Join the Emerging Payments Association in October for an open discussion on “Thriving in the workplace during and after COVID-19”. Dave Strydom (Chartered MCIPD), Learning and Development Manager at Global Processing Services and Mike Thompson, Managing Partner at Gen. Healthy Minds will lead an open discussion on “Thriving in the workplace during and after COVID-19”.... Continue Reading →
Pay.UK, the UK retail payment systems operator, have announced the appointment of Mark Hoban as the new Independent Non-Executive Chair of its Board of Directors. Mark brings a wealth of experience in both public and private sectors, with a strong background in financial and regulatory arenas. Following a career in politics as Member of Parliament... Continue Reading →
Open Banking is taking a firm hold in the UK, with user numbers doubling to two million in just over six months. The latest figures from The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE), the body set up by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to deliver open banking in the UK, show a steady increase at... Continue Reading →
What role does the PSR play to ensure that competition is effective at all levels of the payments chain? Hear Chris Hemsley (PSR Managing Director) introduce the PSR’s second strategic review theme of competition: https://youtu.be/1TakwNbBEQI Theme 1 of the PSR Future Strategy was launched in July and now themes two and three have also been... Continue Reading →
Don’t ask me ask the 71% of people that have replaced all or some of their cash habits. Moving quickly and responsibly to a cashless society Earlier this week I took part in the second PHOS Steering Group on the subject of “Moving quickly and responsibly to a cashless society. This second Steering Group discussed “understanding and removing the barriers to a cashless... Continue Reading →
It's the last day of September and LINK report an ATM peak earlier (12.38) of 6,349 transactions in one minute. However, last week (week ending 27 September) saw a 36% reduction in cash ATM withdrawals compared to the equivalent week last year: Source: LINK Helpfully, LINK produce a graph detailing the reduction in cash ATM... Continue Reading →
Join the Emerging Payments Association in October for an open discussion on “Thriving in the workplace during and after COVID-19” Dave Strydom (Chartered MCIPD), Learning and Development Manager at Global Processing Services and Mike Thompson, Managing Partner at Gen. Healthy Minds will lead an open discussion on “Thriving in the workplace during and after COVID-19”.... Continue Reading →
This weeks longer read from our newsletter takes us back 20 years to the Cruickshank Report; “Competition in UK Banking: A Report to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.” To put todays banking landscape into perspective it is worth reading the Executive Summary. The executive summary, published in 2000, opens with: Banks operate on a huge scale... Continue Reading →
The PSR report that, in May, a Which study found that nearly half of all people who previously used cash for shopping, now pay entirely with a debit or credit card following the outbreak of Covid 19 and a further 25% have replaced some of their cash purchases with cards. Source: Payments System Regulator and... Continue Reading →
Pay.UK has published a progress update regarding its consultation on the ‘Next Generation Standard for UK Retail Payments’, which closed earlier this year. Pay.UK's full conclusions on the consultation will be published by the end of 2020. 40 responses were received from a range of financial institution participants, service providers, end user representatives and other... Continue Reading →
The UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) have just published an infographic with a simplified picture of what happens during a consumer debit or credit card transaction (except for American Express cards) where a transaction is authorised. Check out the PSR's infographic: Payment Systems Regulator infographic: What happens when you use a credit or debit card? Read,... Continue Reading →
Catherine Ferguson, Client Director at Manifesto Growth recently has written an interesting piece on the commercial opportunity for Request to Pay. Catherine explores two fundamental questions: Developing the front-end proposition: What’s the opportunity?Becoming a repository: What’s the opportunity? The article concludes: The key for entities grappling with Request to Pay is understanding where the specific... Continue Reading →
The Financial Services Regulatory Initiatives Forum has issued the second edition of the Regulatory Initiatives Grid. Upcoming work in the latest iteration includes the LIBOR transition and ongoing work to prepare the financial services sector for the end of the EU exit transition period. Also included are Government reviews, including the payments landscape review and the... Continue Reading →
Answer Pay and Mastercard have completed the first live Request to Pay transactions in the UK. The move follows the launch of Answer Pay’s certified repository and is a significant step in the development of the Pay.UK ecosystem. Answer Pay is designed to support payment services providers with Request to Pay+ services through a simple... Continue Reading →
Frictionless and contactless - you can now order McDonald's hands-free with Siri and Apple Pay McDonald’s has launched a brand-new function on the My McDonald’s App where customers are now able to order and pay for their food using Siri and Apple Pay. https://youtu.be/O7a719HQAiE Hands-free ordering is no longer a thing of the future as... Continue Reading →
The UK's Payment Systems Regulator has published an interim report on the supply of card acquiring services. It shows that merchants could make savings by shopping around and either switching or negotiating with their current provider – but many small and medium ones don’t. While many small and medium merchants may not be getting a... Continue Reading →
