Welcome to Finextra. We use cookies to help us to deliver our services. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you may change your preferences at our Cookie Centre. Please read our Privacy Policy.
For Finextra's free daily newsletter, breaking news and flashes and weekly job board.
Why blame politicians for the sins committed by banks and solution providers in designing systems with so much friction that many of their ePayment products are rejected by mainstream banking customers? Not just in the UK, the recent decision by INGDirect USA makes this point eloquently: Although its customers have chosen to bank with a direct bank that has no branches, they clearly want the convenience of making payments by paper checks instead of jumping several hoops to put through an electronic payment.
Amazon didn't cause a BORDERS moment by getting bookstores banned. Nor did iPhone disrupt the mobile phone market by lobbying with some industry assocation to turn against the BlackBerries or Nokias of the world. Similarly, ePayment providers need to realize that they can change the status quo only through the strengths of their products and UX and not via an artificially-guaranteed cheque-less market.
Ironically, the recent decision to continue with cheques in the UK might actually boost ePayments: Finally, banks and solution providers might start designing products and devising go to market strategies in such a way that customers voluntarily choose ePayments over cheques.
Independent Consultant
F C Consultants
Member since
13 Jul 2007
Location
Stowmarket
Blog posts
1
Comments
16
Sam Ranieri
18 Jun 0 1
Amita Choudhary
17 Jun 0 1
Marc-Christian Maibach
17 Jun 2
Michael Ault
17 Jun 0