH ones”  that banks are firmly in the position of control today.  However there is a strong correlation between control and value delivered. In my upcoming blog I’ll describe how to value a payment network. My view is that payments are on a course of a utility service (i.e. dumb pipes with least cost routing), and that payment services are only the last step of a much more important commerce interaction. Any network business is highly dependent on balancing a value proposition between participants. Today retailers and consumers are not pleased. I only wish I could tell of you the wonderful things I’m seeing in Silicon Valley… IT IS NOT about technology.. but about creating business value.

Within 5 years, I see the strong possibility that a new network which will be able to PAY merchants for accepting a payment method..  (see my 2009 Blog on Googlization of Payments).

BTW… sorry for the lack of content this last month.. I have 15 page blog I’m about to publish.. I will never again try to write so much in one article.

Long time… no blog

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I’ve been meaning to post this super long blog on network profitability.. 8 weeks ago. I’m almost finished.. to encourage completion I promised myself not to post anything else until it was done. Well.. I’m breaking my promise.

For frequent readers, most of you know that I love PayPal. They just rolled out their latest “vision” today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7q1jx8mYi8

I thought it was some sort of joke.. PayPal.. if you are listening.. please take it down. Do you really plan to penetrate large multi-lane retailers?!  That POS demo with someone keying in their phone number and password.. yeah a grocery store would LOVE letting their customers spend 2 min on a payment terminal. Come on guys. Why not focus on your existing small merchants? Maybe you are but wanted to show something different. I almost spit out my lunch as I laughed when the lady self scanned in the aisle, put the items in a bag and walked out of the store by waving her phone above her head to the cashier busy with another customer. Yeah…. store of the future.

My hope is that PayPal outsourced the video to a 3rd party and forgot to review it..  With Sig and PIN interchange both sitting at $0.21 + 5bps what would motivate a merchant to take PayPal?  Do you go after merchants that do not accept cards (ie Square’s market)? existing merchant customers? big retailers? There is no way I see big retailers going your way.. too much change in customer behavior at POS.. I do use my PayPal debit card … but typing in my phone number? Heck I don’t want to do that and I love you guys.

On another front.. I just read the ABA journal article on Visa’s CAP initiative.

http://www.ababj.com/tech-topics-plus/visa-announces-plans-to-accelerate-chip-migration-and-adoption-of-mobile-payments-2259.html

These experts are all wrong. I can tell you why the big banks will not go with this.. it is about risk management. Currently the big banks can manage fraud with custom infrastructures.. banks compete on ability to manage risk (including fraud), putting this technology out puts all banks on a level playing field and wipes out all of their investment edge. Take this together with a $1B+ plastic reissue cost and a $5B+ re-terminalization AND a rotten bank environment and you have a very poor environment for adoption.  I do believe banks will selectively reissue to global travelers. I can’t even use my mag stripe cards in Canada anymore.  The ABA analysis is all wet. The worst line in the article has 2 major hypothesis which are completely unsubstantiated.

1) … they [Issuers] may push for shifting more of the fraud losses and fraud prevention costs to merchants.

2) As is the case in some countries and as proposed by Visa, merchants would only get the current guaranteed payment if they adopt the new chip technology.

ABA.. come on!! Merchants and Issuers both have legal agreements in place. What dark crevasse did you pull these ideas from? For point 1), Durbin allows for future adjustment (to rate) if banks can show that fraud costs are not being covered. What we will see is the death of signature debit. PIN Debit rates have been show to one fouth that of signature (http://www.digitaltransactions.net/news/story/2845) … so the change will be toward PIN only transactions at merchants.  This PIN model combined w/merchant ability to route transactions is a very big threat to Visa’s network.. How will Visa address? By creating a Chip.. everyone must validate it with Visa.. THIS IS THE PRIMARY STRATEGIC POINT. What banks and merchants will agree on is that Visa has no place in a debit transaction.. as we will see later in the year 2 large banks will roll out their own network…

For point 2) FORCED re-terminalization? … yeah that will win friends. As you can see from Durbin merchants have the power this year.  So Visa will force merchants to accept a new agreement and incur additional expense?   In the EU, Visa used the carrot.. not the stick. So please, please give me an example of Visa pursuing this approach in any country. For history, I ran channels for Citi in 47 markets.. and didn’t see this.. but perhaps they did it in last year or so.

