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I've long believed that sales happens primarily in branches, both in India and USA (https://twitter.com/s_ketharaman/status/615497632274886656). From @IanD's "hint", I guess the same is true of UK. Neobanks are right in assuming that (A) providing a place to park money - aka bank account - is a commodity business and that (B) money management is what will differentiate them. However, they're living in a fantasy world if they believe their strengths in (B) will overcome their weakness in (A). Especially since banks' digital offerings are getting better day by day. In fact, in India, some of the best digital banking solutions have come from banks. Latest example: PayZapp from HDFC Bank.

HDFC Bank's PayZapp Ends My Bill Payment Woes

Having had a great experience with implementing Faster Payments at a Top 5 UK bank along side Accenture, I'm happy to see the emergence of third-party aggregators to spread FPS farther and wider! It's also intriguing that, seven years later, no other country has a similar 24/7/365 realtime retail payments system (or is there?).

As a technology marketer, I do have a vested interest in pushing technology but I still agree with @BillT and @RaymondL.

• Faster Payments is underlying infrastructure. It happened in 2008. Most countries, including USA, don't have anything similar, even seven years later. So, what more innovation does the PSR MD want in infra?
• TELCOs tried carrier billing as an alternative rail although it never went mainstream, with some startups who began as pure-play carrier billing providers later adopting card rails in order to ensure their own survival. Are banks to be blamed for that?
• In a larger context, if nonbanks don't have what it takes to build a viable alternative to banking rails, what can banks do about that?

Can the PSR outline what innovation it wants to drive by its warning to "intervene directly"?

@FinextraM:

In case you’re not aware, over 50% of ecommerce in India happens via mobile. This eliminates the need for grid electricity at the point of transaction. While mobile batteries need electricity to be recharged, everyone who can otherwise shop online has enough grid electricity for doing that from time to time. So, eCommerce does not stop when power fails. 

Even if we take offline commerce, many stores have power backup for billing and processing electronic payments, so lack of electricity plays little role in reduced use of electronic payments. 

Now, when it comes to friction, things are different, both instore and in ecommerce.

Many card-based electronic payments fail instore because many POS machines have stopped working after PIN became mandatory. So consumers go back to cash.

Ecommerce requires Internet connection at the point of transaction (at least as of now since I don't know of any hybrid architecture shopping apps yet). There are documented cases of patchy Internet connectivity in the middle of Silicon Valley. But the number of steps required to complete an ecommerce transaction in USA are far fewer than in India (e.g. no need for VbV or OTP in USA unlike India). So, more transactions go thru' fine in USA even when Internet connection is patchy. That's not the case in India. Thanks in part to a banking regulator who believes in throwing the transaction baby with the fraud bathwater, online payments require many more steps in India. All these steps need to be orchestrated by the consumer’s device and Internet connection. Completing the transaction takes more time, within which chances of Internet connection breaking are high. As a result, confidence in electronic payments is shattered. So consumers go back to cash.

So, offline or online, friction is a greater cause for reduced use of electronic payments in India – not lack of electricity or card density or any of the other usual suspects.

Good luck Liz. By way of giving a kicker to steer the discussion back to the topic on hand, can we indulge in a bit of salacious gossip about where you'll emerge from? Many commenters have said "other side", so it's only a question of guessing the name of the company. Needless to say, you'll be free to neither accept nor deny our guesses?:)

Yeah right. We can see how well it works from the apostrophe between your typo and your s. One of the many old typos that still happens.

If only they made it more frictionless to use cards, we wouldn't need to sacrifice taxpayer money... 

Why I Went From Card To COD

Reading @SteveE's line "No-one ever leaves Finextra. They just change their profile.", I was reminded of the hoardings put up by Air India all over the country some 40 years ago when its then Chairman retired. In keeping with the Indian tradition of never saying "go", India's flagship airline had said, "Go and Come Mr. Ramaswamy. In India, we never say goodbye".

@DirkK: I noticed the change when it happened but it's only now that I'm learning the rationale behind it. I see your point but typos make the commenter himself / herself look bad and for eternity! So can you permit at least one or two edits within a few minutes of submitting the comment?

@FinextraM:

I've seen several posts on Finextra from more than one person from a company that provides eBilling solutions via email. One of them might want to comment about why PUSH-based ebills delivered via email are better than PULL-based ebills downloaded via website. Personally, for reasons given in my posts, I’m not fond of either form of ebill and like my paper bills delivered via snail mail.

Why just ads for pizzas on paper bills? Many consumers I know find ads for *anything* *anywhere* to deliver poor CX. But that hasn't stopped advertisers from clamoring for more and more intrusive forms of advertising, with their latest craze being Twitter and Facebook video ad units that play automatically - the user doesn't even have a choice of not clicking the PLAY button. So, poor CX didn't stop advertisers before, it won't stop them now. And, when advertisers are willing to pay media owners for displaying ads, I know very few media owners who will put CX above revenues and decline the money.

@PriyaN: TY for your comment. It's too little too late. Besides, if the M-PESA mobile app is anything like the regular Vodafone mobile app, I want to stay far away from it. Even though the amount lying in my M-PESA account is 2X of the figure you've mentioned, it's not worth the trouble of revisiting M-PESA. I've found much better alternatives since then.