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Ketharaman Swaminathan

Founder and CEO
GTM360 Marketing Solutions
Member since
17 Apr 2009
Location
Pune
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Followed by John Sims, Martha Boyle and 5 others you follow
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Ketharaman's comments

clear
Visa/MasterCard EU dominance adds impetus to calls for bank-backed competitor

Totally agree with the previous two comments. It's high time regulators turned their spotlight towards merchants: As soon as the no-surcharge rule was removed, merchants have felt free to fleece customers with as high as 7.5% extra fees, disguised as convenience charge, Internet handling charge, and so on. https://twitter.com/s_ketharaman/statuses/625931400634613760

03 Dec 2015 08:11 Read comment

German mobile payments outfit Yapital wound down

This just out: 

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-01/why-apple-wants-to-get-into-the-unprofitable-world-of-payments-between-friends

"Owners of newer iPhone models used Apple Pay in 2.7 percent of Black Friday transactions at stores that support the feature, compared with 4.9 percent on the same day last year, according to data from tracking firm InfoScout."

That's a massive drop in usage of Apple Pay y-o-y.

02 Dec 2015 08:35 Read comment

German mobile payments outfit Yapital wound down

It's not an effect of the big players. According to this Bloomberg article, Apple Pay itself is struggling to gain momentum. End of the day, it's not about QR code or NFC. It's about paying the price of solving a non-existent problem.

Mobile Wallets: Fix What's Broken - And It Ain't Payments

Like the Bloomberg anchorperson says on the video, it's so easy to swipe a card.

01 Dec 2015 15:01 Read comment

How banks can improve the loyalty experience in three simple steps

Agreed + Bank Insources Credit Card Reward Redemption Theft

30 Nov 2015 10:38 Read comment

BBVA Bancomer first to roll out dynamic CVV/CVC for mobile transactions

The headline says "mobile transactions". In that case, if mobile doesn't have Internet connectivity, neither the dynamic CVV nor the rest of the transaction would go through. So no problem. The body of the article suggests that the feature could be applicable even for desktop transactions, in which case the situation - however rare or common - under which desktop has Internet but mobile does not have Internet would cause shopping cart abandonment and failed payment.   

While on the subject, a couple of days ago, State Bank of India, India's largest bank, launched an OTP generator mobile app. This complements the traditional method of delivery of OTP via SMS. Both methods are applicable for desktop and mobile transactions. The old method caused abandonment and failed payment. Only time will tell how the app will fare.  

Indeed, lost revenues can exceed fraud loss savings. 

Mitigating Fraud Does Not Pay The Bills

27 Nov 2015 18:54 Read comment

London black cabs to accept card and contactless payments

Noncash payment methods have their own hidden costs. The intermediaries who stand to make a cut on every non cash payment are either ignorant about them or choose to ignore them. Alas, they're only evident to poor cabbies. Not surprisingly, they refuse card payments because they know that Cash in Hand Is Worth More Than Card In Bush

27 Nov 2015 12:33 Read comment

Former Barclays chief forecasts massive job cuts and branch closures as banks go digital

If the true Uber / Borders moments happen, banks themselves won't be around to cut staff, so the point is moot.

27 Nov 2015 10:26 Read comment

Vendor relationships in the cross-hairs as regulators zone in on cyber security

Going by the number of contractual commitments and annual OCC and other audits that outsourcers submit to, curious to know how this is different from the "back-to-back" conditions that have been in force for a long time?

26 Nov 2015 12:02 Read comment

Alternative payment methods challenge plastic's supremacy

@AnonFinextraMember:

  1. While ewallets do use V/MC, that's not the only rails they can use. Some of them support TELCO rails e.g. Boku, Zong. Others use ACH rails e.g. PayPal, PayTM
  2. I regularly use an ewallet because it eliminates the friction associated with the conventional payment process. For the merchant, that means manifold increase in conversion. Real - not perceived - increase. Due to reduced friction, not higher security. HDFC Bank's PayZapp Ends My Bill Payment Woes
  3. Gone are the days when middleman automatically meant higher cost. When I pay a bill directly, many biller websites levy a surcharge of 1-2% for accepting credit cards. Whereas, when I pay the same bills via a third party mobile wallet like PayZapp, not only do I escape the surcharge but I actually get a cashback at the end of the month. So, thanks to funding from sugar daddies / VCs, middleman could actually mean LOWER costs! Both for the consumer and merchant. 
  4. As long as the funding tap doesn't dry up, ewallets are not dead-on-arrival. Personally, it's never a good idea to invest your nest egg in the private markets but, as long as the party lasts, why shouldn't savvy consumers and merchants partake of the festivities?

26 Nov 2015 08:43 Read comment

Alternative payment methods challenge plastic's supremacy

PayPal ewallet is often funded via credit card. It's also possible to pay by credit card via PayPal without having a PayPal account, which means PayPal but no ewallet. If WorldPay subtracts the volumes of these two types of transactions, its prediction might go awry. Which makes for a good candidate of the "#3. Exploiting Calculitis" method of How To Lie With Big Data.

25 Nov 2015 15:40 Read comment

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Ketharaman writes about

  • artificial intelligence
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Ketharaman's opinion archive

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