Tap to Pay – Growing the Network – $700B GDV Opportunity

~$700B GDV opportunity for breakout volume growth as the network could “double” in scale as every cardholder could become a “merchant” in 20-30 min. 

This month was a first! During my 25 yrs in payments, I could accept a card payment (in person) with no additional hardware. Enrolling as a Square merchant took only 30 min and I was then live with Apple Tap and Pay. A fantastic experience! (see Square). This is a tremendous “team effort” by Visa (VAS), Apple (See Mobeewave blog) and Square (as PayFac). 

Continue reading

FedNow Hurdles and Opportunities

Short Blog – Follow Up to Last Week’s FedNow Update 

I’ve got 4 blogs in queue with Part 5 – Future of Retail Banking coming next week. I’ve been asked to expand beyond my pro-network bent into areas like FedNow, PayPal, Stripe and Asia… etc and I will oblige. For today, drilling down on FedNow’s opportunity and the key barriers for “break out growth” (expanding on the last 2 bullets within 22 Feb FedNow blog).  Feedback appreciated.

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

Innovation in Networks – Part 4

The Strategic Innovation Era

© 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.

This blog has been sitting at 80% for almost 3 months. Sorry for the delay. This was a 30 page blog that I slimmed down to 16. Thus the long summary section. This blog is focused on networks and their ability to: 1) internally charter their own evolution, 2) grow network of supporting stakeholders, 3) stimulate network growth, and 4) encourage investment/innovation. Why read this? Payment innovation is set to grow Global GDV by 50% (above baseline) over the next 5-7 yrs. Today’s blog is a basis for this hypothesis.

A very long blog with 3 page summary below

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

Google/FedNow + Banks Hire New Network CEO

© 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.

September 7

This blog is dated so I removed most of the content. Key Updates – 21 Jan 2023

  1. Banks gave up on their own AUthentify Wallet launch and jumped on board a “white label” SRC wallet led by Visa (See 23Jan2023 WSJ)
  2. Banks have been working on mobile payments for 13 years through TCH (see blog).
  3. Inital pitch was at Money 2020, big retailers didn’t bite (see blog)
  4. The wallet is not owned by EWS, but a new payment network led by James Anderson. The ownership of this new network is the same at EWS (see blog below).
  5. Competitor is Apple.. the banks want to own the mobile payment experience. Google is working with the TCH banks and is also working with FedNow (long blog coming on this one)
  6. TCH RTP effort focus has move to commercial flows and bill payment.. Forbes Article on Launch of Pay by Bank using TCH. Google’s role seems to be limited to hosting servers in the Google Cloud. This was NOT the big announcement I thought was coming. It looks like the TCH tokens in Google Wallet are actually “network tokens” with token vault as TCH
  7. Apple is not involved in any of these activities, yet Google is working to pilot both FedNow and TCH RTP to leverage their India UPI success.
  8. The banks have just hired James Anderson as CEO of a new banking consortium where the assets of TCH, Akoya and Early Warning line up. This CEO will be tasked with creating a new network to “compete with ApplePay” as the premier mobile payment platform.

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

TCH Tokens in eCom SRC Model

Part 1 – Current US Routing Rules

© 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.

UPDATE – Nov 29 2022 – Note that I have conflated the relationship between SRC and 3DS 2.0. 3DS 2.0 is the authentication protocol used by SRC. 3DS 2.0 has been widely adopted as a mandatory replacement to 3DS 1.0. Part of the driver for adoption was the EU SCA mandate. SRC has NOT been widely adopted as it is a fairly broken consumer experience at the moment. 

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

Google Wallet Re-Launch

Last week we saw a major relaunch of Google Wallet at Google I/O. See

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

eCom Innovation Success – Shop Pay

Short blog as follow up to yesterday’s blog on Acceptance Hurdles in eCommerce. Successful innovation requires a great new customer experience and/or economic model. The most recent success in the US is Shopify’s Shop Pay.

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

Google Plex – On Track Pivot

I was quite surprised to see the front page of my Saturday WSJ emblazoned withGoogle Is Scrapping Its Plan to Offer Bank Accounts to Users.  As the former guy responsible for Citi’s online banks globally, and also a guy working in creation of the original Google Pay (as consultant), I thought I would provide some much needed clarity here (consistent w/ blog Google’s Bank Plans and the 20 others I’ve written on Google Pay over the last decade). 

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us

Google’s “Bank” Plans

Summary – Google is not becoming a bank, but rather enabling:

  1. New integrated tools that will provide the BEST mobile bank experience
  2. Instant account opening
  3. Consumer incentives that will unlock the power of data (w/ consumer’s consent)
  4. New predictive analytics, recommendations, alerts, reminders, coupons, offers and engagement

Public PR

Over last 6 months or so we have seen several Press Releases relating to Google’s bank partnerships:

“We had confirmed earlier that we are exploring how we can partner with banks and credit unions in the U.S. to offer digital bank accounts through Google Pay, helping their customers benefit from useful insights and budgeting tools, while keeping their money in an FDIC or NCUA-insured account,” stated the release.

Smart, according to Google, because it will provide its checking accountholders with money management tips to optimize and manage the funds in those accounts – funds linked to payments and identity credentials that consumers can use to buy things, pay bills and send money to others in and outside the Google ecosystem.

You need to be logged in to view the rest of the content. Please . Not a Member? Join Us