The Directory Battle PART 1 – Battle of the Cloud

11 May 2012

This week we had both Finnovate and CTIA going on, and behind the scenes the battle lines are being formed in a forthcoming “BATTLE OF THE CLOUD” wallet. I didn’t include wallet in the quote because Battle of the Cloud sounds so much more ominous. Perhaps I should take a page from George Lucas’ playbook and start with Chapter 4.

I’ve been talking about the directory battle for some time now (see Clearxchange post).  Who keeps the directory of consumer information? As I outlined in Digital Wallet Strategies: “ securing information AND giving Consumers the exclusive ability to control what is shared with whom is a challenge (beyond technology and trust). We thus have many limited “Wallets” that are constructed around specific purposes”.

This week we had Visa’s President tell the CTIA audience that Visa has moved beyond NFC to V.me (see my previous post on Visa Wallet). What is really going on? What is the battle of the cloud?

Square, Visa, Google, PayPal, Apple, Banks, … have recognized the absurdity of storing your payment instruments in multiple locations. All of us understand the online implications, Amazon’s One Click makes everything so easy for us when you don’t have to enter your payment and ship to information. (V.me is centered around this online experience). Paypal does the same thing on eBay, Apple on iTunes, Rakutan , …etc.   But what few understand is the implication for the physical payment world. This is what I was attempting to highlight with PayPal’s new plastic rolled out last week (see PayPal blog, and Target RedCard). If all of your payment information is stored in the cloud, then all that is needed at the POS is authentication of identity (see blog). Remember US  online commerce is $170B/yr, physical commerce is $2.37T (not including FS, Travel/Entertainment).

The implications for cloud based payment at the POS are significant because the entity which leads THE DIRECTORY will have a significant consumer advantage, and will therefore also lead the breakdown of existing networks and subsequent growth of new “specialized” entities. For example, I firmly believe new entities will develop that shift “payment” revenue from merchant borne interchange to incentives (new digital coupons).  Another example is Paypal’s ability to selectively assume settlement risk on some transactions as they route through low cost ACH, or even allow customers to use BillMeLater to selectively convert certain purchase to loans AFTER THE FACT.  In these 2 examples, traditional payments revenue will be significantly disrupted by: lower cost transactions, competitive credit terms (each purchase), and incentives tied to payment type.

But do consumers really want to store all of their information in one place? With one entity given the ability to see all of your spend? For an mCommerce transaction, there is nothing I hate more than having to type in my name, address and card number in that tiny little screen.  Most of these mCommerce solutions (like V.me) are little more than an “autofill” where the merchant checkout page leverages API integration to the cloud service to retrieve user information (see diagram here). If I’m on my phone, my carrier already knows who I am, so seems fairly logical for them to help me with the autofill. This is a reason I’m now a big fan of Payfone. I could also see why it makes sense for Apple and Google. But why Visa? Does it make any sense at all for Visa to hold my Amex card?  Oh.. let me cast a few more stones on ISIS/NFC.. that payment instrument that locked in your phone.. yeah it can’t be used for the online purchase. Perhaps someday someone will write a secure NFC mobile browser plug in to extract data from the SE.. but that opens up a whole new can of worms.

Today’s online merchants are getting a very small taste of the war as they are asked to integrate auto-fill plug ins (Paypal, V.me/CYBS, Payfone, Google, soon to be Apple). Merchants should get on board with all of them, as they do represent a tremendous improvement in customer experience, and you may be able to squeeze some free marketing/implementation money from each of them. However, the cloud battle at the physical POS is still a few years off, as existing card products have a substantial advantage in risk modeling/fraud. This is where Square is taking a lead, as it has the best consumer experience hands down. Low volume merchants really should assess whether they need a specialized POS system, as the parameters for selecting one have shifted from ISO/Processor/Cost/Acct Recon/Book Keeping to Sales, incentives and customer experience.

Battle starts in mCommerce/eCommerce

My guess on timing of V.me is driven by knowledge of Apple’s impending plans to “extend” its iTunes account to payment outside of the Apple ecosystem. Visa sees this network risk and is in an all out war to protect its network, by leveraging its CYBS asset online. The banks have worked on a directory concept for quite some time. The Clearing House (TCH) built a working system called UPICK to solve the problem of consumers giving their RTN/ACCT# out in the open.. assigning a virtual number to the account. A sort of “virtual account number” that could only be translated by TCH.  It never took off, because ACH fraud was low and banks were much more excited about having merchants accept cards as payment.

Retailers are not silent participants to this war.. their champions are Target, Tesco, Amazon, and Rakutan. I hope Amazon will finally dust the plans off of One Click expansion. Other retailers are also aligning to assess creation of shared cloud infrastructure.  Sorry I can’t comment more. Similarly MNOs are also in the cloud game, for example Payfone may be one of the best services in the market..

Who are the players in the Cloud [Payments] War?

The initial battle will be in mobile/online purchases.

