Focussed on the changing payments landscape in the UK, using social media to share payment insights. Previously Bacs’ CEO. http://www.northeypoint.co.uk
For the last 41 weeks I have been conducting a cashless experiment – I’ve proved that it is entirely possible to dispense notes and coins to the ‘legacy’ payment hall of fame and have been liberated by contactless, CHIP & PIN and ApplePay. The experience has been universal – the same cashless experience in cities, towns and villages, a common […]
We often say that in banking payments have gone from boring back office activity to the forefront of innovation and have even coined the term ‘paytech’ to prove that this transformation has occurred. Spending four decades in payments has caused me to pause and reflect on payments in the 1980’s. CHAPS had been live for 13 months when I started […]
News Centre | Press Release | 16 April 2019 After a decade as the CEO of Bacs Payment Schemes Limited (the operator of the UK’s largest retail payment system) Mike Chambers has joined Eazy Collect Services Limited. Eazy Collect is a leading UK PayTech established in 2002 focused on delivering Direct Debit and payment management services via its Eazy Customer […]
At 12 O’clock today the last bank in Aldeburgh closed its doors – from discussions with the counter staff a physical presence in the Suffolk town spanning a 100 years or so has come to an end. Aldeburgh is served well by a butcher (Salter & King), a baker (Two Magpies Bakery) and you can probably get a candlestick from […]
My 30th cashless week and, as a consumer, I’ve come to expect every payment I make to be non-cash based. But is it fair to expect even small shops and businesses to offer cashless payment options to its customers? Is it too difficult, too expensive, too technical or too time consuming for small shops and businesses to offer contactless payments? […]
Spent the week in Belfast. As you would expect Belfast is as cashless as anywhere in the UK – even down to a 65p bottle of water in Boots. However, Northern Ireland has very cool bank notes so I did indulge in using an Ulster Bank ATM to withdraw a couple of the new vertical bank notes. Not sure how […]
If you want to be cashless in the UK you will find that there is very little to stop you and, based on my experience over the last 28 weeks, cashless payments remove so much hassle when paying for stuff. Six months in and very few cash challenges remain – the cash only payments that I still have to crack […]
Ulster Bank’s vertical five and ten pound notes are now in circulation, and the challenge is on to replicate the success of the #FirstFiver campaign. The brainchild of corporate fundraising consultant and recruiter John Thompson, the #FirstFiver campaign saw £12.5m go to charities across the UK through people taking up the challenge to donate their first new polymer £5 note to […]
Six months cashless and its a breeze! If you want to be cashless in the UK you will find that there is very little to stop you and, based on my experience, cashless payments remove so much hassle when paying for stuff. Six months in and very few cash challenges remain – my cash only payments still to crack are […]
On Saturday I reach an important (payment) milestone – I’ve been (almost) cashless for six months. Each week I have posted about the triumphs and challenges I have faced and to be honest it has been a breeze – if you want to be cashless in the UK there is nothing to stop you. But what have I learnt over […]
It took a little longer for the barista at the Moorgate (London) branch of Eat to make a coffee for me this morning so I took time to observe the payment habits of my fellow customers. No one, not one single person paid with cash in the entire time I was standing there – contactless all the way and, more […]
Mike Chambers | 3 February 2019 Bacs (now part of Pay.UK) recently released the Current Account Switching Service (CASS) data for the quarter ending 31 December 2018. The last quarter of 2018 was strong for Bacs and the account switching service with 235,000 switches successfully completing (up 22% compared to Q3 2018). The quarter of a million people in the […]
To be honest it wasn’t difficult to ensure that week 18 of my cashless experiment was a success – the festive season didn’t make any serious cash based payment demands. Last weeks ‘near miss’ of being confronted with the almost extinct ‘minimum spend’ debit card machine tried to catch me out again but, rather than going to another shop, I […]
“Consumers should be able to decide for themselves how they pay. For us, it is important to have a broad mix of options and that efficient methods for payment are available” – Burkhard Balz, Bundesbank, Germany.
* Article updated 20:02 3/1/19 * Although I might be an advocate of a planned and inclusive transition into a cashless society it is important that the pace of the UK’s transition is driven by the consumer deciding how they want to pay. Burkhard Balz at the German Bundesbank hit the nail on the head recently when he said: “Consumers […]
Aldeburgh is served well by a butcher (Salter & King: @salterandking), a baker (Two Magpies Bakery: @2magpiesbakery) and you can probably get a candlestick from MCT Electrical if you wanted one. In the past the town has also be served well by the bankers but HSBC (@hsbc) left town a while back to be replaced by an ice cream parlour […]
