Mobile money - Consult Hyperion

So, you want to be a card issuer?

3rd August 20212nd September 2024by Ian PrinceLeave a comment

Card issuing seems to be hot right now. Despite the rise of alternatives to card payments, many Fintech’s appear intent on adding payment cards to their product portfolios. And it is not just the “me too” start-up banks.

For example, some international remittance services are adding payment cards to their offerings. This allows customers to spend the money they receive directly but also means that customers do not withdraw funds immediately upon receipt. This extends the customer relationship adding value to both the customer and the Fintech.

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On Mondex and CBDCs (again)

30th July 20212nd September 2024by Tim RichardsLeave a comment

Introduction

We were delighted to get a lot of good feedback on Neil’s previous blog on Mondex Memories and CBDCs and its relevance to CBDCs and thought it would be interesting to respond to some of the more interesting – and difficult – points raised in a follow-up blog. Before addressing those I wanted to put the Mondex program into some historical context. They were very different days – we didn’t have an intranet until 1996, let alone internet access. There were no SDKs – although actually we did build a precursor to one of those – or APIs and the idea of remote payments was still in its infancy (although we did that too).

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Request to Pay’s Grand Tour

14th June 20212nd September 2024by GuestLeave a comment

Earlier this year we were delighted to be part of the Consult Hyperion webinar on Request to Pay. A common thread in post-event conversations that followed was an interest in the parallel developments of the UK and European flavours of Request to Pay and how they might work together. With the launch of the European version on June 15^th, we thought it an ideal time to signpost the bigger differences.

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Building SoftPOS – not as easy as you think.

2nd March 20212nd September 2024by Nick NormanLeave a comment

For the third year running, my colleague Gary Munro facilitated a thought-provoking debate around the use of mobile phones and tablets as contactless payment terminals during last week’s virtual Merchant Payments Ecosystem (MPE) conference. For the last three years, Gary and his panellists have tracked the progress of the SoftPOS technology and standards. The three key messages that I took away from this year’s conversation were that:

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Chip and PIN? Remember that?

12th February 20212nd September 2024by David G.W. BirchLeave a comment

This weekend marks an anniversary. Although Consult Hyperion’s romance with smart cards had started many years before that, it will be fifteen years on Sunday that chip and PIN went live in the UK. I remember St. Valentine’s Day 2006 as if it was yesterday!

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Merchant Payments Ecosystem 2021

11th February 20212nd September 2024by David G.W. Birch1 Comment

When we look forward to 2021, it is no surprise that COVID-19 is the dominant factor. So far as the merchant payments world is concerned, the shape of the post-pandemic new normal transaction environment must be the key strategic consideration for stakeholders and I am desperately keen to hear the variety of informed opinion on this topic that I have come to expect at Merchant Payments Ecosystem every year. At Consult Hyperion we like to contribute to these conversations by providing a useful framework for discussion: our annual “Live 5”, our yearly set of suggestions for strategic focus. This year, we choose to look at the key issue of pandemic transformation and its impact of on the three key domains where our clients operate: Payment, Identity and Transit, together with (as is traditional!) a suggestion as to a technology that the POS world may not be thinking about but probably should be.

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Will Brexit make stealing bank cards attractive again?

2nd February 20212nd September 2024by Gary Munro2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece for our friends at Smartex; ‘Brexit and the UK Finance’s proposed £100 contactless limit’. Perhaps a title more worthy of grabbing readers would be ‘Will Brexit make stealing bank cards attractive again?’

The pandemic has accelerated consumer behaviour that has been teetering for the last decade. The desire for contact-free (and therefore contactless) transactions, has meant a significant trend in consumers becoming comfortable with tapping their cards and perhaps more interestingly, their phones (devices/wearables). We’ve seen merchants switch from hand scribbled ‘cash only’ signs, to ‘please use cards (devices etc) wherever possible’. Some stores have completely rejected cash altogether.

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5 things you need to know about Central Bank Digital Currencies

11th December 20202nd September 2024by Consult HyperionLeave a comment

Guest blog post by Mirela Ciobanu, The Paypers

The topic of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is gaining momentum. Across the globe, many CBDC initiatives aim to digitalise payments, support financial inclusion, make cross border payments faster and cheaper, support fiscal transfer, etc. What is firing up discussions around CBDC and why is it important today?

Adoption of new technologies and understanding of their huge potential to support and stimulate our life has caused the world to change a lot in the last year. The current pandemic has triggered the decline of cash usage to avoid getting the virus and safeguard the most vulnerable ones (health-wise). Economic wise, as many governments wanted to protect their citizens and directly stimulate the economy down to every citizen, they offered ‘helicopter money’ via digital wallets.

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Payment card issuance errors leave you vulnerable to fraud

2nd October 20202nd September 2024by Nick NormanLeave a comment

As Consult Hyperion, and as many other analysts, predicted, Covid-19 has driven the adoption and use of contact-free technology at the point of service. A recent survey funded by the National Retail Foundation, found that no-touch payments have increased for 69 percent of US retailers surveyed, since January 2020. In May, Mastercard reported that 78% of all their transactions across Europe were contactless.

Fraudsters are always looking for ways to take advantage of potential weaknesses or even inexperience in new payment devices. A recent news story promoted a man in the middle attack in which two phones are used to transfer and manipulate the transaction message between a stolen contactless card and the point of sale terminal.

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Contact-free and App Clips in Apple’s iOS 14

22nd September 20202nd September 2024by Ian PrinceLeave a comment

The Use of Contact-free is Accelerating

At Consult Hyperion, we have already seen the pandemic accelerate the adoption of contact-free payments in the face to face environment as customers have become wary of catching COVID by touching shared devices, such as self-service terminals and PIN pads. The use of personal devices for payments is hardly new but the attraction of an in-app/in-store version of mobile payments, whereby the consumer uses an app on their own device to interact with the retailer or service provider and pay for services, has just increased dramatically. Solutions for parking (RingGo) and for restaurants (like the Wahaca app, powered by Judopay) were already demonstrating the benefits of such an approach for customers and businesses before COVID struck.

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