Robin,
I beg to differ. These simply are not mobile payments at all - they are prepay wallet payments. The funds have nothing to do with the mobile operator. All the mobile operator is doing in your scenario is selling the NFC enabled device with their brand logo on it. Visa/Mastercard are doing all the rest. no different to sticking your NFC / Chip and PIN card onto your phone with tape.
That said, I found the blog useful - I didn't know about the counter thing.
27 Jul 2011 19:26 Read comment
Where did it all go? The 64 million, sorry trillion, dollar question. Some say it was all loans that never got repaid, and the loans were defaulted by little people who went bankrupt? I don't believe there is that much mortgage funds to make this add up. Others say that the financial institutions lent money to each other, back and forth, doing deals by the thousand, for millions, each time all taking a cut on the deal-making. The commissions went to the bank accounts of those on the inside and when this ponzi scheme folded, that money is apparently ringfenced and untouchable?
Basically, don't blame the little guys who borrowed more than they could afford, blame the fat cats who lent for lending sake for any reason just to turn a kick back.
That said, the Greeks need to 'revolutionise' and I don't want to pay for it.
20 Jun 2011 22:25 Read comment
How does the saying go... past performance is no guarantee of future results! At some point the stars will align and the time will be right, but technology is not the issue here, its politics and inertia. If its simple and quick it might get the momentum needed.
20 Jun 2011 18:39 Read comment
Gets my vote. Might be able to VOIP call then instead of paying excessive mobile operators roaming charges.
17 Jun 2011 22:00 Read comment
Well said. Like the banks though - Greece cannot simply close shop and stop. So how to restore net positive GDP? Paying taxes is a start and those avoiding it have to realise that in other economies, tax is paid. The EU is paying the overdraft, but the cashflow has to be turned around - there are no sweets left in the barrell. Rioting will also unfortunately affect one of the few assets Greece has which is tourism.
17 Jun 2011 11:37 Read comment
Is this set to stop bank lending money they don't actually have? It seems that there were years of lending funds that banks never had, taking commissions on those deals (from real cash funds) and then wondering where it all went in the crash. Laughing all the way from the bank, not to it.
16 Jun 2011 12:50 Read comment
Anyone else think in this PC age that being described as a 'hot lady' is a little patronising? Or flattering? Just wondered.
15 Jun 2011 17:40 Read comment
Fantastic and good luck. But how long before it becomes a Triopoly?
Other payments 'channels' are emerging all the time, but the underlying payment networks are long in the tooth and difficult to bypass or replace, so perhaps 'joining the party' is the best thing to stimulate competition.
Not technically tough but difficult because of the politics, logistics and general inertia.
15 Jun 2011 17:36 Read comment
...Imagine that all the people in the world would be in only one bank - it would be easy to resolve any payment service including mobile - everything is intrabank! ....
Right! And that would do away with serious fraud too, because it would be impossible to squirrel ill gotten gains overseas into anonymous accounts! But of course this will never happen.
Another analogy would be telephones. Decades of investment in infrastructure, incumbent monopolies (mainly state ones) but they all worked together. Nevertheless, new technology such as fibre, satellite, and mobile are rapidly eroding the fixed line concept. So it will be with cards. we will still do 'payments' (like we still make voice calls) but they will be supplemented with added value stuff like e-invoicing, m-banking, P2P, payment policy control, aggregated wallets. So the same payment networks will exist, but have different 'customer engagement' channels. Its just a question of getting the banks and payment processors to work with the experts in those new channels, such as they just did with the Google Wallet.
14 Jun 2011 14:01 Read comment
We know money talks. So presumably the new funds will offer better investor returns and at the same time offer to take less return on their business lending? Doesn't sound like a recipe for easy money, but it does sound like competition and that might not be a bad thing at all. Especially for businesses.
10 Jun 2011 17:52 Read comment
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