Things are rarely black and white in life. There is always that other side of the medal. Take Barclays Pingit, for example: I criticised it for not being secure in the financial industry's
sense (as in "secure element"), yet later agreed that - on the issuer's level - their overall approach makes common sense.
I recently called Weve an anti-competitive cartel. Since then, I had a chance to look at that from another perspective: European Commission deeply
scrutinised Weve (then called Oscar) for a long time - such in-depth reviews are a rare thing with EC, btw - before giving the consortium an unconditional green light. EC said that "at the heart of [Weve] is a desire to bring to the UK an easy and
effective solution for businesses to create and for consumers to enjoy [...] mobile wallet services."
Also, since writing that blog post on Weve, I have been told that the mobile wallet terms offered by Weve to the banks and the schemes are not that unreasonable: we are talking about mid six-digit amount per year (plus TSM charges) for having access to 80%
of the UK mobile market. If that is indeed true, that's peanuts...
I can still see why Google and Three objected to Weve existance, but I am not sure about the true nature of those reasons. I would still like to know whether Three was offered to join Weve at the conception stage (they are still, apparently, welcome as a
paying member).
All in all, Weve could be a positive driver for the UK's mobile payments market, if they iron out some of the aspects of their offering. Time will tell...
If I were to choose a partner for the mobile-based product or service in the UK, I would consider Weve as a viable option. After all, the alternatives have their cons too.