The Security Conundrum – Part 1: The Puzzle

Posted by Patrick Gauthier on 20 April 2010 | 4 Comments

Tags: transaction security, PCI DSS, data breaches, encryption, tokenization, EMV, contactless cards, ISO 7816, smart cards, ANSI X9, PIN, e-commerce, m-commerce, authentication, unattended terminals

In recent weeks I have picked a number of conversation threads on the on-going difficulties of securing transactions, such as the recent PYMNTS.com posts of Mohammad Khan and Jack Jania or the ANSI X9 call for new standards to secure debit transactions.

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Is Visa Becoming Serious about Mobile?

Posted by Patrick Gauthier on 24 February 2010 | 2 Comments

Tags: Bill Gajda, Visa, Visa Mobile, Mobile payments, NFC, Mobile Money Transfer, mobile banking, m-commerce, mobile, iphone, apple, droid, google, mastercard, american express, networks, credit card, payments, issuer, processor, platform, nfc, card not present, obopay, monitise, gsma, nokia, paypal

Visa's appointment of industry veteran Bill Gajda is an important signal, but structural challenges to innovation will have to be addressed.

Ever since its Initial Public Offering prospectus Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has made no mystery of the importance it thought mobile payments would have in its future. Yet, judging from its press releases over the last 18 months, the company was struggling to define and implement a vision of why and how. Interestingly, the only significant allocation of resource to mobile payments came from Visa Europe, which announced earlier this month its intention to invest 200 million Euros.

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Apple and the Dawn of i-Commerce

Posted by Patrick Gauthier on 28 January 2010 | 0 Comments

Tags: iPad, Apple, e-commerce, m-commerce, NFC, App Store, iTune, iBook, PayPal X, Google Wave, Internet video traffic, mashups

It will take a couple of iterations, but the iPad will open new frontiers for "e-transactions"

Yes, you read it first on PYMNTS.com, the new member of the commerce alphabet soup will be "i-commerce"! That's what I believe Apple really started yesterday with the introduction of the iPad.

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Barbarians at the Gate: The Coming Disruption of Retail Banking

Posted by Patrick Gauthier on 12 January 2010 | 1 Comments

Tags: mobile banking, disruptive innovation, retail banking, prepaid card, PayPal, Obopay, Aliaswire, prepaid, credit card, verisign, retail deposits, mobile, m-commerce, atm, Plastyc

How Prepaid Cards Enhanced with Mobile Delivery Create a New Competitive Paradigm

It can’t be fun being a banking executive these days. Your herd is being thinned, your bonus is under scrutiny, new laws are limiting your business and driving up the complexity of regulatory compliance, and you might take the fall for the Great Recession . Still, real challenges may lie beyond these "road bumps", in the form of a gathering threat to the foundation of banking: retail deposits. This is no trivial matter. Given the demonstrated limits of securitization, the need to reduce leverage, and the strings attached to government funds, retail deposit are a critical source of funding for the future of any diversified financial services provider.

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Why Paypal May Do to Payments What Apple Did to the Mobile Ecosystem

Posted by Patrick Gauthier on 7 January 2010 | 4 Comments

Tags: paypal, apple, ecommerce, payments, boku, zong, mpayy, visa, mastercard, paypalX, social, mobile, m-commerce, point-of-sale, pos, american express, amex, b2b, p2p, purchasing cards, Fundrazr, alibaba, Adaptive Payments

PayPal Will Open Up the Walled Garden of Payments

The 4th quarter of 2009 is definitely starting to feel like the dawn of a new age for e-commerce, with many attempts to integrate commerce with social computing and mobile use cases. Many companies are vying for a spot as the primary gateway to payments, thus fueling a new round of innovation.

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