ABA’s next point caused me to choke

Not only will chip technology accelerate mobile innovations, it is also expected to secure payments into the future through the use of dynamic authentication

Have you heard of NFC? I don’t disagree that Visa would love to create a platform where they are the trust authority.. but the banks and mobile operators have different plans. Visa’s CAP plan is a poor attempt to build a platform where they have additional control over merchants, consumers and banks. Mobile is causing tectonic shifts in where and who performs: risk, authentication, KYC, mobile provisioning, clearing and settlement. These are all threats to Visa’s network, CAP is their attempt to put barbed wire around their decaying model.. to keep customers from leaving…

Signature Debit is Dead

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29 June

Death of Signature Debit

It’s hard for the banks to complain about yesterday’s Durbin caps. At $0.21 + 5bps, the caps provide no loss in revenue from a today’s average PIN Debit transaction (see yesterday’s blog). The loss is in Signature Debit. As I related in my post a few months ago, PIN Debit evolved from bank owned ATM networks while Signature Debit evolved from the card networks (and associated credit products).

ATM Networks grew as groups of banks banded together to monetize ATM infrastructure, and further expand network into the retail POS. This expansion led to further change from bank ownership to independence. The driver of any independent network is to add volume, nodes and services. ATM Networks evolved into PIN Debit Networks, with Visa’s 1987 contract to operate Interlink as the key milestone. Today, Pulse is owned by Discover, Star by First Data, Interlink by Visa (these 3 make up over 83% of PIN Debit Volume).

Visa was and has always been the leader in signature debit penetration, a look back at this 2003 article provides much insight into the history here. Most US consumers today don’t understand why their debit card has both a PIN and signature feature… many books could be written on this subject alone… but oddly enough consumers prefer PIN (see Pulse Federal Reserve Presentation 10/10).

Signature-based transactions currently have a lead on PIN Debit. In 2009, Fed reports signature as having 23.4 billion purchase transactions, and $837 billion of transaction value while PIN-based debit transactions totaled 14.5billion transactions, and $555 billion of transaction value.

However, PIN Debit enjoys a slightly higher growth rate (15.6% vs 14.3%), consumer preference (48% vs 34%), lower fraud rate (2009 fraud numbers: Signature $1.12B, $181M PIN debit card),  and obvious merchant preferences (interchange and fraud; 96% of PIN fraud losses assumed by issuers, vs 56% in Signature).

Retailer View

While yesterday’s announcement doesn’t impact average PIN debit rates (for average transaction), there are other elements of Durbin (routing and steering), which will eventually act to kill Signature Debit. Let’s first take a retailer view… Historically, retailers have been constrained in their attempts to deny signature debit transactions. Network agreements forced them to take “all cards”. The primary merchant “influence” mechanism was to default payment terminals to “enter PIN” and make it difficult to for a customer to use a signature debit card. While Durbin does not impact the “accept all cards” rule, it does allow for merchants to route debit transactions outside of the card network.

When I spoke with a few of Visa’s institutional investors last week, much was made about 30% PIN debit penetration. Its very important to note that this penetration is on merchant terminals, NOT as a percentage of total payments. Small merchants remain rather ignorant of their payment options. This merchant financial literacy issue, combined with ISO sales incentives, has led to an uneven PIN Debit adoption.. but this will change not only for small merchants, but also for ONLINE transactions. PIN debit has had no traction in eCommerce because retail banks (issuers) did not want the lower interchange and refused to accept PIN transactions from online merchants. This has also changed. (I have detail here.. but can’t really discuss in the blog)

Bank View

At least 2 of the major banks in the US are working with processors to establish direct “BIN routing” and circumvent all network fees. This makes complete sense for the larger banks like bank of America, with 10%+ of US Debit volume, as it would enable them to eliminate network fees. Merchants would also benefit with a lower cost (the purpose of this routing provision). The key activity necessary to make this happen is to enable major processors to sort and redirect transactions. Processors already perform BIN lookup, but instead of going to Visa or MA with a BIN.. they will be going directly to a large bank. Obviously BAC/BAMS, JPM/Chase Paymenttech, FifthThird, …etc would be the top teams implementing this model. With Durbin at $0.21 + 5bps they actually can improve their margin on PIN debit.

