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What EMV switch in USA - I thought it flopped?

https://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=30323

LOL @RichardCrookston but, with all this talk of Brexit and Scotland Exit, they probably think Wales won't be round or around in UK for much longer!!!

@AlexanderPeschkoff + 1. For all the QR-skeptics, here's a piece of news from a self-confessed QRcomaniac: As long as the QRC is an integral part of a process that has a compelling reason to be completed, most users scan them. Starbucks proved it by using QR in USA's #1 mobile payment app; PayTM proved it by using QR in India's #1 mobile wallet. AFAIK, the wildly popular AliPay in China also uses QRC.

The W in KfW is the German word for "redevelopment". How does a redevelopment bank have access to this kind of money? Thankfully, nowadays, people don't flee to Buenos Aires even after $5.4B ill-gotten windfall:) 

Well said: 

This is what "innovation that matters" means to me. While I've watched some of my fintech colleagues painfully contort themselves at the POS to pay for a bagel with their Apple Watch, real people with busy schedules and mobile phones are receiving real cheques. It is powerful and rewarding for an empowering technology to meet these people where they live and make a real impact on their lives.

This comes very close to what I was taught was technology's mission: "promote welfare of mankind". 

@MichaelDiamond: 

I've used cash, cheque and mobile payment - all on the same day on many days. Real world customers choose the payment mode that best suits their context. Not on the basis of which payment mode is behind the curve and which one is ahead of the curve.

Interesting post. I agree that, in the case of screen scraping access method, I have control over whom to handover my NetBanking creds. But, once I have handed them over to somebody, how do I have control over what they do with the access? As this NYT article points out, how does customer or bank ensure that fintech doesn't access information related to fees and interest rates? To me, the PFM genre of software will go mainstream only if fintechs "Access only the info that customers permit them to access and prove that they're accessing nothing more, nothing less." As I'd highlighted in Innovative Fintechs Don’t Need No PSD2 Regulation, screen scraping fails this test.

In my observation, US is ahead of the curve when it comes to making a sale happen. In other words, its businesses generally don't allow anything to come in between themselves and the customer's wallet. It's also more entrepreneurial in that its political and business leaders understand the role of risk and recognize that Mitigating Fraud Does Not Pay The Bills. As a result, it really doesn't give a damn about a whether a technology is new or old. Adoption of technology depends upon how well it helps a business fulfill its business goals, which, in the case of retail payments, is to make a sale happen. Ergo EMV may be new but it poses friction, so USA goes slow on EMV; 2FA may be bleeding edge in security technology but it's a conversion killer, so no 2FA in USA. On the other hand, checks have been a fairly popular way to pay. But checks are costly. So USA started cheque truncation back in 2003 to cut down operational costs. Although it began cheque truncation way back in 2003, USA made sure to expand the scope of the technology to where it really matters viz. hands of customer via Mobile RDC and supermarket tills. AFAIK, no other country's CTS has done that - they all support cheque truncation only in the hands of banks.

Cost is internal. Even if somebody is able to put forth some concrete figures, it's not easy to get consensus on them. How many John Doe bank customers will agree that a multimillion dollar bonus paid to a bank execute should be apportioned to cost of a certain payment method? IMO, what really matters in driving payment mode preferences is price. And, when it comes to that, banks are coming across as hypocritical about their stance on costs: If cash and cheque are costly, why didn't banks charge an explicit fee for cash / cheque payments all these years? Everyone claims digitization cuts costs, why do banks charge an explicit fee for digital payments?

There was a severe cash crunch in the wake of the de/remonetization of high value currency notes in India. There was a huge drive to popularize mobile wallets, A2A electronic transfers and other forms of digital payments. Arguably there are more types and brands of digital payments in India than anywhere else in the world. However, end of the day, almost 50% of hitherto cash payments could go cashless only because of cheques, not digital payments. Universally, people who just enter a formal financial system (or buy a new financial product) are likely to prefer physical constructs like branch and cheques before they adopt virtual constructs like mobile banking and digital payments over a period of time. There are hundreds of millions of such people in India. I guess there are at least 5-10 million such people in UK. On the other hand, I guess almost everyone in Norway became banked many times over several years ago. Therefore, I laud this move by UK and don't find the Norway situation too relevant for UK.

@ChetanGhadge:

I'd a similar experience of attempting to pay with mVisa (via HDFC Bank PayZapp app) in that the merchants told me that they've been having the mVisa QRC for a while but had never taken a single payment with it. They further hinted that I shouldn't be paying with this mode. I let this pass on the first couple of occasions that this happened. But on the next occasion, I decided to push back. 

I told the merchant, “I guess as long as you have an mVisa QR Code, you don’t need to do anything more to accept a PayZapp payment”.

From here on, my experience deviates from yours.

I fired up PayZapp, scanned the mVisa QR code and tapped the APPROVE button, the payment went through successfully - I got an in-app receipt for the payment and the MERCHANT GOT AN IMMEDIATE SMS TO CONFIRM THE COLLECTION.

Interestingly, ALL merchants who shied away from mVisa directed me to use PayTM if I wanted to use a digital payment mode!

This is a serious shortcoming in the merchant onboarding process of mVisa / PayZapp / UPI and many of PayTM's competitors. On the other hand, PayTM has an excellent merchant onboarding process that I described in point #3 of my post Five Reasons Why PayTM Is Miles Ahead Of Its Rivals. 

I'm in the process of writing a blog post titled "PayZapp's Loss is PayTM's Gain" - replace PayZapp with mVisa / UPI / BharatQR, the statement might still hold true!