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@Conchur, an interesting insight, thank you for sharing. The point about evolving strategy-making and the ability of startup CEO's to take on this key task in addition to multitude of other day to day tasks is, to my mind, a very significant one. Indeed, in my experience, running a start up can consume so much of the time and effort that it does not often afford an opportunity to 'strategise' and to look outside of your organisation and into the future. 

Indeed some very good points. I would like to take the argument furhter - if financial institutions are doing it, shouldnt retailers look at leveraging the KYC technology to know their customers better?  Isn't managig fraud all about knowing your cusotmer, when it comes down to it?...

Here are my thoughts the other day: http://news.retailrisk.com/news/kyc-authentification-fraud-management-tools-online-retailers/

Colin, this indeed sounds like a great idea and that which compliment the SME banking services.  And in my experience the banks miss this segment when it comes to innovation while trying to go after the 'big fish' who indeed doesnt need bank's innovation, as it has a capacity to innovate by itself.  But what would it take for the banks to invest in this platform if there are no enterprise customers behind it?

I agree with the prior statements that this is a new technology and all technology has it teething problems.  What I dont get is why consumers even think of touching the whole wallet on the reader - in the world before contactless, did you give your wallet to the shop assistant and ask him to pick out the card they fancied, or did you pull out your card and paid with it?!  It wouldnt even occur to me to give it to chance and touch the wallet...  If you know your cards are contactless you should appreciate that they can communicate with the reader!  I feel that the issue is cardholder and shop assistant education. As Neil mentions, chip and pin took a while to get across, so the same will be for contactless. It is convenient, no question about it, but some of us may experience more need for it - if you live in a big city, walk around, in and out of cafes, buses, newsagents.  As with all things in life, not many things are right or everybody!

Good points!  I would also add that POS was traditionally needed because there was no other way for the card to communicate with the merchants system (short of off line zip zap machines).  Now that we have wireless and mobile communications one could argue that the need for POS is becoming less pronounced.. I see many merchants being in a position to do away with POS alltogether and just use tablets, phones and other such devices in the fuure.

I think it will be a welcome move if the consumers can get and use their own data in order to receive relevant offers from the suppliers on an 'opt in', or 'asked for' basis.  Now the consumer just gets a lot of marketing noise not often related to his real needs.  I imagine that would drive more competition in financial services, utilities and telco sectors which often price their services in such confusing ways that  consumers dont really understand if they are on the right package, fees etc.  Looking forward to hearing more about the actual implementation of it!

Good article and I definitely agree with the point of making financial sense for all the parties involved.  Over the past 8-10 years strong players in the mobile market (operators, phone manufacturers, sim producers) felt that it was their business to make money out of mobile payments and didnt want to share the 'pie' as you so well put it.

And I wouldlike to re-emphasise the point about consumers needing to get some clear benefits from these pilots.  Currently, they are happy to pay with existing payment methods.  If their card is stored in the mobile vs in their wallet, the benefit is unclear to say the least.  We must remember that a vast majority of consumers will not use a payment method just because it's cool or funky, they will use it if they get something out of it (be it discount, better service, additional convenience etc).

A lot of food for thought for the players in this field yet to come..

Indeed an interesting turnaround, which is proving that even with as much brand presence as Facebook has, cusotmers and merchants may still chose to use the payment instruments which they prefer over the ones that are being mandated on them.  I think it's a good move, meaning facebook can focus on its core strenghts and let the retailers choose what they prefer locally.  Emoney regulation and licencing might have had something to do with this decision also..