Mobile phones have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Federal Reserve Board began conducting annual surveys of consumers’ use of mobile financial services in 2011. This 78-page report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services” (March, 2015) examines trends in the adoption and use of mobile banking, payments, and shopping behavior and how the emergence of mobile financial services affects consumers’ interaction with financial institutions.
Merchant Warehouse Credit Card Processing Adds Mobile and Web Services
Merchant Warehouse, a provider of merchant accounts and credit card processing solutions, now has mobile and web versions of MerchantWARE TransPort. Both TransPort.Mobile and TransPort.Web offer enhanced functionality and enhanced security features. TransPort is a hosted payment solution which eliminates the need for a PA-DSS audit for point-of-sale (POS) systems, shopping carts, websites and mobile payments. The PA-DSS audit is eliminated by delegating all of the sensitive portions of payment processing to TransPort.
TransPort enables POS developers to remove the card processing function entirely from their software while retaining full functionality through a “transaction portal” and tokenization. This is especially important for mobile payment solutions since the PCI Council has officially opted to not certify mobile applications in the near future. With TransPort.Mobile, mobile payments are secure and meet all the PA-DSS requirements. Anyone using TransPort.Mobile for mobile payments can be confident that their card data is secure.
According to Inc. magazine, global e-commerce spending is expected to grow 90 percent by 2014, and e-commerce spending in the United States is expected to reach nearly $203 billion. As consumers embrace online and mobile shopping experiences in the coming years, merchants will need to provide convenient, secure purchasing options for their customers. The challenge for many e-commerce websites is maintaining PCI compliant solutions, often because many POS providers use open source software architecture. Because open source software isn’t owned by one particular organization, no one is expected to pay for that architecture to go through a PA-DSS audit. As a result, many merchants are not in compliance with PCI DSS mandates and are at risk of a breach.
TransPort.Web off-loads the card processing to a PCI DSS certified server. By removing the POS software or shopping cart out of PA-DSS scope, TransPort.Web allows the merchant to operate their online store within PCI DSS regulations without incurring any additional costs. According to the company, it’s one of the most effective and efficient ways to achieve and maintain compliance and secure card holder data for e-commerce merchants.
“During this past holiday shopping period, consumers spent $30 billion, both over the Web and through their mobile devices,” said Henry Helgeson, co-CEO of Merchant Warehouse. “As consumers gravitate toward mobile payments and e-commerce shopping, the need for a secure and certified online payment solution becomes more obvious. We are excited that the new functionality in the MerchantWARE TransPort platform addresses this need today. Not only do developers have a secure, feature-rich payment platform that protects card data, it is also customizable so their merchants can extend their brand right to their client. We think TransPort.Web and TransPort.Mobile are great additions to our hosted payment solution.”
The TransPort platform, including TransPort.Web and TransPort.Mobile, offer numerous industry-leading security benefits including encrypted PIN debit, tokenization and end-to-end encryption. Additional fraud detection is available through the MagnePrint card recognition service and merchants and developers can further brand their solutions using customizable layout and color scheme options.
“Our business is unique because we process transactions in our store as well as on our website so we were looking for a solution that would satisfy all of our needs while helping secure our credit card processing,” said Roman Malko, owner of Bosmix.com. “By using TransPort.Web we were able to secure our in-store POS software as well as allow our customers to pay their invoices securely on our website. The customer card data is secure and our PCI compliance process is much less time consuming than before. I was really sold on the advanced security features like end-to-end encryption and tokenization. These don’t intrude on the customer experience and it gives me peace of mind that we are doing our due diligence to secure our customer card data.”
Source: BusinessWire
Fiserv Named “Best Electronic Commerce Provider” by Global Finance Magazine
-Fiserv, Inc., a provider of financial services technology solutions, was named “Best Electronic Commerce Provider” by Global Finance magazine. This is the fourth year in a row that the company has been honored by the magazine.
“We are particularly honored to receive this award in the year that mobile banking has been added to the criteria, as our research shows consumers want their primary bank or credit union to also connect with them via the mobile channel.”
The award is based on 12 categories of input from industry analysts, corporate executives and technology experts. This year, a new category “mobile banking” was one on which judges selected the best-in-breed provider. Other categories on which the company was judged include volume, market share, and scope of global/regional coverage; examples of cutting edge technology deployment and product innovation on a regional/global level; and examples of regional/global solutions that delivered significant benefits and cost savings for clients wanting to re-engineer their cash management processes.
”More than 16,000 financial institutions and business around the world trust Fiserv to help them solve complex business challenges,” said Steve Olsen, group president, Digital Payments, Fiserv. “We are particularly honored to receive this award in the year that mobile banking has been added to the criteria, as our research shows consumers want their primary bank or credit union to also connect with them via the mobile channel.”