Future

The obvious corollary here is that once a bank is successfully routing transactions directly from the processor(s), what Value does Visa bring at all?  1) Merchants that are not using a processor that has not yet implemented the bank direct routing 2) International Debit Transactions, 3) ?Signature debit bank agreements?

As Bank “inertia” is directed toward maximizing bank margin, and merchants in decreasing debit processing costs, a new debit network is formed… and today’s Visa  debit network begins a slow death. First to go will be PIN debit, but closely following will be the removal of the Visa logo off of all debit cards. The 2 countries where this has happened are Canada (interact) and Australia (EFTPOS). The next phase of death will be begin when banks recognize the synergies of maintaining a common directory with centralized authorization and fraud controls. The model here for the US is SEPA Debit.

Tom’s Predictions (Market)

1) 2 major banks will launch their own PIN debit network… starting with processors they control

2) Signature debit, as we know it, will die

3) Visa and MA logo’s on debit cards will have a slow death over next 5-10 years. With little impact to affluent customers in short term.

4) Card issuing banks will look for new ways to grow credit use. (Mobile payments, juicing rewards, educating consumers on unique Reg Z protections, …)

5)  Merchant will be testing models to tie incentives to debit use and even create new products (Target Redcard is model)

6) Retail banks will be pushing out low end mass market customers. Pre-paid business will pick up the slack. Most of the major banks have solid plans on pre-paid card deployment.. but have delayed launch because they don’t want to be seen circumventing Durbin (see below)

7) Processors will pick up new fee revenue for “least cost routing”, but regulators will be keeping an eye on them to ensure that the bank owned processors are not acting in concert to circumvent cap definitions (see below)

8) Online PIN debit will begin to take off

9) PIN Debit merchant adoption will start to accelerate in 1-2 years

10) Visa’s US transaction processing volume will stay steady. Debit volume will go down, but processing margin will improve and pre-paid will begin to take off.

11) Banks will begin to couple payments with incentives in an attempt to avert retailer led models.. Look for BAC to be the leader here.

What does this mean for Visa earnings?

My summary view is that Visa has plenty of runway on international credit growth.. but their trajectory now has much greater risk ask it will be tied almost exclusively to credit. Visa’s recent success in processing services (ie DPS) wont suffer short term as the top 5 banks have minimal services with them.. but we will see erosion of debit revenue beginning as transaction volume further accelerates to PIN debit routed outside of Visa’s network and PIN debit adoption in small merchants accelerates.

Per final regs –  75 75 FR 81722, 81731 (Dec. 28, 2010).

Pre-Paid

ii. An issuer replaces its debit cards with prepaid cards that are exempt from the interchange limits of §§ 235.3 and .4. The exempt prepaid cards are linked to its customers‘ transaction accounts and funds are swept from the transaction accounts to the prepaid accounts as needed to cover transactions made. Again, this arrangement is not per se circumvention or evasion, but may warrant additional supervisory scrutiny to determine whether the facts and circumstances constitute circumvention or evasion.

Processor Fees

Merchant commenters voiced concerns that issuers may attempt to circumvent the interchange fee standards (applicable to those fees ―established, charged, or received‖ by a network) by collectively setting fees and imposing those collectively set fees on acquirers, and ultimately merchants, through the networks‘ honor-all-cards rules. For example, the largest issuers may collectively determine to charge interchange transaction fees above the cap and effect this decision by dictating to each network the agreed upon amount. The network, then,would permit each issuer to charge that amount, and because merchants would be required to accept all the network‘s cards, merchants would pay the amount determined by the issuers.

Section 920(c)(8) of the EFTA defines the term ―interchange transaction fee‖ to mean ―any fee established, charged, or received by a payment card network . . . for the purpose of compensating an issuer for its involvement in an electronic debit transaction.‖ Accordingly, interchange transaction fees are not limited to those fees set by payment card networks. The term also includes any fee set by an issuer, but charged to acquirers (and effectively merchants) by virtue of the network determining each participant‘s settlement position. In determining each participant‘s settlement position, the network ―charges‖ the fee, although the fee ultimately is received by the issuer. An issuer, however, would be permitted to enter into arrangements with individual merchants or groups of merchants to charge fees, provided that any such fee is not established, charged, or received by a payment card network. The Board has added paragraph 2(j)-3 to the commentary to explain that fees set by an issuer, but charged by a payment card network are considered interchange transaction fees for purposes of this part. The Board plans to monitor whether collective fee setting is occurring and whether it is necessary to address collective fee setting or similar practices through the Board‘s anti-circumvention

