Tag Archives: VMT

Monitise/Visa Announcement – P2P transfers?

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http://corporate.visa.com/media-center/press-releases/press1176.jsp

From PR:

… [The Visa] mobile services that allow financial institutions in the US to offer their account holders the ability to monitor account history and balances, transfer funds between accounts

Oh the joys of allowing Visa to push credit transactions on the debit network… if only banks would allow it.  As I outlined in previous blogs below, Visa has no traction with the OCT transaction set in the US. Internationally, the opposite is true as emerging market banks have taken on to OCT (receiving funds via Visa debit network), but will not SEND. .  Visa’s VMT service is thus stuck.. it can’t serve as a remittance service because sending country banks (US/EU) do not participate.  Note from this week’s MA earnings call that Mastercard has partnered with Western Union to address this issue.. a much better approach for cash in.

If you ask Visa for a VMT test account, you are likely to get Bank of the West or some other small bank, with Visa’s promise “it is mandatory and all banks will comply”. It won’t happen.. there are problems with this mandate.. it is after all a debit network (see VMT blog).

What is this announcement.. really??  Visa has put a notification event service on their DPS switch where registered issuers and consumers can receive alerts.. nice of Visa to throw Monitise a bone after they completely messed up their corporate strategy by promising them to make them the “go to market” solution for mobile payments. Monitise is now the “go to” solution for issuers looking for a 3rd party service to check your balance.. or get an alert.

Also… if there were 2 banks that supported VMT I’m sure I could transfer funds with the service as well. Visa… please give us the list of banks that support it.. a demo.. we are all dying to see your progress.

Visa’s Wallet Strategy – Part 2

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,,,

18 July (Updated from 17 June 2011

). Corrected significant error on scope of Visa Wallet. It is much more than an autofill (point 4 below)

Previous Blog: Visa’s mobile portfolio

I’ve been thinking about Visa’s wallet strategy this week. From my last blog (Visa Digital Wallet)

… 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. 

Here are the questions I’m trying to answer:

  • What is their investment thesis?
  • What assets are they trying to leverage and what opportunity do they plan to attack?
  • What is their strategy in attacking the opportunity?
  • How will the banks react/support this strategy?

For those that haven’t read my blogs for 2 years.. let me restate a few points that I’ve made previously:

  • Visa has a very big hole in their earnings with Durbin.. not only will they loose substantial debit revenue.. they could be loosing debit forever… as member banks assess whether signature debit makes sense to continue… and create a centralized bank switch for PIN debit (ala SVPCo or TCH). Merchants and consumers both prefer PIN today. I don’t believe Visa has adequately described this debit driven financial risk to the investment community.
  • Visa is attempting to fill the debit void with new transaction types, services and “cash replacement”. The top 2 prospects are G2P payments (payments by a government to people.. from pensions to welfare) and “mobile payments”.
  • There are 5 classes of mobile payments: 1) mobile initiated bank payments (ex. Monitise, , Cashedge, send your bank a message to transfer funds as in bill pay). 2) mobile commerce payments – digital  (ex iTunes, PayPal, BilltoMobile, Boku, Bango, …), 3) mobile commerce payments – physical goods (ex Square, Amazon, Visa Wallet, PayPal, Bango, ..) 4) Mobile phone as a wallet – Physical device at point of sale (ex, NFC Google Wallet, 5) Mobile Money for Unbanked (MMU) (ex MPesa, GCash).
  • Any initiative above is profitable for Visa only if: it replaces cash/other electronic (ex G2P), drives a transaction into higher margin product (Debit to Credit), increases number of transactions (customer use), or increases use of processing services (ex CYBS). Monitise obviously did none of these.
  • The big issuers are not fans of Visa’s moves in mobile and innovation. Visa is beginning to walk on toes and create “universal services”, many of which overlap with the large issuers have competing plans (alerts, offers, mobile, P2P).
  • Visa’s wallet value proposition (and solution) go something like this: Here is an API for your online banking.. consumer clicks on Visa Wallet and their card(s) get automatically stored in our digital wallet for use at any merchant site.. and a new Visa wallet account is created. Bank, you benefit by increased card transaction fees (use) and enable your customers to pay for digital goods with their Visa card in a one click service that delivers better consumer experience. Issues are that Visa has not signed up any of the top issuers and are also very dependent on PlaySpan’s existing consumer base. Most merchants don’t like the idea of helping out banks.. or Visa.. In order to change consumer behavior, and drive usage, a value proposition is needed.  Are consumers doing digital goods payments today? Yes.. what does Visa do for merchants that BTM, Zynga, PayPal.. and others don’t? Options: 1) Use our CYBS processing, 2) use API only and “form fill” to leverage your existing processor, 3) Liability shift and reduced interchange for attempted VBV use. This last one has not be covered significantly .. may delve into with future blog.
  • Visa is attempting to evolve its debit network from “debit” to bi-directional (see my VMT blog) with the OCT transaction set. This would enable it to compete with ACH and deliver services like P2P with little bank involvement.

