Adios 3DS “Step up”.. Hello FIDO2

Short Blog

There are significant changes brewing in eCommerce authentication and authorization. Today’s blog is more of a headline summary of key points that I hope to break down over Thanksgiving. 

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Why are US Banks Building a Wallet?

This week, I outlined several of the friction points in the US card payment network in US Payments Where to Invest. Today let me try to articulate a few reasons why US banks are attempting to build a new eCommerce Wallet (Paze) as well as some additional merchant commentary on their efforts. 

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MRC Learnings – September 2023

Merchant Learnings

This week I was invited to speak at the Merchant Risk Council’s (MRC) – Santa Clara event. As a former banker, I never gave much throught to retailers. Fraud was something I worked to manage with Account Opening/KYC as a core focus because of the potential for regulatory hot water and NCLs as #2 because it drove reserves, profitability and investor scrutiny. Card transaction fraud was something we worked to keep under a threshold. 

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DOJ Probe – Network Tokenization – 2023

It’s hard to believe I’ve been writing about payment tokenization for 11 yrs. Tokenization is an overloaded term with multiple definitions. Last week McKinsey wrote a fantastic article on crypto tokenization, this note is about the tokenization of card numbers (PAN to DPAN) performed by network tokenization services like Visa Tokenization Service (VTS) and Mastercard Digital Enablement Service (MDES). 

This week the US DOJ opened a probe into network tokenization services (Bloomberg). The specifics of the probe are not known

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Short Blog – US Paze and RTP – Consumer Terms

New consumer terms rolled out at several banks this week. As the former head of online and payment services at Wachvoai (40%+ of Wells) I had managed these agreements. Changes are a very big deal, usually less than once per year. Given my history with Wachovia I chose to review the Wells Fargo below agreement (JPM, BAC, and COF all have similar).

https://www.wellsfargo.com/online-banking/online-access-agreement/

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Paze Update – 4 Elements of the PAZE Wallet (70% confidence)

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Over the last 5 yrs I’ve written 9 blogs on PAZE/SRC, and over 20 on the TCH’s 13 yr effort to own mobile payments. Today is my update and latest best guess at what they are building. This is a 70% confidence guess based upon my discussions with Merchants, Early Warning alumni, former bank execs, and previous releases (ex Authentify). 

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Identity Driving Payments

Great article in today’s MRC Journal Moving identity authentication earlier in customer flow/

Short Blog. Summary. US issuers are creeping into identity and eCom data as they seek to build a non-network auth. The only model which will work is where networks are the enablers of identity. From a payments perspective, there are only 2 options for owners of identity and authorization 1) V/MA or 2) Apple/Google.

I was fortunate to go to MRC-Vegas this year. Whereas M2020 is filled with Issuers/Fintechs/Investors MRC is filled with payment operators (merchants), and the companies supporting them (ie Visa/Cybersource, Stripe, Adyen, …). 

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