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For the first time, I'm coming across the concept of a national utility to handle sanctions screening and similar processes centrally instead of each bank doing it individually. Great idea. Apart from the obvious benefits of lowering operational costs for all banks using it, wonder if it will also deliver collateral benefits viz. automatic elimination of the recent HSBC-type of noncompliance.

74% Hit, 75% Success, 61% Loss => 33.85% (0.74*0.75*0.61) of all online transactions have resulted in loss of money due to fraud. How come only 3 lawsuits? 

With almost 1 in 3 comprised transactions, it's apparent that virtually every bank is affected by online fraud. So, how does an affected customer decide which bank to switch to?

While the quote by the CEO of Guardian Analytics in this article advises banks to improve their security measures, the same company's blog post states that the bank in question (Ocean Bank) had fraud monitoring technology but didn't use it to monitor the said transactions of the customer (PATCO). Was it because the technology suffered from so much false-positives that revenue losses arising from wrongly blocked genuine transactions far exceeded any fraud losses arising from wrongly permitted fraudulent transactions? Furthermore, what can all the technology do when millions of customers hand over their Internet Banking credentials to Mint and other P2FMs?

@Stephen W:

TY for clarifying that a typical Storage Element has a capacity of 100KB, which can store a half dozen credit cards. This is certainly adequate for most users, especially if this capacity is expandable.

However, against that backdrop, I'm unable to understand why Google Wallet was able to support only one CCN until it announced its recent expansion into the cloud? Whereas, from day one, competitors like Pay with Square, PayPal Here, LevelUp and other mobile wallets that don't use SE / NFC have been permitting users to upload any credit card to their mobile wallets. Maybe this stark difference in end-user perceptible functionality between the SE and non-SE camps has resulted in people - me included - jumping to the conclusion that, in the case of SE / NFC, they have no choice of which CC they can use, which can only be decided by the combination of PSP, MNO and Handset Manufacturer. As long as people have this perception, it's not surprising that SE / NFC has slowed down adoption because very few users would sign up for a CC just because it's the only one supported by Google Wallet.  

On futher thought, this perception seems to be very real because, if it was possible for Google Wallet to permit the user to upload any credit card to the SE / NFC, why did it announce cloud support now, and specifically link support for multiple CCNs to the cloud?

It's not as though Google began with this architecture. Whatever Secure Element gives by way of security, it seems to take away by slowing down adoption. Re. "there's nothing in the tech that stops sensitive data being provisioned a(l)most instantly, over the air into NFC phones", any idea if multiple credit card details can be stored concurrently on the Secure Element of a single smartphone?

Ability to predict what customers would like, but do not currently demand, is a great trait. This has hitherto been the sole preserve of Apple and a few other companies (apart from Wells Fargo, I'm not able to think of any other bank that I can place in that list). However, with bank customers expressing their fully- and partially-formed thoughts on Twitter and other social media, even dowdy old banks can access a fount of information about what their customers would like. Agreed that there's so much noise that it's a very hard task to spot the real nuggets. However, social media sentiment analysis applications make it easy to find the needle in the haystack. Using one such app, I was able to spot the following longings of bank customers:

xoKiana_: I wish my bank would notify me saying "unable to process my order." I'd be highly upset -__-

BritishSayWhat: I wish my bank followed me on twitter so I didn't have to update them on every time I leave the country. #getittogether 

DaMFNLO: ??RT @imfancyhuh54: I wish my ATM would give me a cupcake ??

All of these tweets can qualify as inputs for new product development by banks.

Our experience resonates strongly with the report's finding that "the rise of social media means that customer advocacy – digital word of mouth – is gaining power". Availability of powerful social media sentiment analysis tools now makes it easy to spot both brand advocates and disgruntled customers and amplify their views in a matter of minutes e.g.

1. debbbzoo: At Barclays bank Whitchurch getting VIP treatment with Emmy our African milky eagle owl ! Thanks to Barclays for supporting our charity-)
2. DeeHalliwell: RT @thenicolabryant: Couldn't find a Barclays presence on twitter. But I've been on hold for 45 minutes now! Could have driven in to town & gone in to a branch!
3. JamesHomans: Barclays bank have the WORST customer service! FACT #closeyourbarclaysaccounts

e-receipt undoubtedly complements payments initiated from a smartphone e.g. Pay with Square.

However, in a general context, I see the following hurdles in front of this technology:

1. Being images, e-receipts likely occupy a lot of space. Question is, how many e-receipts can realistically fit into an entry-level smartphone with limited phone memory.  
2. Whether e-receipts are stored as images in the smartphone's gallery or as email attachments inside its email app, searching for one e-receipt among many other e-receipts and all other kinds of images in a smartphone may not be so simple since neither app has search functionality, at least not on any smartphone that I've come across.
3. Legal validity of e-receipts to prove proof of purchase.

If these issues are ironed out, I'm sure e-receipts will gather traction and enter the mainstream sooner rather than later.

While social media can clearly drive enablement, surveillance is equally important. As social media has evolved, so have social media surveillance tools. It is now possible to filter out the noise and literally zoom down in a matter of few minutes to what "...John in Sales..." has posted on LinkedIn and elsewhere on social media. By using one such tool, it took me less than five minutes to spot the following negative tweets about a sample company that has a high visibility on social and traditional media:

1. Seems to be Infosys paid enough to Hyderabad police. Murder story became Suicide story again. I expected this already.
2. whats it with Infosys stock? from down 20 at one stage, it is 3.5 up now....why this turnaround in a single day? whats floating in the mkt?
3. Very Shameful. Infy management passe the orders to their employees to not respond mysterious death of neelima yeruva @Infosys

With the availability of such powerful tools, it's very much practical to carry out surveillance of social media in order to safeguard a company's reputation.

If, as the CEO of A&N Media says, "...our customers ... increasingly consume our content through the mobile device", why can't a simple tap on the product image on the smartphone screen trigger the purchase? Why should the user enter the product code?

QR code, image recognition or the need to enter the product code on the smartphone screen are required ONLY if customers view the shopping supplement in print form but use a mobile device to initiate the purchase - not when they consume the content and initiate the purchase on a mobile device. In other words, these forms of Augmented Reality technologies are required only for omnichannel transactions and not for monochannel ones.

If this is the situation in the UK where many banks - at least both of mine - are open on Saturdays, I don't envy customers in Germany, a few other countries in Continental Europe, and in many parts of the US who have access to their banks only for five days a week. This report doesn't talk of another big problem where customers seeking face-to-face assistance to resolve a particularly knotty problem take the time out to visit a branch when it is open but are directed by bank staff to Phone / Internet Banking kiosks inside the branch.