What is Visa’s investment Thesis?

My guess is this “ replace the debit hole by leveraging our existing customer footprint into new transaction types, expand card acceptance and create customer stickiness with new products and services that work in every channel”

Assets to Leverage?

  • Consumer account holders. I don’t call them Visa customers because they are not.. they are customers of the issuing bank. If a bank wants to rebrand their portfolio (to Mastercard, Amex, or a new white label) they are no longer Visa card holders.. Visa holds no consumer agreements. … BUT they want to..
  • Payment Network: Acceptance and services (Bank, merchant, consumer).
  • VBV Agreement where liability shift and interchange reduction possible (for ecomm/mcom CNP transactions)

A rather short list. Note that prior to CYBS, Visa held very few merchant agreements… it was the acquiring bank and processor that held the merchant agreement.

Strategy to attack the G2P and Mobile Opportunities?

Visa probably sees the lack of NFC handsets and POS terminals as a deciding factor in delaying any push here. The $600M-$800M in NFC GDV is too small to impact more than 5% of the Durbin hole. I believe they have initiatives lined up against the following business drivers

1. Increase number of transactions (customer use)

  • Increase merchant acceptance locations: Square, CYBS, Visa Wallet
  • Increase Consumer Use: Visa Wallet, Visa Money Transfer, Marketing,

2. Replaces cash/other electronic (ex G2P)

  • Fundamo, Playspan, Visa Wallet, ..

3. Drive transactions into higher margin products (Debit to Credit),

  • ?NFC? It would seem this is a “stage 2” plan.. They first need to get consumer’s using the wallet in high volume/frequent transactions. After they get usage.. they can migrate.. It may even line up with another partner like Apple who isn’t quite ready for NFC anything. Visa actually doesn’t seem to like the idea of a card in the phone wallet.. a wallet they don’t control.. they want the card in a VISA Wallet.. a Visa Cloud wallet that they do control..

4. Increase use of processing services… I not going to touch on this now..

Visa’s wallet strategy is a two pronged approach. Consumers will have accounts “auto created” by their issuing bank (at least the ones that implement the wallet API) and

( Old Content 17 June) all by implementing a simple form fill API where Visa’s wallet pre-populates all of the consumer information and payment items on a merchant’s checkout page.  

New Content (18 July)

Visa is looking to build a consumer footprint to compliment its CYBS online merchant footprint. To be clear, Visa is looking to grow its eCommerce processing business AND create additional lock in (stickiness) with Visa Issuing banks. Visa will first ATTEMPT to roll out this service first with all CYBS merchants… then get additional merchants to either convert to CYBS or at least Add Wallet as an additional payment type. Chase PaymentTech is expected to take a lead roll.

Value proposition to Merchant

– Merchants will be given a fairly attractive option to reduce CNP interchange with 2 Components: Attempted VBV verification (Visa can reduce merchants rates for attempted 3DS verification) and #2 reduced interchange in volume discounts with key partner banks like Chase.

– Processing Package (cost). Expect Visa/CYBS to aggressively price for non-CYBS merchants

– Single Wallet for online, mobile and perhaps even physical goods

Value Proposition for Banks

– Lock in to Visa (I can’t really think of another one)

This is not a bad strategy… IF the world were standing still.. and if Visa had a positive reputation with merchants.  The value proposition here is all built around convenience. It is a good plan.. but merchants have many other options and they know that accepting a new Visa product has always proved to be a Faustian Bargain (aka deal with the Devil).