Visa Digital Wallet

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So what does Visa plan to do that PayPal doesn’t do already?

http://venturebeat.com/2011/05/11/visa-unveils-new-digital-wallet-for-electronic-commerce/

I look at this as a non-announcement, a rebranding of what CYBS and PlaySpan already have. Too many teams are angling to create the wallet (mobile, online, …), and not enough focusing on the value of what is in it. Google, Apple, and RIM will win the mobile wallet wars. I guess I can’t blame Visa for trying.. however it would have been nice if they could have been successful at eCommerce to start with. If they had CYBS and PayPal would have never developed. I see little hope for them doing any better in mobile. They don’t own the customer and can’t really deliver any value.. but hey.. they have a tremendous number of nodes that they want to use.. too bad that the rules are so heavily driven by banks.

CYBS is a great company, in 2009 it processed one out of every 4 purchase transactions online, with over $120B in GDV. Small and mid size merchants flock to them because they are a one stop shop with great service. CYBS and PayPal both came to exist because card networks were incapable of helping either issuers or merchants manage the unique transaction risks associated with CNP transactions… as well as support for taking a card online. Visa has spent enormous sums trying to create improved authentication approaches (remember Verified by Visa?).  Their problem was not just technology and user experience, but business model. In the UK, VBV received substantial traction when merchants signed on to the liability shift. But then the issuers were left holding the bag for a broken technology with a merchants also suffering from drop off in completed purchases as customers saw a pop up ask for their PIN..

Rather than go through this terrible learning experience yet again they did the right thing and bought CYBS. Of course there were other synergies as well…  They now have an eCommerce acquirer. So the model is somewhat like DPS.. Get member banks to sign up their merchants, Visa gets a service fee, banks get a new revenue stream… ? Have you spoke to a happy Visa DPS customer?

Take a look at the banks that have signed on here. From the announcement: Barclaycard US, BB&T, Card Services for Credit Unions (CSCU), ICBA Bancard, First Financial Bank of Ohio, Nordstrom, Pentagon Federal Credit Union,  PNC Bank,  PSCU Financial Services,  Regions Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, TD Bank Group (US and Canada) and US Bank.

Notice anyone missing? Top 5 issuers? Banks with significant merchant business?  What I would really like to see is the growth projections of this new service vs. what CYBS/Playspan would have done normally.

Digital Goods. Let me digress in an example. Why was Playspan so successful? Many reasons, but for one it had a substantial in store presence for gamers (with no bank account). Guess how much Playspan had to pay the card distributor? 15%. Will be interesting to see how Visa integrates a digital wallet with a cost of funds of 1500bps and then evolve to letting this same wallet be used for eCommerce. This may be why Visa is emphasizing card funding.. but guess what.. gamers (digital goods) don’t thrive on this model.

As a consumer, will I create a visa wallet to pay for goods? Why should I? What is in it for me after the bank has scaled back my loyalty programs and hit me with new fees.. ?

As a merchant will I switch to CYBS? Only if CYBS offers great service..

I just don’t see the value here.. someone please enlighten me. I do give Visa credit for dumping a VBV 3.0 strategy in favor of CYBS. What I love best is Visa taking out 2 great companies.  Now another round of start ups can develop to provide cutting edge service to retailers. The last great innovation from Visa was Debit.. well it wasn’t really from Visa.. … this does not feel like Debit.

I look forward to next 12 months when we will see 2 large issuers pull the Network brands off of their debit cards. In 5 years Visa will be left with credit only.. They do need a growth business.

