Future Scenario – Impact of “Perfect” Authentication

A follow-up to my previous post covering Identity, Authentication and Risk

FIDO2, eID, Mobile Wallets, and other initiatives are rapidly advancing to a future of passwordless authentication. “Perfect Authentication” will be highly disruptive to all payment networks, methods and stakeholders. This blog outlines the rough economic impact, winners and losers in a future scenario. Today’s blog is not a dissertation but a “framework” providing puts and takes on disruption due to better authentication. 

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Payments and Identity – UPI continues to lead the world

Short 4 page blog

I’ve written heavily on payments, trust networks and identity. Today I’m providing an example of how UPI, powered by UIDAI’s centralized identity,  is creating a new cannon for next-generation payment networks and trust.

I believe that mobile platforms are well placed to learn their lessons in India and create a new phone based network agnostic identity platform that will drive a significant change to payments, the internet and how we manage trust with counterparties.

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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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Payments and the Observer Effect

Most of you techie’s out there had a physics class at some point and can recall the Observer Effect in Quantum Physics: the act of observation can change the measured results. Observation in payments has become the second largest driver of margin and has enabled many new specialists…. so I thought I’d outline some broad thoughts and tell a few stories. 

Why is observation important? Payment behavior is truth marked data of what a consumer actually did (offline). While I may search for Ferrari’s, or visit dealership (mobile location) what I actually bought is much more important in predicting behavior and evaluating risk.  Purchase data is the most valuable data for that reason (and issuing banks had a lock on it.. Until about 5 yrs ago). The lock has been broken and payment data has become the “missing link” to unite heterogeneous data sets. 

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