As a side note, I saw Square’s COO today in a conference. His quote was something like “Square is much more than about swipe.. I wouldn’t have invested if that were the case”. None of us know what this grand plan is.. but obviously it must involve merchants.. and I would hope a better profit margin (from 20-30bps). After he spoke a CEO came up to me and said “the major processors love square (and Chase PaymentTech). Now there is a place for all of the sub prime merchants to migrate toward…  Can Square monetize a base of merchants that were outside of the ISO focus and processor interest? They are not doing it today..  How could they possible morph their value proposition into something with higher margin?  Keith certainly seemed to imply that Square had a merchant incentive/Groupon/foursquare model in mind. A deal of the day only redeemable at a square merchant? Hmm.. seems like a little bit of a stretch.

See related Visa Press Release here (RightCliq)

Clearxchange – Bank Strategy Perspective

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28 May 2011

As I related in last week’s Post, Clearxchange (let’s call it CX) evolved out of the online/mobile payment groups at Wells and BAC.  I also described how bank’s will “Win in Payments” along with a high level view on internal bank dynamics which drive Debit/ACH vs. Credit payments strategy, as well as the fragmentation that is occurring in “unprofitable” payments like ACH, carrier billing and P2P… etc.

Consortiums are not the most nimble of creatures. Banks also have the tendency to follow the lead of the big 3 (BAC, WFC, JPM) in all things retail. BAC/WFC are well positioned to execute in CX, and certainly have a sufficient customer base to make CX work. Their addition of JPM (and associated QuickPay) and the creation of a separate entity also aligns well with getting something done quickly. Developing CX within an existing bank consortitum could have taken much longer than 2 years to get a common bank service built… This “build it and they will come” approach is how many of today’s bank services get their start (visa, interlink/debit/ , clearing house, …).

Unfortunately, CX does not have a sustainable “stand alone” business case. Because it was completed within the channel organizations, business strategy (with the LOBs) was not well coordinated with the other LOBs (exception is JPM, the top bank in payments strategy). I’ve actually made 5 CX payments on launch day already. In BAC, just go to internal transfers and fill out the form on the left (did you receive a transfer). I clicked yes as it did not require an accurate answer in the Ts&Cs..

The service is very solid, but I do wonder what the retail wires group must think. Most bank services today allow for transfers to and from accounts I own at other FSIs (we call this A2A). Now I can transfer money to anyone via mobile with no fee (p2p). What about P2B and impact on Debit? For example, eBay purchase? Or how about at a store? If I can send money to a person with no fee.. what prevents cannibalization of Debit? Because of Durbin making Debit “almost free” is there an incentive to create a new payment network?

My sources tell me that there has been very little planning around CX (outside of JPM) to answer these questions. Not only were people with the big 3 banks scrambling to explain the service internally, their CEOs were getting called by peer banks about why their bank had not been asked to join? While banks are not free from anti-trust concerns.. payments is a network business that requires broad participation. The CX announcement comes at a rather sensitive time for them, as Jamie Dimon chairs The Clearing House meetings, there is little doubt that TCH has also served a forum for coordination on all retail payment “industry matters” like Durbin.  Can you imagine working with JPM, BAC and WFC in TCH meeting on retail debit strategy.. then hearing they have a new service rolled out without your knowledge? Not the most polite thing to do.

It certainly was not Jamie’s fault (my favorite bank CEO by far.. fellow Citi alum).. but rather the poor “payments” coordination within banks. In my previous blog Bank’s Need Payment Councils, I laid out how these bank teams had worked historically. CX is a fantastic idea.. and it could even evolve into a profitable service if banks can improve the way the coordinate internally. This is a CEO level decision.. no one wants to tell the CEO that he needs to create a cross LOB council to coordinate payment strategy.. The Citi approach is much more “get a guy to own it”.. like Wayne at Citi, Vin at Chase, or Steve at WFC. But decisions that impact multiple LOBs are very challenging to coordinate across the organization.. CX is the manifestation of just such a dynamic (better to get something done.. then work in a bank committee that never makes a decision).

