Visa Launches Visa+ with PayPal as Anchor

Short Blog

https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseId.19621.html

Today Visa announced a major expansion of Visa Direct called Visa +, with PayPal as the anchor launch partner. “help individuals move money quickly and securely between different person-to-person (P2P) digital payment apps” without requiring the recipient to have a Visa card.

Visa+ expands Visa’s role as the meta-directory of payments connecting consumers, wallets and accounts with a master “payname”. If I were to write the marketing one-liner for Visa+ it would be “pay people in the way they want to be paid”

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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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Apple Launches Pay Later

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/03/apple-introduces-apple-pay-later/

Apple Pay Later was announced at Apple’s WWDC on June 6, 2022  (Youtube – ~21:00 in). I covered the details last year in Apple Pay Later – What is it? 

Today it is going live in a limited rollout. Summary points

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Payment Authorization – Under The Hood

Retailers should tread very carefully in direct issuer connections

My focus over the last 18 months has been identity, trust, authorization and assertions. Today I thought we would get under the hood a little on the technology of authorization and the current operational issues with a key network service: 3DS. 

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MRC Recap – Looking up – A Retailers Perspective On Payments

I’m glad I made the decision to attend my very first Merchant Risk Council event this week. For those that don’t know, MRC Vegas is the second largest payment event in the US (after M2020) but with a VERY different focus. MRC is attended by the “hands on” payment leaders from all the top merchants and the vendors that serve them: Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, V, MA, risk, fraud,  …. Etc. Whereas M2020 is attended by FinTech, Crypto, Venture, Institutional investor, and strategy audiences, MRC is much more focused on making payments work

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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). 

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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.

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FedNow Update – Short Blog

My last blog on topic was less than a month ago Real Time Payments in US – Strategic Shifts (Jan 2023), and also FedNow (Dec 2021). Will thus keep this blog to summary bullets. 

  • FedNow launching this summer with almost 100% of US merchant focused banks participating. At launch, both credit and debit ( Request for Payment -RfP) transactions will be supported.
  • Great summary interview last week from FRB’s Mark Gould
  • Back in 2013, the Fed requested comments on a real-time payment system. In general, consumers don’t seek to pay their bills faster, nor do consumers have issues in receiving their payroll deposits late. The card environment works very well, particularly for debit. Emergency bill payment has been the only well-defined consumer need for speed (see Starpoint’s 2013 response to Fed). 

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Identity, Authentication and Risk

Bridging Domains – Short Blog – Random Thoughts

This is a “Random Thoughts” blog, which means there are many points that I’ve left hanging (not finished cleanly). The blog’s objective is to stimulate discussion, so please don’t hesitate to comment.  Identity is a hot topic for me with 15+ years of previous bosts. Here are a few updates … as well as my evolving perspective. 

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