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Car retailing is a very different business compared to banking. I'm keen on seeing where this goes. 

As someone who was closely involved in the implementation of FPS for a Top 5 UK Bank, I'm somewhat saddened to read this post. But I think your post has missed out two important use cases of FPS, namely, (1) Business-to-Person and (2) Person-to-Business online payments. I remember getting my May 2008 salary credited to my bank account on the same day that my employer initiated the transfer (as against two days later in the past); and also getting an extra two days to make my bill payments to my MNOs, Council, etc. Not sure how well these two use cases taken off though - we were expecting FPS to kill BACS but that clearly hasn't happened.

On a side note, apropos your expectation of a merchant giving you "a discount for using Real Time Payments", I think card agreements forbid merchants from charging a lower price than the price posted on the shelf for a non-card payment (although they permit merchants to charge a higher price via surcharge for a card payment). 

In the last few years, I've been assailed by so many wannabe-email killer technologies that I find myself veering increasingly back to email! If the same thing happens with regards to selecting PSD2 solution providers, banks will go laughing all the way to - ahem - banks!! As has happened many times in the past!!!

Curious to know if ANZ will use the principles of agile in its tendering process!

Take a typical English Breakfast in a 5 star hotel in London: The cost of ingredients is less than 50p. The selling price is around GBP 25. How come the price is so high when the cost is so low? Is there really any competition in the Hospitality market?

There are more such examples in my blog posts entitled Competition Keeps Prices In Check — But Not Necessarily Low and The Tug-of-War Between Different Pricing Models (hyperlink removed to comply with Finextra Community Rules but this post should appear on top of Google Search results when searched by its title).

If someone believes there's competiton in Hospitality, Telecom, etc., then they can't deny that there's competition in Banking. 

IMO, the real problem is the average consumer expects too much out of competition. While competition can keep prices in a certain band, it can't keep prices low. Ergo, while competition is keeping interest rates of all banks in a certain band, it can't ensure that interest rates are high enough by consumer's reckoning.

Good job Monitise. The gap between its peak valuation and current valuation is now only £1.925B.

"When we started Level Money back in 2013, there weren’t many tools to help people manage their money." Wut? Hasn't this company heard about Wesabe, Kublax, et al, which launched in circa 2007 and shut down a couple of years later? This is yet another startup that has shuttered down because it failed to take cognizance of the competitive landscape when it launched.

If Apple gets a banking license and becomes a bank, then, contrary to your claim, it will not cut out the middle man. It will just become another middle man and a competitor to existing banks. BTW, are you aware that AAPL's revenue has fallen by 7.7% in its latest financial year? (Source: FORTUNE 500). So its brainwashing of even the mobile device community has lost its shine. 

@JohnCandido:

Much as I'd like to think that I'm doing something exceptional - and be lauded for it - figures don't bear me out: 70% of credit card holders in India are so-called "Transactors" and pay off their monthly balances in full and don't incur interest charges. Only 30% are "Revolvers" who don't pay off and do incur. In USA, Transactors are 35% and Revolvers are 65% (Source). 70% and 35% are not exceptions by any stretch of imagination.

I could argue that cash is adequate and that there's no need for any digital payments including debit card. The point is not about adequacy but about choice and suitability for wide-ranging usage scenarios. Credit card is arguably still the only instrument suitable for handling emergency use case. People tend to forget that, while a debit card enables cashless payments, it funds payments only up to the bank balance. In emergencies, such as hospitalizations, very few people have enough money in their bank account to meet expenses via debit card. In any case, it's poor PFM to keep big time money in a low-interest bearing checking account just to be able to use a debit card to tide over a potential emergency. It's better to keep that money in a higher-interest bearing fixed deposit, use a credit card to meet the emergency expense if and when it arises, then break the FD prematurely to pay off the credit card bill a month later.

None of this is rocket science. If the average credit card holder lacks the basic discipline and ability of how to use a credit card responsibly, that's no reason to ban credit cards. Governments all over the world allow the sale and consumption of many other potentially more harmful things by simply mandating a "Drink responsibly" kind of warning on them. At most, they can insist that all credit cards should carry a warning message such as "Spend responsibly"!

So mobile wallets haven't killed cards - even in Australia!

On a side note, why the heck is this based on a survey / sample? Doesn't the central bank have access to the universe of retail payments? In India, the central bank periodically releases the actual payment volumes by method of payments.