Square “Violations”

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16 March 2011 (Updated 17 Mar)

My top issue w/ mobile swipe is clearly customer behavior and potential data loss.  I’ve been asked to provide a basis to decline Square transactions (debit particularly) so, rather than sending out multiple e-mail responses, I thought I would share. Issuer Top 4 reasons to decline Square

  • PABP/PCI compliance
  • Collection and use of ancillary customer information
  • Paper Signature requirement
  • Chase has all of the equity upside

Visa developed the Payment Application Best Practices (PABP) in 2005 to provide software vendors guidance in developing payment applications that help merchants and agents mitigate compromises, prevent storage of sensitive cardholder data.

http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/validated_payment_applications.pdf

 

Phase V of PABP went into effect on July 1, 2010. This phase required all Acquirers to ensure that their merchants and agents use only PABP-compliant applications. A list of payment applications that have been validated against Visa’s PABP /PCI DSS is available at www.visa.com/pabp. Note Square is missing, how can Chase acquire for merchant/aggregator that is in clear violation?

UPDATE 17 Mar (Thanks Bob Egan) Evidently PCI has revoked certification of all mobile swipes until new rules have been created. See related post  http://storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/pci-council-confirms-multiple-mobile-applications-delisted/2/

From the Visa Operating Reg, (pg 428)

While Square does not “require” mobile number or e-mail address, it is collecting it at time of transaction (plus your location). As this information is associated with the transaction, it must be managed within PCI. The business risk here is that Square will use address and location information for something else.. or Chase gets the e-mail address of all of your card customers. This is why the rules were created.. so this does not happen.

Last is Visa requirement for paper receipts. From Visa’s Transaction Acceptance Device Guide

Chase bears all of the burden here, I hope they have taken a holistic view of the fraud and data compromise risk.. not just approving their own cards… but for every card ever swiped by Square.  Advanced fraud schemes take 18mo-2 years to develop.. so it may take some time for risk to materialize.. and for them to pull back.  Chase.. these future losses will easily wipe out the 15% of Square equity that you hold.  Perhaps they are moving so aggressively here because one of their key partners (ie Apple) is falling down in NFC.  Which brings to mind the larger question: Is Chase Anti NFC? 

Remember just 4 weeks ago that all of the US banks were looking at a future where ISIS would control NFC on the handset. Perhaps this is Chase’s way of developing an alternate strategy to address NFC’s biggest weakness: infrastructure.  If this is true.. then Chase I apologize.. your strategic play here was indeed valid. As of this month, we are looking at a ISIS crash and burn and NFC control with RIM, Google and Nokia. My hope is that Chase will abandon Square once the threat, of MNO control over payments, has been eliminated. 

Recommendation for banks

  1. Educate your customers. DO NOT give your personal information out when you use your card
  2. Start to educate your customers on mobile payments in general.. how will it work?
  3. Encourage use of credit over debit.. greater consumer protection and better margin for you
  4. Set some common sense rules .. use your card with trusted vendors (Apple, Grocery, … )
  5. Educate your customer facing employees from branch to call center..
  6. Think about your small business value proposition, how can you help small businesses accept cards?
  7. Issuers, think about declining Square transactions.. particularly for debit

Visa and MA take a bath on proposed debit fees

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The banks knew it was coming, so don’t let anyone fool you that it was a “suprise”. The idea of a flat fee of $0.05-$0.15 has been floated for some time. As you can see from graph on right, Visa lost 10% of its value after the announcement. While Banks and Issuers are returning their Christmas presents tonight, the merchants are having a party.. particularly large ones like Wal-Mart who in 2009 had interchange costs of $1B.

As a banker, we invited Wal-Mart to come in and talk to us in 2005. They certainly did not mince words then, I remember a few quotes explicitly “what service do you provide that justifies taking 2% of my sales”?. Another memorable quote “we want to find a model where you pay us to take your card”.  Something we laughed off back then, after all who on earth in the bank wanted to design that model? Banks “had it coming”… The interchange rate creep bore too many signs of a

“network” run amok and NO ONE stopped the train.  Banks launching campaigns like “skip the PIN and win” to incent consumers to pursue signature debit transactions (200bps+) vs PIN debit.  We only need to look at the federal reserve chart on the right to see the lack of market forces here.

I believe this is a “tipping point” event in US cards. We will see merchants aggressively incent use of debit, and the Visa and MA logos will start to come off of our debit/ATM cards, as they do in Canada and Australia (Interac, and EFTPOS). What will the banks do about this revenue loss?

All are looking for new ways to drive other revenue streams into the payment services, particularly around marketing/advertising (see my Blog on Apple iAd). The Visa and MA relationships with the large banks was already showing signs of strain. The large banks will not wait for Visa and MA to develop an alternatives, most are assessing new networks and value channels which they can control (see Googlization of FS). I’m short on V/MA because of this dynamic.