First UK bank to use open banking to enable credit card holders to pay their balance Tesco Bank is to become the first UK bank to introduce new technology that allows its 2.6 million credit card customers to more easily manage and pay their balance. More: Tesco Bank rolls out Mastercard Open Banking Connect™ to its... Continue Reading →
The UK's Payment System Regulator (PSR) has published its Annual Report and Accounts for the period 2019/20 - the fifth since its inception. Over the last year, the PSR report that they have advanced their work preventing Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams protecting access to cash and promoting innovation and competition in the interests of everyone... Continue Reading →
The Payments System Regulator (PSR) has announced that they are satisfied that the Current Account Switch Service (CASS), operated by Pay.UK, continues to meet the criteria for designation as an alternative switching scheme. This follows a review of information and evidence submitted by Pay.UK, the operator of CASS, for the purpose of an annual assessment.... Continue Reading →
In this September round up of volumes and values of retail payments in the UK we explore the impact of the COVID pandemic and look at whether the individual payment systems will recover the volumes and values they processed at the start of 2020. This is the second retail payments roundup - for last months... Continue Reading →
On this day in 1958 the credit card industry was born - and who better than Dave Birch to help us celebrate! In an article published today by Forbes Dave writes: Today is a very important day for us payments nerds. It is the anniversary of the “Fresno Drop”, the birth of the modern credit... Continue Reading →
Car drivers in the US can now use Amazon's Alexa to pay for fuel with a simple voice command. Available at over 11,500 Exxon and Mobil stations across the US, the “Alexa, pay for gas” command uses the default payment option set in the user Amazon account. The process - which includes geo-location at Exxon... Continue Reading →
In 1984 one UK bank was concerned about losing customers and made a decision that fundamentally changed how Britain’s banking landscape operated. Midland Bank, then one of the UK’s big four banking groups (now HSBC), got rid of fees for cheques, statements and standing orders. In other words, it made banking free of charge -... Continue Reading →
The number of people switching bank accounts is starting to recover according to data just published by Pay.UK. 43,377 Current Account Switches occurred in August 2020 - a significant uplift when compared to the past three months, similar to April but still a far cry from the 111,327 switches that occurred in March. Read, subscribe... Continue Reading →
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey on the future of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins On September 3, the Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy at Brookings hosted Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, to discuss how these trends are evolving and the growing role of stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies linked to the price... Continue Reading →
Modulr is the first non-bank or building society to join the Confirmation of Payee service. Confirmation of Payee allows users to check if the payment details they’ve entered for a person or business match the details held by the recipient’s bank. This provides reassurance that payments are being sent to the right recipient and protects... Continue Reading →
Far from being the end of fintech, this the moment where financial innovation and disruption assumes centre stage says Natalie Ceeney. …it’s clear that the pandemic is accelerating the need for financial innovation and disruption. There can be no debate that the future is more digital. For every bank, insurer, mortgage lender or payments enabler,... Continue Reading →
Last week we covered the 39% reduction in ATM withdrawals - the infographic below helps us complete the picture on how people access their cash. Source: Payments System Regulator. In this breakdown we see that: 80% of cash withdrawals (by value) are via ATM’s.6% of cash withdrawals (by value) are via branches (over the counter).2%... Continue Reading →
It wasn’t so long ago that using a bank account involved maintaining a minimum balance and included a whole suite of debit charges that might be levied. The extract below shows the fees that our parents and grandparents might have incurred when using their bank account in May 1981: This extract from a Chartered Institute... Continue Reading →
Use the slider to spot the difference at the Kettledrum Cafe in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute Can you spot the difference? Back in February I made a confession - I paid cash for a beaut Bute meat pie. I am sure I could have purchased a cashless sandwich from the COOP but when... Continue Reading →
Monzo have just announced that they are introducing new fees from the 31 October 2020: It’ll continue to be free to withdraw up to £250 of cash in the UK and European Economic Area (EEA) from your Monzo account every 30 days - after that there’ll be a fee of 3%. If your card expires,... Continue Reading →
Latest cash ATM withdrawal data (week ending 23 August) is now available from Link: There were 31.4 million ATM withdrawals last week (this is 20 million fewer than the equivalent week in 2019). There was a 39% reduction in ATM withdrawals compared to equivalent week in 2019. Source: LINK Eight things we should be thinking... Continue Reading →
The Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet) champion the payments system. They enable competition and innovation, promote efficiency, and control and manage risk to deliver improvements for all users of the payments system. Australia: Future State of Payments Action Plan Given the rapid and increasing pace of change in payments AusPayNet have conducted a consultation on 'A Future... Continue Reading →
