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"Who needs a bank?" I can't believe I'm reading this. Pray tell me how will Apple Pay work without the issuer bank that issues the Apple Pay-enrolled card and the acquirer bank that allows the merchant to accept the Apple Pay payment? Do you have any figures on how many unbanked people have iPhone6 required to use Apple Pay? Sorry but the reality is quite opposite: Apple Puts Banks Squarely At The Center Of Mobile Payments

Would you've cited UBER as a disruptor in an article whose title includes the expression "innovators dilemma" had you known that the founder of this expression, Clayton Christensen, had recently declared that UBER is NOT a disruptor?

I echo your irritation with "Add 0.01 p to get free delivery", just that in India, the threshold for free delivery is INR 500. I've often wondered why Amazon simply doesn't ask the customer to "gift" away that 0.01p / INR 1 to reach the threshold instead of making them go around in circles to find a qualifying item.

Oh, well, wait, the marketer in me is now kicking in.

Maybe it is Amazon's intention to drive the consumer to buy some more stuff as they "go around in circles" - the ecommerce equivalent of stacking chewing gum, chocolate and other items at the store checkout line, easily within reach of consumers waiting in queue.

Good list. From personal experience and anecdotal evidence, people avoid mundane tasks due to natural tendency of procrastination, which rises manifold if the process of completing them is fraught with friction. Therefore, I'd like to add one more item to your list: Make systems to fulfill mundane tasks frictionless. This goes beyond "right technology" already covered in your list and focuses on UX.

Why am I not surprised? I commented here about why a single, common e-ID is unlikely to find acceptance for different services requiring different authentication strengths, especially in nations with federal government structures. I doubt if time alone will drive greater adoption.

@PeterRobinson: Not sure how this thing will work via MC but, in India, issuer banks have been offering this feature for several years. Just that it happens ex-post facto rather than at the POS. Typically, a day or two after the cardholder receives their monthly statement containing a particularly large charge, the bank calls them and offers to convert this charge to equated monthly installments. (More recently, online statements have started featuring a "Convert to EMI" hyperlink, so cardholder can opt for it without any human intervention from the bank.) As far as I know, the switch to EMI happens without any APR. Sometimes, there's a small fee but that's also rare. Apparently, banks do this to ease the burden on the cardholder and thereby boost loyalty - rather than make money via APR. On the contrary, deferred payments attract hefty APR.

Great post. Apart from paperless transaction and real time settlement - two benefits that are already available in some existing systems - I haven't been able to figure out the true value proposition of Blockchain.

On a side note, can only Finextra "insiders" like @DirkKinvig post an image in the comment?:) I've never seen a picture icon in the comments toolbar. I still can't see one.

When many people run out of cash, they run to the nearest ATM:) Many merchants have told me to do the same when I refuse to pay by cash and they're (temporarily) unable to accept credit cards due to POS / network / server malfunction. Nevertheless, I do know several people who spend only whatever cash they have at that moment (despite merchants' efforts to point them to the nearest ATM). Therefore, I agree that cash can serve as a powerful control over spending for a lot of people.

Ah, that sounds better.

@AlexanderP:

I agree but (1) Contactless is not just technology in TfL buses, it is execution, and it has been that way at least as far back as 2007 when I was in UK (I don't remember ever using cash for a single TfL bus ride). (2) There has to be a limit to how long execution can take, especially in fast-moving technologies, otherwise it could become obsolete by the time it goes live!

If only bus operators executed tech as rapidly as their buses ran, I'm sure this can happen much earlier than 2022!

"...nearly half (45%) of that group (of Millennials) also said that they’re more likely to pay more with cash now than they did a few years ago."

Cash still king for many consumers

I've long held that shifts between cash and noncash payment methods are bidirectional. This article shows that this is true even of Millennials.