Payments Consultant

Today the Fed has issued their proposed interchange regulations.  They boil down to three key proposals:
1.  The Fed gutted interchange by setting prices at least 80% lower than today.  They proposed two choices for interchange prices, which amount to a giant win for retailers and a commensurate loss for issuers:  Either a flat $0.12 cap, or a [...]

M-Paisa is a mobile payments scheme in Afghanistan modeled after the wildly successful M-PESA in Kenya that was launched in 2007 and now boasts over 12.5m subscribers.  From the mobile carrier Roshan paying it’s employees to the Afghan National Police force distributing salaries (and in some cases bumping salaries up to fend off the Taliban), this [...]

Fear and Greed are often discussed among investors and others as the great emotional motivators among capitalists.  Looking through this filter let’s take a look at the big recent news in mobile payments:  a big deal between three of the largest US mobile carriers, a bank and a card network.
AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile made big [...]

Amidst all the hype, politics and lobbying in the Durbin Amendment interchange fees debate, is a little-noticed component that could have a big impact on the state of payment technology in the US.  I believe the changes offered by the House and accepted by Durbin and the Senate could lead to regulations that force the US [...]

Check out this opinion piece from Visa:
Industry Opinion
New code for debit, credit cards leaves consumers out
Toronto Globe and Mail
I’m not sure what is more interesting, the overall subject, the article by Visa (and the fact they wrote one), or the comments. I was surprised by the number of comments on what seems [...]

Today, the House of Representatives passed the Data Accountability and Trust Act, which sets national standards for the protection of consumer’s personal information like payment card numbers. More government regulation a good thing? Actually in this case it is.