SEPA and European Payments

The Single Euro Payments Area, the Payments Services Directive, the Eurosystem, TARGET2, STEP2, the Euro and related matters.

Retired 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 mobile payments, retailers in the US are saying something different. Evan Schuman of StorefrontBacktalk writes about the problems he ran into when he ...

14 March 2008 /payments

Retired 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 a dollar for traditional direct marketing campaigns. The customer checking out right now hasn’t been here in over a month? Print a special offer to e...

13 March 2008 /payments

Retired 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 posts provide some insight into the value of marketing rich payment services, mainly at a macro level. For example, there’s the Deloitte study that show...

11 March 2008 /payments

Retired 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 New Interchange Revenue” (The company is Yodlee. Here's their press release <http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080228/20080228005484.html?.v=1> .) I fi...

04 March 2008 /payments

Retired 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 swallowed a large portion of the increased interchange by lowering their own transaction fees, presumably in response to merchant pressure. It’s tough bein...

03 March 2008 /payments

Retired 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 find myself writing much less about contactless and NFC payments. What in the world am I going to complain about now? The Charlotte Observer writes abou...

03 March 2008 /payments

Gary Wright Analyst at BISS Research

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 importantly their corporate customers. After EBA day (organised by Finextra and EBA), last year I undertook some research based from the Corporate Tre...

18 February 2008 /payments /retail

Retired Member 

Regulators about to rule on interchange -watch this closely

Here's something that could have a big impact on how payment schemes are going to compete in the future. European regulators are expected tomorrow to force MasterCard to cut interchange fees, but the devil’s in the details - everyone will be watching to see what the ruling actually says. Here's what I'll be looking for tomorrow. Check out the full...

18 December 2007 /payments

Alan Goodrich Regional Sales Manager at ERI

45 Shopping Days to SEPA..!

Depending on your local bank/public holidays, there are just 45 business days to "SEPA Day"..! I can't help wondering just how "SEPA-ready" banks and corporates really are with effectively just 9 weeks to "LIVE" date to go..? SEPA may not be as big a deal as the Euro and Y2K in terms of the consequences of not being re...

21 November 2007 /payments /sibos

Retired Member 

Justify interchange by helping retailers fight return fraud

Return fraud is in the news again. $3.7 billion this holiday season, according to a recent report. I talk about it because I believe that payment networks are ideally positioned to help retailers address this huge problem. Why should the networks do this? To help justify their interchange fees, of course. See the full blog post here: http://aneac...

16 November 2007 /payments