Community

In my post Apple Puts Banks Squarely At The Center Of Mobile Payments that I wrote the day after Apple Pay was launched in 2014, I listed five reasons why I thought Apple Pay was the most frictionless digital payment and poised to become the #1 digital payment. It has taken longer than I expected but at last Apple Pay's performance has resonated with my prediction. 

In some ways, Apple Pay's accomplishment is even more noteworthy than it sounds, considering that it's just a payment method whereas Starbucks is really an ordering-cum-loyalty app masquerading as a mobile payment.

Banning HFT is like banning the Ferraris and Porches of the world because their drivers would reach the same destination ahead of others driving more commonplace cars. But your view does resonate with the one expressed by Michael Lewis in his bestseller The Flash Boys. Just that I disagree. I'm in tech and one of tech's value props is that it gives unfair advantage to its buyers! As long as the said tech is available for purchase to anyone, it can't be banned just on the grounds of being costly.

Good solution but I wonder if it's too late. Between the Merchant (e.g. Amazon), third party digital wallets (e.g. PayTM, PayZapp, PayPal), and auto-fill browser extensions (e.g. Chrome, LastPass), my card is on file somewhere or the other. I don't remember the last time I entered my credit card info on any website. 

@JayanthJagadeesh:

Not true in my context, which is Single Immediate Payment via PULL mode (although you're probably talking of a different context of setting up a recurring payment mandate). While entry of UPI PIN is required to authorize the SIP, ICYMI, several frauds have been committed via social engineering in UPI, Zelle, FPS and other A2A payment methods worldwide.

Sorry you've misunderstood my PayZapp 1-Tap feature. It's not Tap-and-Go, does not use plastic card, is not subject to INR 2K limit. You scan the mVisa QRC at the Merchant Establishment, enter any amount you want to pay, and PayZapp completes the payment in a single tap by drawing funds from the credit card on file without 2FA / VbV / OTP friction.

@JayanthJagadeesh:

Just struck me, a mobile app is something we own ("I have a mobile app") whereas a website is something we use. It's human psychology to own only what we like but, when it comes to mere use, we can tolerate things that we don't necessarily like. Not surprisingly, the CX bar for mobile app is far higher than that for website.

Sorry I don't know what is iMobile.

I think it's terribly dumb to let a Merchant dip into my money without my permission and, on top of that, gain the ability to post negative updates on my CIBIL credit score in return for the peanut credit they give (if at all). As a best practice, I keep my merchant and funding source separate. So I totally avoid merchant payment services such as Amazon Pay, Ola Wallet, etc.

I believe bank account linked payment methods like UPI, Google Pay, PhonePe, Zelle, etc., are unsafe, especially those that support PULL method of payment like all UPI apps. But I gave Google Pay a try just for the heck of it. I didn't like its CX, I deleted it. I described five friction hotspots in GPay on Quora but my answer has gotten merged into oblivion. If I find it, I'll post a link here. 

I quite like PayTM the product but my trust in PayTM the company has eroded over time. 

I like PayZapp because, unlike PayTM, it supports 1-Tap frictionless payment even without having to load any money in its wallet. In other words, if I have zero balance in my PayZapp wallet - as I do - I can still fund a payment directly from my credit card on file without going thru' 2FA / VbV / OTP friction. This is not possible with PayTM.

(In the non-UPI mode) PayZapp's instore merchant acceptance network badly lags that of PayTM. Ergo I still use PayTM when I can't use PayZapp.

I didn't like the UX of my mobile banking apps when I first tried them 3-4 years ago and deleted them within a few days of installing them. Because of that, and pretty much all of reasons mentioned in #3, I don't have a single mobile banking app on my phone now, although I've been using online banking for +15 years.

That said, four years after I installed and wrote about it in HDFC Bank's PayZapp Ends My Bill Payment Woes, PayZapp, the mobile payment app from my bank, continues to be my go-to digital payment method.

@HiteshThakkar: 

Your profile says you work for FIS. The article says FIS was one of the unsuccessful bidders. Curious to know what's your "learning and moving on" plan for your own employer.

Great story.

On a side note, if the FPS Enhanced Data / Enhanced Remittance Information functionality mooted in 2016 were live now, this "lost and found" job could've been done with a single GBP 0.01 transfer. More "bang for the buck" and all that:)

Control is certainly one benefit of a blockchain-based loyalty program. Such a program can also overcome one of the biggest hurdles to performance of current generation of loyalty programs, namely, “too many loyalty programs, too few reward points”, as I highlighted in How Blockchain Can Crack The Holy Grail Of Loyalty Programs.

"Despite the launch of half a dozen new banks in last few years, largest legacy banks still have 77% of UK market now vs. 69% in 1999." ~ https://thefinanser.com/2019/10/are-challenger-banks-winning-or-losing.html/ via @Chris_Skinner .

With market share of largest legacy banks going up by 8 percentage points, this is surely not the "age of diminishing brand loyalty". But it does appear so to a lot of people - so much so that a post can afford to begin on that misconception. 

Reminds of the following quote in the opening credits of "The Big Short" : “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”