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A Finextra Member

Interchange regulation only benefits merchants

Mandated reductions in interchange fees in Australia were supposed to cause retail prices to drop, directly benefiting consumers. Instead, interchange regulation has redistributed wealth in favour of ...

05 May 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

SEPA XML formats concern European Corporates

I have written evidence that some of Europe's largest Corporates have expressed a number of serious issues to the EPC where SEPA is failing and in danger of deteriorating to a simple Bank to Bank syst...

30 Apr 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

When will we know SEPA is working?

Now this might be a really dumb question but I ask it in response to Chris Skinner's blog published on the SWIFT Community website. According to Chris, SEPA is working and he substantiates his claim b...

29 Apr 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

Has SEPA failed?

We are already a third of the way through the SEPA year and its time to review where the industry is with this project? The feedback I have had from a number of corporates across the EU is that SEPA h...

24 Apr 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

Free payment processing

Google has been offering free payment processing to Internet merchants since they launched Google Checkout almost two years ago. Merchants get free credit and debit card processing when they also use ...

26 Mar 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

Contactless has a much bigger foe than security: Apathy

Retailers are very pragmatic people. If something makes sense, works well and solves real problems, they’ll adopt it. Otherwise, no chance. While the banking community hypes up contactless cards and m...

14 Mar 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

Uncovering the hidden value in interchange fees

OK, I know that’s a provocative title, but bear with me. My last post showed how printing targeted promotions at the bottom of POS receipts costs merchants a few cents per impression versus close to ...

13 Mar 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

What can merchants spend on value added payment services?

PIVAS – Payment Information Value Added Services: A platform that lets retailers deliver targeted promotions at the POS, via credit or debit card receipts (lots more here). A few of my prior blog pos...

11 Mar 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

More companies adopting interchange based sales pitch

This company has developed an interesting interchange based ROI story for banks. Here’s the pitch: “Bill Pay Solution Enables Card Issuing Financial Institutions to Earn $150 Per Consumer Per Year in...

04 Mar 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

Acquiring margins squeezed, profits up - what's the story?

The average interchange rate in the US has increased by 22% in ten years, yet total actual fees charged to merchants, including interchange, have only increased by 11%. Acquirers appear to have swallo...

03 Mar 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

Waiving signatures for small purchases torpedoes contactless

Two recent articles highlight the critical problems that contactless faces, which I’ve written about many times over the past couple of years. Now that the problems seem to be widely understood, I fin...

03 Mar 2008
SEPA and European Payments
A Finextra Member

SEPA could have been so much better!

As the SEPA fanfares of the 28th January disappear into the distance, it's worth analyzing how all this could have been handled so much better, to achieve the mutual objectives of the banks and most i...

18 Feb 2008
SEPA and European Payments

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