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Personally, I'm a big fan of interoperability. But, in this day and age where proprietary walled gardens like WhatsApp are threatening the future of interoperable SMSs, I'm pleasantly surprised that interoperability is still considered valuable.

Compared to this, banks seem to be extremely sophisticated users of API technology e.g. HFT consumes social media sentiment and takes a buy / sell decision in milliseconds. That said, it's not self-evident that Interpol publishes an API of info related to stolen passports.

Is it obvious that Sender needs PayM and Receiver does not (even to cash out)? Otherwise, this is as closed-loop as PingIt or PayPal. On another note, it'd be interesting to watch how PayM will handle the fairly common situation of a bene having one mobile number and multiple bank accounts.

Technology may be "rapidly changing the face of financial services" but wasn't AmEx one of the megabanks that vetoed the introduction of an American equivalent of FPS in NACHA late last year? 

Hopefully, Wausau and / or banks will take a fairly broad view of what they call "expected area". Mobile RDC is meant to allow people to deposit cheques while they're on the road. It'd be dumb to expect them to do so only from their homes or offices.

In India and much of Asia Pacific, ATMs are not just holes in the wall. They support realtime mobile topup, e-donations to temples and other places of religious worship, favorite transactions, bill payments, railway and event ticket bookings, SMS-based cash withdrawals by non customers without card or smartphone, and many more innovative features. ATMs on some border cities even dispense cash in different currencies. Considering that some of these features have been around for over a decade, a reasonably powerful OS like Windows XP is highly justified. Warts and all, XP is the best version of Windows in a long time, which partly explains why 95% of the world's ATMs still use this old OS. (From my not-so-stable Vista laptop).

Haven't we had enough of this "look for a silver streak running from top to bottom at three-quarters of the way down the width of the note" kind of education about security features of banknotes? Do we really need an app to spread the same message? How I wish there was instead an app that scanned banknotes and automatically spotted the counterfeit ones.

Interesting post, the findings of which resonate with my personal experience. I recall a large bank in the USA embarking upon the implementation of an Identity Management solution to cut down the time it took to onboard new employees into its IT landscape from 15 days to half a day. Midway through the project, it was found that disabling access rights was taking 4 months after an employee left the bank. As a result, what started as a "joiners" project quickly expanded to cover 
"joiners and leavers".

I've long argued (e.g. https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=7772) that the major benefit of contactless card is illustrated by the ability to get past a turnstile at a tube station without having to take out the Oyster Card from the wallet and the wallet from the pocket. Wearable technology will hopefully take this convenience to the next level by permitting multiple contactless cards to be used in the same way. I'm sure smartwatches will retain their battery for days. This would remove a major anxiety - phone running out of juice at the POS - that has stunted the mainstream adoption of mobile wallets. 

Kudos to M&S for giving £1 in M&S vouchers for every 100 reward points earned on its card. Lately, I've noticed many banks setting the points-to-gift ratio at around 350:1, which is clearly a raw deal. Hope M&S also ensures that there's no in-transit leakage when the gift is shipped to the cardholder, something that seems to be happening fairly often of late. 

https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=8914