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I too agree with Gilles and James.  It's the underlying blockchain technology which is the significant thing here, not Bitcoin as a product as such.  The BBA and Payments Council seem to have got it absolutely right this time.

@Bill - Again, you're right.  Issuers have always had the lion's share of attention within the schemes and the acquiring side of the business has always had a bit of a Cinderella status.  I think this is inevitable given that most Acquirers accept all brands whereas with Issuers there's always the potential to persuade them to issue more of one brand than another or even "flip" portfolios.  However, if it cheers you up at all, I've noted quite a marked change of emphasis within the schemes in recent years with a recognition that the acquiring side of the business deserves more attention.  I agree we'll see changes, and whilst I haven't really digested the significance of ther Apple announcement yet I'm sure you're right that this is part of the story,

@Bill  My head agrees with everything you say but my heart still regrets the inevitable unintended consequence of this meddling by the authorities in a free market, which is that as consumers we will all end up paying more for card payments in the form of higher annual fees and so on as issuers react to the loss of interchange income and try and make money out of card payments in some other way.  All that has happened is that the well organised merchant lobby has proved to be stronger thsn the consumer lobby, as will always be the case.

I don't know - I'm a consultant - I make my recommendations and move on swiftly, leaving others to do the dirty work ;-)

Nice blog Ketharaman

I once did a consulting job at a bank where, thanks to an unusually good IT system we were indeed able to measure profitability at account level.  We then simply sorted the accounts and looked at the most unprofitable.  The worst categories were bank staff, businesses wrongly categrised as consumers, and friends of the branch manager!

A very positive development - chip and PIN has got to be the only sensible way forward.

@Gerhard - the point of EMV chip is not to stop the data being stolen in the first place but to render the stolen data useless to the fraudster.  It's easy to use stolen data to produce a countefeit mag stripe card but very difficult to use that data to produce a chip card.  And every chip transaction generates a unique cryptogram so it's immediately obvious whether the card is genuine or fake as soon as it's used at an EMV terminal.  It's in that sense that the Target data breach would not have been a major problem if the US had completed its migration to EMV chip.

Hi Jane

Nice post!  See my article at http://www.collinconsulting.co.uk/opinion-articles-quick-link/128-digital-wallets-making-sense-of-the-metaphor.html for similar sentiments.

Personally, I find that these days I tend to always use the same ecommerce sites for all my online purchases (Amazon, Eurostar, Expedia, ChemistDirect - don't ask:-)) and they all have my payment details already so why would I need a wallet anyway.  But then I'm not quite in the 25-44 age group!

Nick

Excellent post!  My own wallet's RHS included the following:

- Just 3 true loyalty cards (but I have at least 20 more wrapped up in a rubber band in a drawer in my desk at home - proving your point)

- Freedom Pass and Senior Railcard - vital items!

- RAC breakdown card - ditto

- Driving licence

- Physical ID card to get me into tennis club

- Insurance card and alumnus card

- Business cards - mine and others

- Photos - me and my nearest and dearest

- Many receipts and tickets

- Postage stamps

- Cash! - sterling and euros

You're quite right, all of these items could in theory be put on a mobile phone.  But realistically I think you will still be buying leather wallets for many years to come :-).  Of course, as a long term mobile-sceptic and EMV chip enthusiast, I'd point out that it would probably be much easier to put many of the items on the EMV chip of one or all of my payment cards (two credit and one debit) as value added applications.  That would apply particularly to the many items which are in essence ID or "e-trust" applications and could with a little imagination leverage the highly secure, global, standard chip and PIN authentication infrastructure. 

Excellent blog Milos! I've always struggled with the economics of contactless/NFC transactions. The problem was understood by banks when contactless was introduced in the UK around 2007 and there was much talk about stripping out all the unnecessary cost elements of higher value card payments in order to drive the merchant service charge down to a reasonable rate which would be attractive to retailers, but in the event not much was done. As a result I think you are right and the industry faces a classic "Innovator's Dilemma" - ie a simpler, cheaper technology will eventually emerge for lower value payments unless the existing card payments industry gets its act together.