Tag Archives: payments

Random Thoughts – Modularity and Trust

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Trust in a transaction. In another one of my favorite books  (Design Rules: modularity) there exists the concept of trust between physical components of an integrated system. This book stands in contrast to Nobel Economists’ work in defining the “Firm” and organizational boundaries in Transaction Cost Economics (TCE). But the technical theory of modularity is amazingly consistent with the concepts of “boundaries” in TCE. In modularity, there are 4 core rules for separating technical components:

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Part 2 – The Power of Bank Networks

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The Bull Case for V/MA (24 pages). 

© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.

Part 1 – US Payments Environment covered the complexity of the US payment environment and the challenges faced by top banks in modernizing their systems (where all systems live forever). There are many types of payments: bill payments, A2A, P2P, wires.. Today the focus is on how banks intermediate commerce. Banks MUST have networks as every bank can’t connect to every consumer/merchant. Effective Bank networks (aka rails) are NOT a commodity service, but one that allows the banks to leverage their unique ability to assume risk.

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Part 1 – US Payments Environment

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Assessing the Environment and Setting the Focus  (part 2  – Power of Bank Networks)

© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner. Please do not share unless you hold an enterprise license.

Must read FT article “How JPMC’s plan to kill credit cards split the bank”. The article discusses Jamie Dimon’s internal mandate to drive a new payment network. I was shocked with the level of internal org quotes here.  In my view, Jamie is the best bank CEOs in history (based on performance and talent coming out of JPMC). As a former banker, I know how hard it is to move the ship.  However, FT is wrong. Chase’s efforts ARE NOT about killing credit cards, but rather creating something much bigger.

This is a long blog..

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Trust Assertions – Identity Will Define the Future of Payment Networks

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©Thomas Noyes, May 2022

My blogs last week have me thinking about the changes going around in Identity. This will be a long blog. Typo warning.. I’m still revising. 

The number one thing I look for in payments is change: volume, technology, behavior, data, …etc. Effective networks are notoriously hard to change, but they are also very resilient (see blog). Small changes in data flows, can lead to significant changes in margin and “control”.  Margin and control guide both public and private investment (see Evolution of Visa and Mastercard Beyond Payments). 

Identity is our most important asset — it’s literally who we are. 

Our complete “identity” is known to no one, as each entity we interact with has a partial view of us based upon what we chose to give them and what they observe. How others accept and validate our identity, and how others share insight about us, is the core of payments (see Trust Networks and Authentication in Value Nets). The structure, exchange, and assertions associated with identity are defining: web3, DeFi, Crypto, CBDCs and the Metaverse. These are not separate silos, but rather overlapping ecosystems that must interact, thus the importance of bridging identity across networks/domains (see Blog – Trust is domain specific). 

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DeFi, CBDCs and Web 3.0

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My perspective has been evolving as I work to build out infrastructure for “when Crypto grows up” in my new Company. I’m pleased to report that Accept Payments (acc3pt.com) went live this month and is expanding our private rollout as we fine tune all of the CX. Thought for the day… Its about trust.. 

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A2A, Fed Now and Real Time – Threat to V/MA? Nope.

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Sorry for typos

My good friend Dave Birch wrote a piece in Forbes today on Account to Account transfer threat to V/MA. I wanted to provide an alternate view. This will likely be a multi part blog.. today I’m starting with the consumer and the merchant (from a US perspective). 

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Plaid and Pay By Bank

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As I sit down with my coffee this morning I’m asking myself what are the key questions to answer:

  1. What is the Plaid service? What innovation have they created?
  2. Is it a threat to V/MA?
  3. What merchants/Consumers will use it?
  4. What do banks think of this? Can they stop it?

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Payments and the Observer Effect

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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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Walmart – Banking and FinTech

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As always pardon the typos

It seems like only yesterday that 30 members of Congress wrote the acting chairman of the FDIC to stop Walmart Bank.

“Wal-Mart’s plan, to have its bank process hundreds of billions in transactions for its own stores, could threaten the stability of the nation’s payments system,”

30 Members of US Congress, March 2006

Of course, we all know that Walmart pursued a different course to deliver services. Partnerships (MGI, Moneygram, Paypal, …) and banking in a box (literally an isle with prepaid cards). Most analysts discount or “write off” Walmart’s achievements in financial services.  Given Walmart doesn’t break out financial performance of Money Center, analysts are left with the tea leaves of MGI and GDOT reports. There is little doubt that comparing Money Center financial metrics to tier 1 banks would leave most unimpressed. However, Walmart has created a portfolio of banking services that supports their overall retail strategy and creates overwhelming loyalty amongst their core customer base.  

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