Ketharaman Swaminathan Founder and CEO at GTM360 Marketing Solutions
Consumer advocates ranted about overdraft protection fees in 2008, saying the service was forced down upon consumers. While the uninitiated can Google "overdraft protection" for a prosaic definition of the term, Stanley Bing offers the following tongue-in-cheek description for one of the most lucrative services offered by US banks: “No m...
22 September 2017 /regulation /retail
If you think bots will never replace human agents, you’re amongst the lucky few who has been served by intelligent human agents. I admit that I’ve also been among the lucky few at times. But more often than not, I come across fairly dumb human agents. And, lately, I've started experiencing fairly intelligent chatbots. Let me give you three recent ...
14 August 2017 /ai /retail
I recently read the following tweet: "After Banks figure this out and do something with eKYC, they will realize that people are not ready to pay MDR, want privacy" (https://twitter.com/logic/status/833642760456376320) I replied back pointing out that: "But Merchants pay MDR, not Consumers!" (https://twitter.com/s_ketharaman/stat...
18 July 2017 /payments
I noticed a huge crowd during a recent visit to my bank branch. I happened to spot the bank’s Head of Relationship Banking - let me call her Sonia - in the branch. I asked her how come their branch was so full when finsurgents have been predicting the death of branches for so long. Sonia told me that, let alone die, their branches are growing. Desp...
08 June 2017 /retail /startups
A few months ago, I'd visited the South Indian temple town of Tirupati with my family. On the way, whenever the train stopped at a station, the engine was switched off. But the air-conditioning still worked because it was powered by huge battery packs installed in the AC coach. Coincidentally, the manufacturer of these battery packs is located clo...
16 May 2017
Contrary to popular belief, ecommerce began in India in the mid-1990s, which was way before Flipkart came into existence in circa 2007. I remember placing orders from a dial-up modem on Fabmall, Rediff and a couple of other Indian ecommerce pioneers in the late 1990s. I used to pay online by credit card, which I remember was the only mode of payme...
21 April 2017 /payments
I had to pay college fees of INR 300,000 (~US$ 4615). The college supported an array of digital and paper-based payment options viz. Digital: Log in to college website, use college’s ePayment Gateway and pay by Credit Card. Paper: Demand Draft. I evaluated the pros and cons of both options. DIGITAL PAYMENT Pros: Credit card reward points: 3000 (@ ...
28 March 2017 /payments /regulation
[Pink Floyd fans won’t need any explanation for this post's title. As for the others… well, it’s never too late to become fans of Pink Floyd!] The recent buzz around Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning has spawned the next generation of Personal Finance Management applications. While the forerunners in the cateogory like Mint (now part of ...
14 February 2017 /retail
With over 100 million users a year ago, PayTM was already ahead of its digital payment competitors before the Nov. 2016 demonetization of high value currency notes in India. On the back of the push for #CashlessIndia consequent to #CurrencySwitch, the Alibaba-backed mobile wallet has increased its lead over its other mobile wallets (e.g. MobiKwik,...
20 January 2017 /payments
On the back of the demonetization of high value currency notes in India, the government has been aggressively pushing cashless payments. Trending on Twitter under the hashtag #CashlessIndia, the initiative has attracted criticism from the blogosphere and mainstream media on the grounds that India is not yet ready for digital payments. The average ...
06 January 2017 /payments
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