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While I agree on many points qualitatively, a few findings have emerged when numbers have been tacked on in some other product categories (e.g. CRM):  

1. When frequent updates enter a pre-existing system landscape, there can be significant costs by way of retraining, retesting, rewiring interfaces to other systems, etc. The monies are not paid out to the SaaS vendor but updates are not really free for the customer.
2. Cumulative SaaS fees tend to exceed onpremise license fees after 24-36 months. One concrete example: US$ 75 / month / user for SaaS versus US$ 2000 / user for onpremise perpetual license. Considering that the life of most software is far greater than 3 years, the TCO advantage of SaaS is not so self-evident, even after loading the onpremise option with 20% AMC and other recurring costs. 

Keen on knowing if things are different in trade finance SaaS.

@BjornS: TY for your reply. What are some specific examples of "self protecting" apps in BFSI?

@ChrisD: I know employees who got their paycheck for June 2008 - i.e. 1 month after FPS go live - via FPS. While I agree that FPS v BACS makes no difference to the employee, FPS does let the employer hold on to the money for 1-2 more days. Not sure if this is what drove the early adoption of FPS for payroll payments in this instance.

@BjornS: TY for your reply. When I first heard about "self-protecting and self-healing" applications in the aerospace industry, I was amazed. However, I didn't think too highly of the technology when I learned, several years ago, that a mere loose tile had brought down a multibillion dollar space shuttle program. Thanks to Moore’s Law, technology grows by leaps and bounds and things could be very different today. I’m curious to know if there are live examples of such applications in BFSI or any other industry by now. 

According to leading US retail analyst RSR Research, Target and Home Depot were both PCI-DSS compliant. 

http://www.rsrresearch.com/2014/09/16/the-endless-data-security-saga-continues/

Considering that both Target and Home Depot breaches happened at the POS, question is, does PCI-DSS cover endpoint security?

This is one food van that surely won't accept SQUARE!

Arresting post. Algo trading is known to be complex. It was hard to understand everything written about it even by a bestseller author like Michael Lewis in his latest book bestseller Flash Boys. Within algo trading, the "do nothing" decision is arguably even more complex. Kudos for using a novel style to explain it so that everyone can understand it. 

Regulators probably have the same view of an algorithm that didn’t place the order as Sherlock Holmes had of the "Dog that Didn’t Bark In The Night”!

On another note, it’s shares of producers of "magneto-optical drives" that would interest you. As I learned from a benchmark study conducted a few years ago, the size of files generated during these exercises is too large for hard disks (or even to be transferrred electronically). We had to back up the data on to a set of MO drives and hand carry them from the lab in the south of France to our dev center in the western India via a combination of ferry, train and plane. Because of the risk of transit loss / damage during the long winding journey, we bought another set of drives, copied the logs onto them, and kept them as backup in our London office! Moral of story: The MO market size is actually double of what it appears to be at first glance!

Given that all the currency notes shown in the picture are Indian Rupees, should we treat the "Asian" in the headine as "Indian"?:)

P2P portals likely offer a superior CX compared to most banks for the loan application process, with some of them promising realtime disbursement of the sanctioned loan via FPS. Chances of approval of a loan are also perhaps higher on P2P portals than banks. These being the case, any idea why potential borrowers wouldn't apply for a loan on P2P portals in the first instance? And, if they would, how useful is the proposed legislation that would "require banks rejecting loan applications from small and medium enterprises, to refer them to other loan providers"?

@MartinC:

I agree. That's why plastic - not mobile, not Apple - is the last real innovation in retail payments. At least it helped many retailers to decline checks from Day One (e.g. India) or stop accepting them beyond a certain date (e.g. UK).

The point is, retailers will find it hard to justify investments to support every "innovation" that comes along unless the new payment method can help them cut costs, grow revenues or improve CX (and thereby cut costs and grow revenues). For more reasons than one, no mobile payment solution - including QR-based ones - has been able to demonstrate adequate value on these counts. Only time will tell whether Apple Pay will be an exception.

The question of alternative is moot but plastic is fine by me. According to this FORTUNE article (http://fortune.com/2014/07/24/mastercard-tech-company/), cash if fine for 85% of the world's transactions. Interestingly, the same article explains why even MasterCard executives - who have a lot to benefit from cashless - chided their own boss for talking trash about cash.