In wallet war times it makes you wonder whom you
should regard as your best partner. Should your friends be the same as you are,
very different, have the same market reach, etc. For a bank working with the
likes of Google or Telco’s can be slightly intimidating. They have a huge
international reach beyond comparison to even the largest banks customer base.
This international aspect will make them have different interests, interests of
their own, with other partners, in other regions, in other value chains.  

But as your reach as a bank is limited you cannot
establish new payments solutions yourself, how innovative the design might be.
So partnerships are needed, with other banks, with the payment card brands, Telco’s or the `new players`. Setting new standards is hardly an option due to the immense timelines, investments and risks involved.

An established new player is PayPal. One that has been actively working with banks lately and I can see the match. PayPal is uncompromisingly customer centric oriented and adds value through this to banks.
Offering banks every niche use case they can imagine and preventing banks to
have to invest themselves. PayPal is not a huge threat to banks as they only
provide the payment as a service. PayPal has an international reach but not a
local strong presence as large Telco´s have. Who owns the customer is currently
not the issue. It can be expected PayPal could become a provider of consumer
credit or even a scheme with member banks like MasterCard and Visa in the
future. They would still be a great outlet for any market oriented bank. The
true competitors for PayPal are Telco’s, Apple, Facebook and Google who cherish
a broader consumer intimacy relation due to their broader service portfolio.

My expectations for Google are more or less similar, they could be a great partner, huge and extremely commercial and marketing driven like
PayPal. This market approach is what banks need to bring new services to the
market. I believe they will bring more added value than Telco’s, just defending
their place in the value chain.  

Who can imagine Apple or Facebook joining forces with banks? They would bring in a large fan like audience, an unusual asset for banks. What would it look like? They will never restrict to one bank but changes to become the local partner for your country should not be missed.

The more classic partner are the major brands Visa and MasterCard. They will have to come in any way to provide payment brand recognition, extremely important in new circumstances. Their strongest asset is a huge one, their international brands and secure networks, not to be underestimated so why not offer issuing banks white label wallets from this perspectives? Finally the consumer will determine the ranking of preferred brands in their wallets.

Please feel free to add your thoughts to start a discussion on who will provide the wallet to the consumer.