This week The Guardian reported on a bit of Confirmation of Payee payment friction. A reader’s problem was explained as "spelling out the problems as banks' name-checker rejects vital payments". I have been unable to receive a payment I am owed because automated messages repeatedly inform the sender that the payee’s name doesn’t match the... Continue Reading →
What is an APP scam? An Authorised Push Payment (APP) scam is when a person or business is tricked into transferring money to a fraudster, thinking that they are sending money to a legitimate person or company. Source: Payments System Regulator Find out more: the PSR’s work to protect people from APP scams. Read Genevieve Marjoribanks’ piece... Continue Reading →
In this August round up of volumes and values of retail payments in the UK we explore the immediate impact of the COVID pandemic and look at the first indications of whether (or not) the individual payment systems will recover the volumes and values they processed at the start of 2020. Note: All data is... Continue Reading →
August marks another cashless year for me, you may remember my last anniversary blog “Don’t think of it as going cashless, think of it as an upgrade to the 21st Century”. You’ll see that this time last year I set myself two key challenges - to banish the paper receipt and maximise the use of frictionless... Continue Reading →
Creative use of branch window space by Barclays, helping their customers navigate their mobile banking app. Picture: Mark O’Keefe This helpful piece of customer education reminded me of a piece I wrote a few months ago about education being the secret ‘sauce’ for the successful implementation of payments regulation…. Education: the secret ‘sauce’ for the successful implementation... Continue Reading →
Ipsos MORI have published results of an independent service quality survey of personal banking in Great Britain. The results are from an independent survey carried out between July 2019 and June 2020 by Ipsos MORI as part of a regulatory requirement, and the information is published at the request of the providers and the Competition and Markets... Continue Reading →
Crumpled up in your coat pocket or bag, you’ll probably find a receipt. That never-read, rarely-used and bin-destined piece of paper is the acknowledgement that something has been paid for or that goods have been received. The oldest, discovered, receipt confirmed the sale five sheep, one lamb and four grass-fed male kids. It was written... Continue Reading →
From today you’ll find “Payments, Payments, Payments” podcasts on the Apple Podcast app.
In addition to finding out how these animals made payments history, in this weeks Payments, Payments, Payments you’ll also find about: Getting the right outcomes for victims of APP scams. Soft POS transforming mobile payments Tikkie Checks changing the way we pay at the restaurant A guest blog by John Bertrand on addressing payment fraud... Continue Reading →
Instant money and instant fraud - how to reverse the trend of greater fraud, a guest blog by John Bertrand. UKFinance reported fraud grew 28% in 2019 to £456 million with Faster Payments, 73% of that total, growing at 33%. UKFinance noted 76% of the fraud comes from the internet and the banking industry covers... Continue Reading →
Today, 6 August 2020, the Payments System Regulator (PSR) published a thought piece: Getting the right outcomes for the victims of Authorised Push Payment (APP) scams. An authorised push payment (APP) scam happens when someone is tricked into sending money to a fraudster. These crimes can have a devastating effect on those who fall victim.... Continue Reading →
The planet found itself gripped by a virus that knows no boundaries, democratic nations wilfully complied with imprisoning STAY AT HOME pleas, and ordinarily over crowded bustling cities were brought to a peaceful but eerie standstill. Even as we seem to be easing out of the crisis, what are small businesses most worried about whilst... Continue Reading →
The Emerging Payments Association (EPA), which celebrates collaboration and innovation across the emerging payments industry, has launched a review paper, ‘Avoiding a payments lockdown’, to present to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Treasury following the shutdown of Wirecard Card Solutions Limited. The paper seeks to identify the current vulnerabilities of the business models that underpin... Continue Reading →
Outsourcing / third party management compliance and recent COVID 19 impacts This is a risk and compliance based guest blog by Northey Point associate Mark Rodgers. For more information visit: Regulatory and Compliance Corner. FCA regulated Firms whose business and operational models are materially dependent on third parties or who materially outsource core or critical functions... Continue Reading →
As an ambassador for the Emerging Payments Association (EPA) I would like to invite you to join me as my guest at the EPA's flagship conference PAY360, taking place virtually on the 4th & 5th August. The invite is completely complimentary. All you need to do is register here using discount code AMB20: https://pay360conference.online-event.co/registration/emerging-payments-2 There are some very exciting... Continue Reading →
Today (30 July 2020) Pay.UK have published the Q2 2020 Current Account Switch Service (CASS) dashboard. Pay.UK's headline provides the first insight into how the COVID19 pandemic has impacted the number of people choosing to switch their bank account - "Current account switches fall as social distancing measures introduced, almost 100,000 still switch in Q2... Continue Reading →
The Payment Systems Regulator has announced the development of its future strategy. The PSR wants to hear from you now, before it formally consults, around the end of this year, to define clear outcomes for the payments sector – to set out priorities for the regulator, and what stakeholders can expect from the regulator in... Continue Reading →
