Tag Archives: Affirm

Apple Wallet “2.0” in iOS18 – What’s In It?

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Winners: Consumers, Merchants, Banks, Networks and Affirm

Losers: Branded PayPal and Venmo

Apple’s WWDC is on Day 2. Today we will see significant enhancements to ApplePay and Wallet in forthcoming iOS18 (to be released this fall). Here are the highlights in order of impact. 

1 – ApplePay in eCom

ApplePay will be supported in every browser. This will be a game changer and dramatically increase payment volume flowing through Apple wallet (and their platform). Just last week, the WSJ published a great piece on why retailers hate that consumers make large purchases on their computers. Apple will expand ApplePay to support all browsers AND provide a major upgrade in experience, security and fraud. 

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Visa Expands the Pipe

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Flexible Credentials

© Starpoint LLP, 2024. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced or retransmitted, in whole or in part, in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.

Background

Visa’s network is the largest commercial network in the world, moving over $15T in volume over 4.3B cards in over 200 countries. Visa’s core is called VisaNet, a real-time messaging network between banks. They don’t move money but send instructions to and from banks, merchants, consumers and other approved third parties. The banks move the money, primarily through net settlement on ACH.  The beauty behind Visa’s network is its operating model, which allows thousands of partners to invest billions of dollars. To defeat Visa, you not only have to create a better network, but you must also create a better economic model for EVERYONE to switch, AND overcome the combined investment of all current stakeholders. This is why SEPA failed (see Power of Bank Networks). 

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BNPL Travel Example – Short Blog

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Short blog today on an example BNPL opportunity and the differences between a consumer BNPL solution like Apple Pay Later and Merchant integrated solutions from providers such as Affirm (or SQ/Afterpay see Three Flavors of BNPL).  Today Air Travel and Vacation packages are the focus.

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Amazon – Affirm

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Key Reading

  1. Affirm 3Q Earnings (last night)
  2. Earning Transcript
  3. Affirm Investor Forum (28 Sept)
  4. Amazon take Venmo (my blog)
  5. Affirm Debit+ (my blog)
  6. Amazon/Visa Battle (my blog)
  7. Amazon Co-Brand is In Play

November is turning out to be a very big week in payments! The top investor question seems to be how will V/MA be impacted? My response.. In next 2 yrs.. Less than 1-2% of US GDV however Affirm is turning out to be the leading company to watch in creating a V/MA alternative.  

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Affirm Debit+ is Revolutionary

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Update 8 November – Original post is below the image.. I had doubted Visa’s support here. But clearly this is a real product.

Affirm Debit+ is a decoupled debit on the Visa network with Evolve Bank as ODFI/Issuer. I doubt if Visa fully vetted this product.. it MUST have “slipped through”. For more info see Affirm’s investor day presentation.

Per my blog last week, my hypothesis is that the new Affirm Debit+ will be revolutionary.. which is why it is currently causing a massive firestorm amongst Banks. Today I want to drill into what I believe the value proposition will be (my hypothesis) and why Visa had to support this. 

Today Affirm is “limited” in growth to the merchants it can directly integrate to. How can they solve this problem?  Create a consumer “pay anyone” product that lets the consumer pick and choose what items they want to finance after they purchase them.  Connect any of your bank accounts or all of them.. Finance anything you buy on improved terms. Affirm will also work with Stripe and others to create an improved checkout process, which will improve both conversion AND consumers ability to purchase (ie underwriting). The first mover advantage will be tremendous and step on much of the Neo Banks (already slim value prop).  

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