The Federal Reserve’s proposal is open for comments, and there may be a change. But the starting point for the negotiations is quite a bit lower than what the banks were hoping for.  My message to Bank CEOs: drop the fight here and find a new model for payments. Don’t let Apple and Google eat your future as well. What will it take? Well for one thing it will take a little collaboration, re-energize a few of your existing consortiums like NACHA, The Clearing House, Early-Warning to develop new models for payments and seed these team with top executives. You can’t take your eye off of this ball, retail payments is less than sexy.. but it is core to your daily interaction with customers.

Square Up update

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11 Dec 2010 (updated)

Previous post http://finventures.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/squareup-take-4/

Today’s Telegraph (UK)

Dorsey is a marketing machine! It’s just amazing how much buzz he has been able to create (yes I am envious). The Square application is stellar from a customer experience perspective. Although appshopper shows them in the top 20 free finance apps (~1M downloads), I estimate they are sitting on only 5k-15k active customers (this is the nature of a “free” app).  It also seems that they are in a holding pattern until they resolve fraud and risk issues (I covered this in last blog). From their FAQ

Until recently, Square was facing a big hardware shortage, but that’s now coming to a resolution. The problem has transitioned to something we’ve been working on simultaneously, a credit processing and risk issue: we need to strengthen our underwriting infrastructure so that we can handle the huge demand for readers and still manage the risk of chargebacks and fraud. This is the last thing preventing us from shipping readers as fast as we’d like, and we have almost the entire team working on it. We look forward to sending you a Square!

My guess on the hold up? iPhone cannot be made PCI compliant without first encrypting the card BEFORE it gets into the iPhone (see the Verifone solution). As you can see from the Visa PCI DSS list, Square is certified in 3 areas:

  •  IPSP (E-commerce)
  • Payment Gateway
  • Process Magnetic-Stripe Transactions

 This means that Square’s data center is approved to handle card data in these areas (ex. not leaving card numbers sitting around unencrypted). This does NOT mean that the Square Application or Doggle have been certified. In fact, a search in the PCI org’s list of approved applications has no mention of Square. Where Verifone’s Payware is shown approved (below).

This is certainly a driver for PayPal’s recent partnership with Verifone to enable PayPal to act as merchant acquirer (see Verifone Press Release)

My (somewhat educated) guess is that Square must redesign the “Square” for encryption AND its Application AND get it certified by the issuers. This is a 12-18 mo process … as I said last year.  Of course I could be wrong on this.. perhaps they are indeed near certification. Assuming they do get the US mag stripe issues resolves it will not translate into any global adoption. I laughed quite a bit after reading the UK Telegraph article.. particularly given the EMV (Chip and PIN) requirements in EVERY country outside of the US.  So a new “redesigned” Square for magstripe won’t work in europe.. that is yet another design challenge with its own certification process. Who said payments was easy?

The card networks and issuers want Square to be successful, as increased card acceptance means increased payment volume. But there is a reason that acquirers and merchant agreements exist. Fraud usually is 18mo-2 years behind a new payment method as its not worth the fraudsters time (and resource) to invent a compromise. Square will face unique risks not seen before by any acquirer. For example:  merchants accounts denied by other acquirers, physical card fraud rings, skimmers looking to take the cards and auth codes for use off line, virtual card fraud rings looking to “pump” card data through 100s of easy to set up Square accounts.

Square has a use, but the market is small. I expect many small merchants to give the service a try, but once they realize that it takes 30-60 days to settle and that they have a new burden (under reg z) for returns and consumer transaction dispute (ex reserves) they will decide that the headache is not worth it.  In other words they will face the same barriers that the large acquirers have in moving down market.  Dorsey was in a WSJ video yesterday outlining potential benefits for issuers using square. This is a soft repositioning of his company for a potential exit. He knows that the market is limited and is hoping for alliance plays with large issuers/acquirers. Banks are certainly in a better position to roll this out.. particularly because of their ability to manage card risk (but customer support is a “little” more robust as well). As I stated previously, smart money would wait for Dorsey to gain adoption and struggle through the issues before investing.