I’ve been getting called this week on “what is the CX strategy”? The answer depends on who you talk to. BAC has a number of debit/retail payment initiatives.. and there are certainly overlaps..

–          New Visa Debit with BAMS/First Data

–          Visa Money Transfers (directly competes with CX)

–          CX

–          Internal Payment Warehouse (3 yrs in making)

–          Cashedge (A2A money transfers)

–          Pariter (On we w/ WFC)

–          NFC Credit w/ Visa and Device Fidelity

–          …

If banks have trouble coordinating internally.. the situation certainly does not improv

e when 20+ of them get together to set a strategy. Of course this “least common denominator” is why today’s existing payment network is both rigid and resilient. What the banks really need is a firm “platform” vision for payments that they own. For example, what if I broke payments into 3 broad categories: pay before, pay now, pay later? Having multiple products that compete in these categories is a sign of a good healthy market.. having multiple networks process the payment is NOT (only some of which are bank owned). As a side note, there is little reason to doubt that there will be SUBSTANTIAL consolidation surrounding the 6 major debit networks (Visa, Pulse, Star, NYCE…)

My top idea for CX to drive a little incremental revenue?  2 years ago, Metavante (now FIS) negotiated a PayPal deal that would provide for revenue sharing for eBay merchant payment.. PayPal collects 3%+fees and would share 30-50% with FIS. Why would the banks not want to do this? The original plan had more to do with this happening over bill pay.. but a transfer probably makes more sense.  Either way, the banks should jump on this kind of opportunity. My #2 idea.. well I’m only telling my customer this one.. (my poor attempt at a tickler).

Happy Memorial Day

– Tom

Visa and Cashedge

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16 March (updated 17 March)

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cashedge-and-visa-to-expand-network-offerings-118071239.html

Visa has been chasing after any party with direct links to DDA accounts. This in an attempt to “end run” around poor OCT adoption (see previous blog).  I understand that Obopay is also set to announce support of VMT. What a change from their MasterCard approach!

Visa is getting decent traction in Asia/ME in receiving VMT, problem is that there are no send capabilities, and the majority of banks are telling Visa to “pound sand” with their OCT transaction set mandate (see previous). I was told yesterday that the OCC is looking into both the mandatory nature of Visa’s OCT and the AML controls.

It will be interesting to see how Visa explains the loss of international wire fee revenue to their member banks. Why pay $40 for an international wire when you can use CashEdge to send to Visa, then VMT to send to India/Mexico, …? As I ran Citi’s online properties I can tell you this completely overlaps with my Citi Global Transfer service and I would not be happy at all.

As a banker, I’m mad as hell at Visa. Why don’t I like this VMT?

  • Visa will keep the directory of cards, mobile numbers, and DDAs. The last 2 really really make me mad. Who says they can hold my customer information?
  • Visa runs it..Continues to build Visa brand on your ACH
  • You own the risk, Visa develops new services
  • Circumvents all of the industry controls on ACH (ex. Early Warning)
  • Unfunded Reg E research burden and consumer support reqs.
  • Confusion in online services
  • Cannibalizes existing bank products (wire transfers)
  • Customer service/research nightmare .. all unfunded
  • Visa may have a much smaller role to play in debit.. why would I want to add new services to their group?
  • it will be very, very hard to shut down once it gets moving.

Fortunately for banks, CashEdge is a bank friendly vendor. Actually, it wins the prize for  best bank vendor (I signed 2 contracts w/ them).  Visa will not do enrollment, nor will they have directory of DDA/Debit. CashEdge is providing multiple service/pricing  options t0 participating banks:
– Send to DDA
– Send to phone
– Send to e-mail
– and new option.. send to Visa Debit Card (w/ fee)

Each bank has flexibility in determining IF they want these services and how to price them. As you can tell.. I would never let the Visa option happen.. but then again I don’t run the online bank anymore.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m just a pessimistic nag. I’m tired of being negative on things… What do I like this quarter? Google and NFC, the Chase QuikDeposit app, PayPal at the POS, .. oh and I loved (past tense) ISIS until they fell on their own sword.

No blogs next week.. will be out of pocket…