Understanding ApplePay in PIN Debit

Payment Geek detail on the EMVCO Dependencies of Debit and How Cap One Solved It

This is a technical addendum to today’s post on the reported JPMorgan/BofA/Wells/PNC exploration of buying Fiserv’s Star network. That post laid out five business and political reasons the deal is unlikely to happen. This one goes underneath the business case to the technical architecture that makes the wallet portion (ie ApplePay, GPay, SamsungPay) of the problem particularly ugly for any bank that thinks owning a PIN debit network gets them out from under Durbin.

The short version: an issuer that buys Star cannot simply route its ApplePay volume through Star. The tokenization and provisioning plumbing that makes Apple Pay work belongs to Visa and Mastercard, sits inside a standards body (EMVCo) that issuers are not members of, and is architecturally structured around the card brand on the card (not the issuer that issued it). A bank that owns Star still can’t put a Star token in Apple Pay; it is a new AID in the phone.

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Apple Opens NFC

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/08/developers-can-soon-offer-in-app-nfc-transactions-using-the-secure-element

Apple Opens NFC. Just off the phone with Apple. They were nice enough to treat me as a journalist and I was able to ask a few questions. 

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PayPal Innovation Opportunity – “All In” on the Consumer

I’m usually just a cynic. Today, I’m constructive with specific suggestions for PayPal’s new executive team. Note that about 80% of your large institutional investors will read this.. 

Exec Summary

  • Wallets are a core battlefield for Issuers, BigTech, marketplaces, and governments.
  • PayPal’s previous “super app” strategy failed because there was no clear consumer value proposition.
  • The most significant consumer value proposition to be unlocked is the unbundling of financial services, with the wallet providing the common UI to manage the complexity. In this future state, a “super wallet” would enable bank competition for every account and every transaction.
  • PayPal is well positioned to execute on a super wallet, but it must go ALL IN on a consumer-focused value proposition without regard for issuer relationships. 
  • For example, Curve is the best-in-class Wallet providing aggregation, transaction, loyalty and analytics across all account types, networks, POS, eCom, P2P and banking services. 
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EU probe of Apple Pay

17 Jun 2020

Short Blog today. Before jumping in.. I’ve been working on 2 significant blog series

  1. Consolidation in Financial Services. Given convergence of several forces, we are in the midst of a consolidation of networks, and services. The pandemic has placed new strains on sub scale players, which will provide the basis for significant M&A. My involvement in the deal flow has slowed the writing down.  
  2. Big Tech, Neo Banks and Financial Services. Looking to give the “inside baseball” look at what is really happening.

I’ve got over 100 pages of material… hope to get it out in bite size chunks in a few weeks.

EU and Apple Pay

From today’s WSJ and also on Forbes, the EU announced 2 investigations:

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