  • Banks: V.me, Mastercard,
  • Platforms: Apple, Google, PayPal
  • Retailers: Amazon, Rakutan,
  • MNOs: Payfone, Boku, payforit, billtomobile, …

Most confusing is that there are few alliances.. it is many against many.

http://tomnoyes.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/apples-commerce-future-square/

Google/TXVIA

3 April 2012

http://googlecommerce.blogspot.com/2012/04/google-acquires-txvia.html

Congrats to Google and the TXVIA team. Given that Google is a  client of mine I’m not going to comment on anything specific here.. but clearly this deal significantly expands the reach of Google at the POS. No longer will Google Wallet be dependent on a few thousand NFC phones in market.

The primary reason for my post is that a senior retail executive just rang me to tell me they are concerned about Google’s wallet and card strategy. It seems I was incorrect in dismissing the WSJ article on a Retailer Wallet. There is MUCH more structure here than I realized, and it is not just wallet that the retailers are contemplating.. but ownership of a new payment/incentive network. I would laugh if I didn’t want to cry..

  • Banks are working to form “the next Visa” because they don’t trust the one in market today
  • Retailers are forming their own payment network
  • Banks are worried that Google will be the next PayPal, or Visa
  • Retailers are concerned about Google killing their customer relationship
  • Mobile operators what to own payments.. err… that was last week sorry… now they want to own marketing
  • Retailers are refusing to adopt NFC because everything is a card transaction…
  • …etc. I could go on.. but the chaos just continues

Retailers, I admit I am VERY biased toward Google. The issue in market perception is: through Google’s effort to be a neutral platform for consumers, banks, operators, retailers, … they appear friendly to the competition. For example, they have no desire to be a Bank.. or to be a Paypal.. but if Banks don’t allow for efficient payments (consumers and retailers) they must deliver an alternative.  Google wants to “enable” .. which can mean not picking winners.. but letting the marketplace select them (principle example is Card Linked Offers). This approach is embedded in to Google’s culture of billiant engineers running with a  great idea, and letting the market determine if it will work. Apple on the other hand engineers great customer experiences.. In a very, very controlled fashion. How many “partners” has Apple enabled? How many non-Apple businesses benefit from Apple’s platform? How many other brands does Apple support?

Google has no desire to take over retail.. they want to create fantastic consumer shopping experiences. Yes that means Google’s customers are the same as a Retailer’s customers.. and consumers will use a generic andriod shopping app vs. one your IT team built..

The paranoia is just contagious.. billions of dollars are being wasted because few know how to partner…  In Google’s efforts to be “neutral” they appear to be friendly to all. To retailers they are “too bank friendly”, to banks they are “trying to be a payment network”, to consumers “they are tracking everything I do”..

TXVIA will be a major turning point for Google in payments. This new platform will enable them to support their internal marketplaces in new ways, and give retailers new tools to deliver incentives on their brand. In the Google Press Release, they mentioned TXVIA support for 100M cards. Take a guess how many of these cards have a TXVIA brand on them? NONE..  It is a company that provides a platform to support many business models (like Blackhawk). If Google continues this approach they will win big.  Note, if they do develop a “Google Card”.. it may just be a pilot.. they are not taking over the world with their own plastic.

My top market question is: “what will Blackhawk do now that Google owns your card platform”? TXVIA is the best pre-paid software platform in the market.. hands down.

MasterCard follows Visa’s lead on EMV Push

31 January 2012

http://www.mastercard.us/mchip-emv.html

Yesterday MA followed lead and announced plans to support US rollout of EMV. Many of you are probably wondering what this all means in light of mandates and deadlines. The politics and business drivers behind this push are quite complex, but it is important to note that neither large US issuers nor retailers are enthused about this push for one primary reason: there is no business case for the change (on either side). Historically, networks do not change without sound financial incentives ( or there is some sort of regulatory mandate).

A Bank makes money by managing risk. Within the payments space large banks have invested billions of dollars in custom fraud infrastructure. The effect (if not the goal) of bank investment in custom fraud infrastructure is to push fraud into the weakest link (or bank) in the network. Smaller banks must seek partners like FIS, FirstData and the Networks to help them keep up. The EMV standard is used by card issuers in just about every market globally, except the US. EMV is effective in addressing certain kinds of fraud such as counterfeit and skimming. Within an EMV environment, international issuers and acquires thus could relax in maintaining related fraud controls IF cards existing in an EMV only environment.  However international travelers to the US and US travelers abroad lead to fraud “leakage”. US issuers did not suffer, due to their fraud infrastructure, but the other banks have.

Thus the “true” benefits of EMV cannot occur until there is 100% adoption at POS (10M in US), complete elimination of the mag stripe in the plastic that we all carry (approximately 1.5 billion in US). This is the conundrum facing any new technology here:  New Plastic must completely replace the old. In other words there is no “Incremental” fraud savings to an incremental rollout, nor is there a business case for either issuer or retailer to implement. Take this on top of the fact the EMV is 20 year old technology and we have a very challenging environment.

