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Location

London

Member since

2013

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Security Payments

Eric's blog archive

2013 (8)

Eric Smith

Senior Pre-Sales Consultant at Dynamic Partners

Message Posts: 8 Comments: 13

Bio A payments specialist with over 20 years experience in card payments and banking. Have a strong background in project management and the delivery of complex payments and banking solutions internationally. Have experience across the entire payments chain, having worked for a card scheme, a Bank, as w

Blogs

Everyone's a winner - The benefits of loyalty rewards

02 Sep 2013

Companies across an array of industries, whether they be hospitality, retail or financial services, offer loyalty rewards to their consumers. When one thinks about loyalty schemes, the idea of retail outlets offering bonus points to their customers is the first thing that comes to mind, especially with the likes of Starbucks and Nando's recently r...

The death of cash - simply an urban myth?

21 Aug 2013

As innovative payment technologies hit the market, like the PayPal 'check in' service that launched in London this month, it seems that coins and notes are becoming less important. As countries like Sweden appeal for a 'cashless society' and physical cash continues to cost economies vast amounts annually, one needs to ask if cash really will die o...

The extinction of ATM and POS?

10 Jul 2013

I attended a course some months back about developing a mobile proposition. It was suggested that with the growth of mobile payments and banking, the importance of existing “older” channels would decline. Whilst in terms of sheer numbers, that may be true, this shouldn’t be read to mean that channels such as ATM and POS will disappear - far from it...

Are we losing the war on cash?

10 Jun 2013

The latest news from the UK Payments Council, especially on the back of the recent study by Market Platform Dynamics shows that the use of cash is greater than ever, despite the plethora of electronic and mobile alternatives. For those outside the payments industry, the true cost of cash is invisible – they think it’s ‘free’, But actually, physical...

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Eric is Commenting on

Why payments are disappearing, and mobile will win

Brett, I think what you are saying makes a lot of sense and indeed security to one side, making a payment as simple as possible takes away as much "hassle" as possible. That said, it also perhaps makes it a bit "too easy". When you check your bank balance or credit card statement (or whatever) at the end of a month and see you spent much more than you thought you had - you might want some of that hassle back again. In other words - people still like some level of control over their spending. Making it too easy might not be such a good thing. A guess another thing that occured to me reading this was where there's a dispute. There's no signature, no PIN. If I say "it wasn't me in the taxi" how can anyone really prove it was? I'm sure you've thought about this - but it's not immediately obvious. Anyway - great article.

14 Oct 2013 Reply Read article

Let's call it PayOff

Jane, I too had a good look over the paper. I feel sorry for you. I agree there's a definite "political" slant to it. Especially with references to "the last government" and "the then-government". If this is all triggered by the fact that the Payments Council got it wrong in trying to phase out cheques - so they should go. I wonder what that says about the government itself and all its political u-turns? Perhaps they should go as well? All of that said, the creation of a new "regulatory body" shows political interference. Will this new body really be independent? The Financial Services Industry is one of the most powerful and important sectors in the UK. Also it has quite a few "high earners" who might want to fund the various political parties to "pull a few strings" behind the scenes. Also you point about Luxembourg is valid. I know that PayPal already has a banking license - issued in Luxembourg. Just like fraud finding security "loopholes", if there's a reason to sidestep or avoid regulation, given sufficient financial incentive - I'm sure there's a way of doing so. Be that moving operations to Luxembourg or making them virtual "in the cloud". I think that trying to strong-arm the industry into following licensing terms and bureaucratic regulations will not encourage innovation. Quite the opposite. I only see the likes of Metro Bank potentially benefiting from something like this. It will be interesting to see where the debate takes us, but as you said "Industry consultation came out clearly in favour of the Payments Strategy Board so equally clearly the government has decided to do something entirely different". So no matter what is commented back on this "consultation" - will it really make any difference or just be ignored in favour of a decision that's already been made from an ivory tower?

18 Jun 2013 Reply Read article

Contactless is the future of payments

I think on this one it's a bit like a court case. You can find articles to support the fact that contactless is growing in importance... https://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=24924 ... and articles to support the fact that the "boom" in contactless may not be as big as some people think... https://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=24884 I know there's a sense that in the future we will live in a "connected world" with intelligent televisions, fridges and everything else. Who knows? The future is hard to predict - though we may still play the lottery now and again. I do agree, however, with the fact that the technology needs to be solving a problem. If we're talking about long queues at Starbucks - the issue is not how fast it takes to make the payment, but how fast they can make an expresso.

18 Jun 2013 Reply Read article

Are we losing the war on cash?

I agree that from a consumer perspective they are unaware of any "war". The banking and payments sector, however, wants to replace expensive cash. The problem is, as you rightly highlight, unless there's an advantage to the consumer... and to the merchants to do so - why would they change? If banks and card schemes charge for card and mobile payments and don't charge for cash - why would either consumers and merchants want to embrace this? Purely to have less cash in the till at the end of the day? I don't think so. People may be prepared to pay a little more for convenience, but in hard economic times that's a harder thing to sell. Also the "coolness" of waving your mobile or touching your card has already lost its novelty factor. In the end there needs to be a real and tangible benefit beyond avoiding a run to the ATM to withdraw cash.

11 Jun 2013 Reply Read article