Category Archives: Networks/Schemes

Posts covering payment networks and schemes

Paze Update – 4 Elements of the PAZE Wallet (70% confidence)

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© 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.

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Over the last 5 yrs I’ve written 9 blogs on PAZE/SRC, and over 20 on the TCH’s 13 yr effort to own mobile payments. Today is my update and latest best guess at what they are building. This is a 70% confidence guess based upon my discussions with Merchants, Early Warning alumni, former bank execs, and previous releases (ex Authentify). 

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Separating Payment and Identity

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15 pages (summary is 4)

Follow blog from Payment Authorization – Under the Hood (ie working on a car engine), Trust Assertions – Identity will Define the Future of Payments and Role of Identity and Trust in eCommerce.

Today’s blog is one of my personal favorites, not only because of the topic but because of the leading experts in retail, identity, networks, and payments that collaborated and provided editing (thanks all). While I’m no longer the tech expert, I do have a unique view on the “inside baseball” incentives and realities of what is actually happening (behind the rules). Payments are not like a brand-new Ferrari operating to spec, they are a very messy business with complex rules, worn-out systems, unresponsive drivers and a broke racing team with no sponsor. This is a get-your-hands-dirty blog. Note that I’m open to feedback in case I’ve missed something

Outline

  1. Summary

  2. Survey of global identity initiatives

  3. How identity works in eCommerce today

  4. Technical example

  5. How identity improves CX and eCommerce payment flows

  6. Four future scenarios of identity and payments

  7. What should investors track

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Wallets, APIs and Trust

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6 Page Blog

Top of mind today are Wallets, Identity and Application Program Interfaces (APIs). APIs are the core concept behind many new business models investors must decipher:

  • Software as a Service (SaaS)
  • Payments as a Service (PaaS)
  • Banking as a Service (PaaS)
  • Open Banking – PISP, AISP, ..etc
  • Account Aggregation – FDX, Plaid, Akoya, … etc
  • Payment Service Provider (PSP) – Stripe, Adyen, PYPL/Braintree, … etc

Previously, I’ve covered this topic in Open Banking and Open Payments and Trust Networks (2020)  Part 3 – Internet 2.5 (2022), Modularity and Trust (2022) and Evolution of V/MA – Moving Beyond Cards (2021). Summary points from these previous blogs:

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Visa Launches Visa+ with PayPal as Anchor

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Short Blog

https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseId.19621.html

Today Visa announced a major expansion of Visa Direct called Visa +, with PayPal as the anchor launch partner. “help individuals move money quickly and securely between different person-to-person (P2P) digital payment apps” without requiring the recipient to have a Visa card.

Visa+ expands Visa’s role as the meta-directory of payments connecting consumers, wallets and accounts with a master “payname”. If I were to write the marketing one-liner for Visa+ it would be “pay people in the way they want to be paid”. 

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Payment Authorization – Under The Hood

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Retailers should tread very carefully in direct issuer connections

My focus over the last 18 months has been identity, trust, authorization and assertions. Today I thought we would get under the hood a little on the technology of authorization and the current operational issues with a key network service: 3DS. 

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Tap to Pay – Growing the Network – $700B GDV Opportunity

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~$700B GDV opportunity for breakout volume growth as the network could “double” in scale as every cardholder could become a “merchant” in 20-30 min. 

This month was a first! During my 25 yrs in payments, I could accept a card payment (in person) with no additional hardware. Enrolling as a Square merchant took only 30 min and I was then live with Apple Tap and Pay. A fantastic experience! (see Square). This is a tremendous “team effort” by Visa (VAS), Apple (See Mobeewave blog) and Square (as PayFac). 

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FedNow Update – Short Blog

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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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Innovation in Networks – Part 4

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The Strategic Innovation Era

© 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.

This blog has been sitting at 80% for almost 3 months. Sorry for the delay. This was a 30 page blog that I slimmed down to 16. Thus the long summary section. This blog is focused on networks and their ability to: 1) internally charter their own evolution, 2) grow network of supporting stakeholders, 3) stimulate network growth, and 4) encourage investment/innovation. Why read this? Payment innovation is set to grow Global GDV by 50% (above baseline) over the next 5-7 yrs. Today’s blog is a basis for this hypothesis.

A very long blog with 3 page summary below

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Part 3 – Internet 2.5 – The Next “Wave” is Here

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Happy After Thanksgiving! Hope everyone was able to enjoy a wonderful time with family and friends. Today is the 3rd installment of the series, a long blog. 
The next big network wave is here. Call it web 2.5 or 3.0, but the integration of payments into “everything” is a major event. Payments are the “trust layer” that TRANSFORM anonymous nodes providing uncertain service into known, defined and guaranteed service providers. Effective communities require value exchange and “trust”. The payment trust function enables networks to evolve from “cost free” discovery and information sharing, into transactional resource/service exchange: from read-write to read-write-execute. Sure we could call the wave “trust” but the only ubiquitous “trust network” is payments so I prefer to keep payment wave as the naming convention.

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