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@AlexP:

Congrats for authoring Finextra's Top Blog Post of 2012!

In case you haven't noticed, let me refer you to this TechCrunch post and my comment around the delay in the launch of Wallaby Card.

Looks like your above comment - "Funny that you mentioned Wallaby - none of the processors or issuers we spoke to in the past could explain how (and if!) that can really be done..." - is bang on :)

Card now, will branch be next? 

https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=6391

When I casually glanced the footer of this page, I noticed a Related Story dated 31 May 2012, according to which the size of funding for P2P players was GBP 100M. Now, it's GBP 55M. Compared to the tens of billions of GBP spent / invested on bailing out banks, how much diversity will this 55 million bring about in financial infrastructure to better serve the needs of SMEs?

As long as bank cards remain the funding method - and I haven't seen any report claiming the death of cards in that role - does it really matter whether the plastic form factor of cards is replaced by a sticker or key fob or QR code or NFC? I think it's high time we deferred all this airtime for mobile payments to the day when they run on their own rails without needing banks and the card accounts maintained by banks. Not sure whether that day will come in my lifetime, though.

@RupertF: TY for your reply. No, I'm not aware of KPIT's dashboard technology. If I understand you correctly, the TSP is "embedded" into the auto manufacturer and acts on its "badge".

Recording shouldn't be required for a face-to-face interaction where the simpler and time-worn alternative of wet-ink signature exists. So, why won't a simple signature of customer and banker on a printed mortgage proposal suffice? The proposal should summarize the key points discussed during the in-person meeting. 

Nice article. Data of the nature described here is surely beneficial to auto manufacturers, dealers and insurers. From discussions with a couple of auto manufacturers, I gather that, according to privacy laws in EU and elsewhere, such data must be streamed directly from the car to the auto manufacturer, without access being provided even to the car owner, let alone third-parties. Maybe I got it wrong but it'd help if you could please throw some more light on who exactly a TSP is and its roles and responsibilities (assuming that it's different from the MNO whose network is used for the data streaming).

Props to Westpac for appreciating that each channel has its own strengths and investing to reinforce its branch network instead of falling for the "branch is dead" notion spouted by the digerati. 

Contactless POS for Express Checkout and existing Chip-and-PIN POS for normal checkout might be the optimum combination. 

If, by B2C payments, you're referring to consumer to business payments in the biller-direct model, only if the consumer chooses "NetBanking Transfer" as the method of payment does the bank's portal enter the picture. Many people - including me - choose card payment and never log on to the bank's portal. While there's no universally-agreed rigorous definition of mobile payment v. mobile banking, I don't think C2B Card or NetBanking transactions of the above nature would qualify as either mobile payment or mobile banking. On the other hand, if a consumer accesses a bank via mobile web or native mobile app and makes a P2P or bill payment, that could qualify as both mobile payment and mobile banking.

Judging success of a service like mobile banking also requires certain realistic baselines: 15 years after Amazon pioneered ecommerce, online sales only accounts for 5-7% of retail sales in the USA. While this is a tiny %, people still think ecommerce is successful.

The real debate arises when the digerati claim death of the store or bank branch when moden digital channels, while quite successful by themselves, are nowhere near uprooting the traditional physical channel.