The problem that Dorsey is trying to solve is core to the acquiring business: how to grow card use among small merchants. Question remains on whether this is this a “technology problem”, or a business problem? For banks wanting to dip their toes in the technology: it is already available through teams like Verifone. For Small Merchants with a need for a convenient easy to use method for accepting cards:  go to www.paywaremobile.com and sign up with FirstData. For consumers: think twice about giving your card to the hot dog vendor..   banks own the risk (in the US), but there is still a big hastle in shutting down your account.

As I stated in my Jan 2010 blog, Square presents a risk to the payment system

The acquirer that takes this on will likely have a few headaches when the first major craigslist merchant starts using the device to skim and resell card information (among other things). There is a reason for PCI compliance and for my “securing” my physical card and CVV. I can’t wait to see Square’s Payment Services Agreement (PSA). Operationally, the issuer’s have control over card authorization through systems like HNC’s Falcon or SAS Raptor. This means that if SquareUp is found to have contributed to a data loss, or has a high number of fraudulent transactions (see link) customer would see their card transaction declined, or the network (Visa/MC) would shut SquareUp down.

The great thing about the PayPal model is that the customer funded the account after agreeing to terms. In Square’s model, consumers are unregistered, Square is acting as an agent of the merchant. For Square’s investors, there is atypical risk which they will see through “unique” bonding/insurance requirements from the acquirer.  Just as with any company, Square will face unlimited liability associated with loss of consumer information (think TJX). To get an idea for potential mis-use see you tube video below.. crooks invest quite a bit in technology here… will SquareUp make it easier for every iPhone owner to become a skimmer?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svzZxB0o8J8]

Target REDCard – Back to the Future?

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Target’s 10-Q was published Friday for quarter ending 10/30/10. I’ve started following Target’s financial services performance given the US launch of their new REDCard decoupled debit.  All of this seems a little like back to the future… 40 years ago each store had their own closed loop branded card, 100 years ago small stores offered their customers store credit. Target’s innovation is creating a card that couples 0% interchange, with loyalty program that they control, in an infrastructure that already exists (Target’s card group and Target bank).

Financial services execs within: big banks, retailers and the payment networks are keeping a close eye on this product. Target has a very unique competency in payments through its ownership of Target Bank and associate card processing. Historically, Target’s card portfolio has been either a millstone or a jetpack. REDCard takes out the majority of the credit risk (aka the millstone) and leverages the card processing infrastructure to provided a competitive advantage.

The REDCard launch looks like a smashing success, and through the 10-Q we can estimate the initial adoption for the 15 days within the national launch (adding a small base within the Kansas City test market).  On page 14 and 17 we see that Target accounts for REDCard’s 5% rebate as reduction in sales, with the card unit reimbursing a portion of this cost (operations and marketing). In other words the “net cost” of to the card unit: REDCard’s 5% less card processing costs (ie interchange, …etc). 

  • Reimbursed amount: $26M
  • Less 10% one coupon run off: $19M (Estimated).
  • Card Net Reimbursement for REDCard: $7M

Red Card TPV (Assuming 200bps average cost of payment)

REDCard 15day TPV = $7M/(500bps-200bps) = $233M

(out of quarterly sales of $15.2B)

Admittedly, I do not have a way to resolve the difference between this number and the market penetration number below (from 10-Q). As stated below REDCard includes Target Credit card, Target Visa Credit Card, and Target Debit Card. When will these cards recieve the 5% off? Perhaps after new terms are agreed to and deposit accounts are linked (comments appreciated).

Beginning April 2010, all new qualified credit card applicants receive the Target Card, and we no longer issue the Target Visa to credit card applicants. Existing Target Visa cardholders are not affected. Beginning October 2010, guests receive a 5 percent discount on virtually all purchases at check−out every day when they use a REDcard at any Target store or on Target.com. Target’s REDcards include the Target Credit Card, Target Visa Credit Card and Target Debit Card. This new REDcard rewards program replaced the existing rewards program in which account holders received an initial 10 percent−off coupon for opening the account and earned points toward a 10 percent−off coupon on subsequent purchases. These changes are intended to simplify the program and to generate profitable incremental retail sales.

We monitor the percentage of store sales that are paid for using REDcards (REDcard Penetration), because our internal analysis has indicated that a meaningful portion of the incremental purchases on our REDcards are also incremental sales for Target, with the remainder of the incremental purchases on the REDcards representing a shift in tender type.

