Welcome to PYMNTS.com’s Midyear Review: a look into what the leaders of the payments industry have seen and accomplished this calendar year, and how they see trends playing out for the rest of 2013. We ask a top executive from each payments player the same six questions about how the industry has improved, what it still needs, and how his or her company plans to stay ahead of the competition in a complex and dynamic payments world.
In our first installment, we speak with Lisa Stanton, President, Americas for Monitise: a technology and services company focused on delivering mobile banking, payments and commerce networks to a worldwide audience. What opportunity does Stanton believe banks are missing by failing to be aggressive with mobile payments? Find out below.
PYMNTS.com: What are some of the company’s key accomplishments this year?
Lisa Stanton: So far, 2013 has been a great year for Monitise in a number of places around the world — and for mobile payments generally. In February, we announced a partnership with BlackBerry and PermataBank in Indonesia that allows customers to send payments to their BlackBerry Money contacts directly from their phones. Our Visa Inc. activities have really ramped up, working jointly to provide comprehensive mobile solutions for DPS-processed banks, and helping Visa to evolve mobile NFC solutions for their issuers. We further strengthened our partnership with Visa Europe through a three-year commercial deal that will allow us to better serve our more than 3,000 member banks and financial institutions. We also launched Monitise mPOS in Europe and partnered with Lloyds Bank to provide mobile POS solutions to their small business customers. And most recently, we entered into a mobile money partnership with Telefonica Digital to develop and manage new and existing mobile payment and commerce services for its customers.
In the U.S., June marked the one-year mark since our acquisition of Clairmail. We have been exceptionally pleased to have maintained all of the key clients and staff and are growing our direct business throughout the Americas.
It’s been a very exciting year so far and these milestones all underscore Monitise’s strategy to be the leading global enabler for Mobile Money allowing consumers all over the world to Bank Anywhere, Pay Anyone, Buy Anything.
What have you see this year so far in payments that has surprised you?
We’ve seen an explosion of P2P and mobile point-of-sale capabilities, particularly in Europe. In addition, industry verticals that previously claimed mobile payments as their own are beginning to work more collaboratively. FIs in particular are now prioritizing mobile investments above all other customer points, as mobile phones and tablets are now the dominant point of interaction. We’ve also seen financial services providers like networks, processors, acquirers, etc. really understanding the importance and complexity in driving future growth via mobile innovation. We’ve come a long way!
What do you think is still missing?
As mentioned, banks largely understand the opportunity that exists with mobile payments, but many haven’t been aggressive enough to capitalize on consumers’ inherent trust in banks in handling mobile payments – and mobile wallet capabilities more broadly. We recently conducted a study with Cognizant, which found that consumers overwhelmingly trust banks in the mobile wallet debate compared with payment services such as Google Wallet and PayPal. There’s a tremendous opportunity for banks to impact consumers’ digital wallet decisions by providing the features and personalization that consumers nowadays demand.
What do you think is in store for the rest of the year?
Mobile will continue to accelerate the convergence between the offline and digital worlds of banking, payments and commerce. There’s an increasingly evident shift between technology-centric payment schemes and truly disruptive consumer-oriented payment initiatives that will continue to revolutionize money – and set the stage for the future of commerce. As we head into 2014, we’ll see fewer new technology payment schemes being introduced and more focus on collaboration and partnership within the industry to bring existing initiatives to critical mass.
What can we expect to see from Monitise (that you can disclose)?
We’ve fully committed to mobile commerce as the third generation of mobile money – with announced partners like Visa Europe and Telefonica, and a number of others to come. It’s all about collaboration to win in this fast-paced and quickly evolving global transformation.
Lisa Stanton – President, Americas
Lisa is responsible for Monitise’s business in the Americas, including both the Group’s partnership with Visa Inc. and direct sales. Lisa joined Monitise in early in early 2007 to help set up the joint venture with Metavante, which is now part of FIS.
Prior to joining Monitise, Lisa spent 16 years in various leadership roles with Citizens Financial Group, and has extensive knowledge of the US payments networks, affinity programs, and innovative payments advancements, including contactless transactions.
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