What are the benefits in retail? Both Visa and MA have established a carrot and stick approach. Given only the issuer can reduce interchange, the carrot is reduced PCI compliance costs and some terminal subsidy. The stick is a liability shift for to the merchant  if a consumer presents an EMV capable card and the merchant terminal does not accept it.  Given that the big issuers have no plans to reissue cards, the merchant risk is fraudulent EMV cards (starting in Oct 2015 for Visa). Perhaps if retailers see an EMV card, they should request an ID.  For issuers, the compliance dates are longer and the stick which Visa and MA have constructed is weaker given that US issuers already bear costs of card present fraud.

So what are Visa and Mastercard trying to accomplish? From a political standpoint they must address the international issuer concerns and be viewed as supportive of the EMV standard. But more importantly Visa and MA want to cement their control of the network, particularly in two areas: mobile and US debit cards. In mobile, Visa and Mastercard are aggressively trying to make mobile POS payments a “premium” service used exclusively by credit cards. A key to success in mobile is POS readiness to support contactless payment. The EMV mandate certainly helps provide another incentive to merchants. With respect to the Debit, the Durbin Amendment has impacted the incentives for US banks to continue support of Signature Debit. In the US, PIN Debit enjoys a slightly higher growth rate (15.6% vs 14.3%), consumer preference (48% vs 34%), lower fraud rate (2009: Signature $1.12B, $181M PIN debit card),  and obvious merchant preferences (96% of PIN fraud losses assumed by issuers, vs 56% in Signature). PIN debit transactions do not need to be routed through Visa and MA, and PIN only cards do not require their logo. EMV debit cards may be a tool for Visa to maintain a US debit business (MA US debit penetration is low).

What to expect?

Note that in virtually every geography, EMV was a regulatory driven initiative. In the US this is not the case, as the large banks have proven capable of managing fraud. Large issuers are thus reluctant to undertake any mass reissuance of cards, and US regulators are reluctant to have US Banks pay for a system that will primarily benefit issuers outside of the US. My guess is that we will start to see a trickle of new cards being issued on EMV starting in 2014 or so.

Retailers will have a similar adoption dynamic as they assess cards being used at their stores, and what future payment networks may offer not only in terms of compliance and interchange, but also in delivering customers through incentives and advertising.  I’m certain that the retail “first movers” in NFC must be pulling their hair out as they discover that their new NFC payment terminals are not equipped to accept the mandated EMV card. These retail CEOs will discover that the “stutter” in reterminalization was intentional and it will be a cost they will bear twice in 2 years.

In this dynamic environment, there will be high demand for companies that can help retailers develop a plan and navigate this chaotic environment. Oddly enough, start ups like Square and Payfone may have a tremendous advantage in simplifying the checkout process. In other words, EMV could actually provide the impetus for new payment networks to gain a foothold.

Cross Border Cards

Cross Border Card Transactions

17 January 2012

International transaction revenues are now 17% of Visa’s earnings (similar to MA). I try to have a cursory knowledge of payments.. but have to admit the dark world of cross border and network rates were a significant blind spot. Thanks to those folks who walked me through it. The information generally available is very poor. Don’t get your hopes up.. I’m sure this blog is equally as poor..  with perhaps a few new pieces of data.

My guess is that cross border remains a mystery because neither banks nor retailers want you to know who you are paying and how much you are being taken for. Cross border represents a tremendous area for growth and profitability… it is low hanging fruit.. Let me see if I can describe the fee dynamics. Note there are many, many variations here. I some geographies the government mandates exchange rates.. in others DCC… Not to worry.. the banks make a very nice margin in all scenarios.

Let’s take a look at 2 scenarios for a 100 EU hotel room bill, one using DCC and another without (My conversion rate of 1USD= 1.5 EU is a little off).

DCC is a mechanism developed by acquirers to earn FX… giving merchants an incentive to change POS by splitting revenue with them, thereby decreasing their cost (net interchange). With DCC adoption, issuers and Visa were faced by the loss of FX revenue, sometime around 2005 Visa instituted a new cross border fee of 1% (paid by Issuers). Issuers subsequently mark up this 1% fee with their own (see this WSJ article).

Network rules mandate that all cross border transactions go through V/MA. This drives the big banks like Citi crazy as they have banking licenses and consumer BINs in almost every country.. but still must pay Visa freight for settling cross border transactions AND let Visa manage the FX (in most countries). Given the margins here.. there is much room for global prepaid travel cards.  This was a driver behind Mastercard’s $459M purchase of Travelex Pre-paid business in Dec 2010.

I’m starting to see quite a bit of interest in this space as the big banks ramp up their presence in pre-paid. For global businesses.. there is a solid case to be made for issuing pre-paid cards to employees that regularly travel. See my consumer value proposition below. In full disclosure I’m a board member of hyperWALLET.. and I like them quite a bit (always a good thing for a BOD member).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_currency_conversion

Debit Fees – Newton’s third law in banking

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

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

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

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”

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

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.