Note a) on Pg 17

Loyalty Program discounts are recorded as reductions to sales in our Retail Segment. Effective with the October 2010 nationwide launch of our new 5% REDcard rewards loyalty program, we changed the formula under which our Credit Card segment reimburses our Retail Segment to better align with the attributes of the new program. In the three months and nine months ended October 30, 2010, these reimbursed amounts were $26 million and $60 million, respectively, compared with $19 million and $59 million in the corresponding periods in 2009. In all periods these amounts were recorded as reductions to SG&A expenses within the Retail Segment and increases to operations and marketing expenses within the Credit Card Segment.

Congrats to Target on a great launch. Already we see some of their strategic plans to refocus the across the board 5% incentive to something more “targeted” (pardon the pun). As reported in Mashable, ShopKick is being trialed in 242 stores.  I would hope Target looks to white label this to make it their own service, unless they have an equity piece to incent them to build ShopKick’s network. Issue here is that they checkout process is still rather complex. The great thing about ShopKick is that it is focused on keeping foot traffic in the store when a prospective buyer finds a lower price somewhere else, shopKick can help generate a specialized offer to keep them. This works well for big ticked items, but for more than 1-3 items it will be a nightmare as the POS integration is not there.

Is this the beginning of more store cards? What is the “tipping point” which makes this model attractive to other retailers? Will customers take one more piece of plastic in their wallet? Can Target sustain this level of rewards, or will they look to target incentives after critical mass of acquisition? Will merchant acquirers and processors respond with new services?

The competitive barriers are high, as bank licenses and card teams are not formed overnight.  How would I leapfrog Target? First tell me where I go to buy a Flux Capacitor?

Decoupled Debit

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8 November 2010

Winston Churchill may have been referring to Payment systems in the US when he said:

It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma

The macro economic impacts of the recent US card legislation portend substantial business change for Visa and Mastercard. The US debit card market is soon to resemble Australia and Canada with other countries soon to follow (See China and India). Retail Payments over the next 20 years are likely to morph substantially from their current issuer/network dominance. In addition to regulatory changes, new technologies and new value networks are creating a new competitive dynamic which will bring more than $5-10B in capital investment into the payments within the next 2-3 years.

My wife’s visit to Target this week prompted a revisit to the decoupled debit space. Target’s value proposition: hand me your check and sign a release form, you will then receive a RedCard linked to your checking account and good for 5% off all future purchases. Will we see more of this type of value proposition (which Durbin enables through its steering provision)?

From TSYS

Decoupled debit is interesting for several reasons:

  1. The issuer is not required to be a bank in order to offer an account and issue a card
  2. The products can exist as private label products or co-branded products
  3. The products can potentially build significant loyalty
  4. The products reduce costs when delivered and managed correctly
  5. The products leverage the existing payments infrastructure and standards

Retail Business Case

Retailers have a different mindset when it comes to alternative or decoupled products because they are stakeholders in the product, not just the transaction. They look at the product as a way to help them:

  • Reduce cost of payments
  • Build loyalty
  • Offer merchant-designed promotions
  • Drive more store sales
  • Segment and target customer groups
  • Leverage ‘spend information’

For those outside the US I recommend reading:

Debit Card in Peril?

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27 October 2010

The biggest story of the week has largely gone unreported. Bank of America (BAC) has taken a $10.3B goodwill impairment charge in 3Q.

The Merchant Payments Coalition responded to the impairment charge (reference above)

“With a Federal Reserve decision on debit interchange rates not expected until mid-2011, today’s claims by Bank of America dramatically overstate reality and represent a feeble attempt to divert attention from its mortgage foreclosure problems,” said Doug Kantor, counsel to the Merchants Payments Coalition.

In the 8-K, Bank of America said it plans to take (ref The Street)

 “a number of actions that would mitigate some of the impact when the laws and regulations become effective,” but it didn’t provide details about what those actions might be.

Will write more later, but I can assure you BAC is looking for debit alternatives. Given their size, most anticipate a new product driven from both their retail and global card team (including merchant services). So in addition to AT&T/Discover, we will now have another major bank led team developing a new payment product with a multi billion dollar incentive.

What does this mean for MA and Visa? Not good news for US growth.

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