All articles by EPI editorial
EPI editorial
US consumers have positive attitude to mobile payments
US financial services providers backing mobile devices as a product delivery platform will take heart from a consumer attitude study conducted by Dove Consulting for credit union service organisation PSCU Financial Services (PSCU) The results confirmed our view that mobile services are something that consumers are ready for, said Kent Potterton, PSCUs director of credit and new product development The study, conducted in multiple cities, gauged consumer interest in three key applications: using a mobile device to access banking information, mobile payment at the POS and person-to-person payments using a mobile device to send money to another mobile device.
Confusion reigns in the wake of ruling by European Commission
Dealing a heavy blow to MasterCard, the European Commission (EC), the executive branch of the European Union (EU), has ruled that its multilateral interchange fees (MIF) for cross-border payment card transactions with MasterCard and Maestro-branded debit and consumer credit cards in the European Economic Area (EEA) violate rules on restrictive business practices. MasterCard must comply with the order to withdraw its MIF by June 2008 or face the possibility that the EC may impose daily penalty payments of 3.5 percent of its daily global turnover in the preceding business year.The ECs ruling came after a four-year investigation by the EC which first sent MasterCard a statement in October 2003 detailing its concerns that its MIF were too high and lacked transparency
Cheque imaging goes mobile with Mitek
Hyped as the solution that will enable millions of US consumers to enter the world of remote cheque deposits, image analytic technology vendor Mitek Systems has launched ImageNet Mobile Deposit (IMD), the first application to harnesses the capabilities of camera-equipped mobile phones.
EC moves to hasten SEPA progress
EC Moves to hasten SEPA progressPassing legislation is one thing, implementing it is another, it seems, as the European Commission begins showing signs of concern that the 1 November 2009 deadline for the implementation of the Payment Services Directive (PSD) adopted by the European Parliament in April 2007 could prove a tough one to meet Indicative of the concern, the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Charlie McCreevy, stressed in a statement published in mid-December: Now that the PSD has been published, member states need to deliver on their commitment to implement this crucial directive by 1 November 2009 at the latest.As the legal foundation of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), which is due for full implementation by the end of 2010, the PSD must be written into national law by each of the 27 European Union member states
A major work still in progress
The next big challenge is winning over the consumer.Indias economy ranks as the worlds fourth largest, according to the US Central Intelligence Agency, which estimated the countrys GDP at $4.16 trillion in 2006 based on purchasing power parity, a measure that takes into account price differentials between countries
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Open source software proves its worth at SNS Bank
Open source software proves its worth at SNS BankSignificant savings on licence costs are one of the big attractions of open source software It is a benefit SNS Bank, one of the Netherlands five largest retail banks, is realising following its deployment of open source software vendor Red Hats JBoss application server as a key component in the upgrade of its front-end transaction and payments processing system, SNS Administration System (SAS). Highlighting what he termed drastic savings on licences, Marcel Schmidt, SNS Banks IT project manager, said annual savings on the SAS front-end alone amounted to at least 200,000 ($294,000).The upgrade of the banks SAS was prompted by technical limitations of its former Pascal-based application (Pascal is a computer programming language developed in the 1970s)
Too much of a good thing
Too much of a good thingCredit cardholders in the UK have on average two cards, while 22 percent hold three or more Many have decided its too much of a good thing and, according to UK bank Abbey National, 23 percent of the UKs 33.5 million credit cardholders plan to consolidate their cards onto a single card over the next year Adding to the desire to consolidate, the average credit cardholder has 1.24 cards that have not been used in the past year.Unless a person is using all of their credit cards, many dont want to keep them up and running, said Roger Lovering, MD of Santander Cards UK
A competitor to be reckoned with
Representing the worlds postal services, United Nations agency the Universal Postal Union (UPU) is potentially one of the most formidable competitors to enter the global electronic funds remittance market in recent times.
UK’s FPS ups transaction volume
Volumes flowing through the UKs Faster Payments Service (FPS) transaction processing system launched on 27 May are picking up significantly, reveals data from payment industry body APACS.
Online banking makes more cents
Online banking makes more cents Are US banks doing enough to encourage customers to use their online banking services The answer is, to some extent, no but by and large yes, suggests a study undertaken by financial rate research firm Bankrate