Fiserv provides its clients with traditional electronic payment solutions including debit, ACH, cards and online bill payment, as well as emerging solutions such as person-to-person payments. According to the company’s year-end 2010 earnings statement, Fiserv expanded its payments footprint by signing 537 electronic bill payment clients and 218 debit clients. The company also processed 3 of 4 online bill payments, delivered more than 330 million e-bills, managed more than 1.4 billion online bill pay transactions processed through financial institutions and has an EFT payments network with more than 1.5 million point-of-sale locations.
Source: Business Wire
ThreatMetrix Announces New Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform
ThreatMetrix, a provider of fraud prevention solutions that do not require personally identifiable information (PII), today announced the availability of the ThreatMetrix Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform, which incorporates cookieless device identification and enhanced mobile authentication that makes it easy for banks, merchants, online businesses, payment gateways and payment providers to detect and screen for fraud. The comprehensive fraud platform helps companies fight online fraud during account creation, login authentication and payment authorization regardless of the device. With the growth of mobile commerce and mobile banking, there is a growing need for fraud solutions in this channel.
“The ThreatMetrix Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform provides companies with the ability to authenticate payments, new accounts and returning customers online regardless of the device involved — be it a smartphone, personal or tablet computer — without requiring a forklift install of hardware or software,” said Reed Taussig, president and CEO, ThreatMetrix. “A smarter approach to device identification combined with aggregated fraud intelligence in the cloud allows customers to benefit from proactive protection without needing to share personally identifiable information.”
ThreatMetrix’s solution to cookieless device identification, called ThreatMetrix SmartID, goes beyond traditional device identification solutions by incorporating device fingerprint attributes instead of cookies, which can be wiped or blocked. ThreatMetrix SmartID, which incorporates unique TCIP/IP packet intelligence, cross correlates and scores device attributes and behavior with session and browser cookies to more accurately establish and authenticate a device identity.
“Using ThreatMetrix SmartID, ThreatMetrix provides the most effective first perimeter of defense for transaction security from cybercrime, hidden proxies, scripted attacks and cookie and browser manipulation by fraudsters,” said Taussig.
The ThreatMetrix Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform
The ThreatMetrix Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform includes several new features including:
- Enterprise Risk Engine: ThreatMetrix provides real-time contextual scoring based on device, customer and transaction attributes and historic analysis through a customer configurable rules engine. Default rules and algorithms will detect many anomalies such as hidden proxies, high-risk geographies, anomalous language and time settings, potential cookie wiping and blacklisted attributes. More advanced rules allow for correlation of other transaction data such as detecting multiple identities, payment accounts or shipping addresses used by the same device, or an unusually high volume of transactions from a device across the ThreatMetrix network. ThreatMetrix rules can be updated by analysts and activated immediately to respond to changing threats.
- Global Network Intelligence: ThreatMetrix customers benefit from anonymous and aggregated device and transaction behavior seen across the global ThreatMetrix network through both automated scoring as well as customizable fraud filters. The ThreatMetrix Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform provides proactive protection that gets smarter with every customer and transaction without, requiring extensive manual input.
- Queue Management: Manual review of transactions is time consuming and expensive. To address this, ThreatMetrix allows for custom tuning of rules to reduce false positives, and also automated assignment of transactions to analyst queues by configurable rules. This enables analysts to focus on the highest risk transactions, based on score, transaction amount, or criteria such as geographical origin, for instance. When a transaction is reviewed, it can be marked as rejected/accepted to improve the ability of ThreatMetrix to score transactions through predictive scoring.
- Customizable Alerting: ThreatMetrix supports automated alert rules to notify an analyst by email when a transaction meets specified criteria. These alerts can be set based on risk, transaction or device attributes, or associated with specific fraud behavior. Alert content can be customized and linked directly back to the transaction for review.
- Online Portal and Dashboard for Transaction Monitoring and Link Analysis: In addition to a real-time API that immediately returns device identifiers, anomaly indicators and risk scores, ThreatMetrix provides an online portal to review past transactions. It includes a dashboard that shows recent high-risk transactions and trends, as well as advanced search capabilities to assist fraud analysts in finding related transactions and discovering links between suspicious activities.
- Bulletproof Security and Privacy Protection: ThreatMetrix provides advanced device identification technology to detect and alert based on suspicious device anomalies. For even more powerful fraud detection, transaction identifiers (such as an email address, payment account hash, phone number, etc.) can be passed to allow for more correlation. When provided, ThreatMetrix protects these identifiers with encryption and one-way hashing so the data is never exposed or shared. In addition, power role-based permissions and full auditing meet and exceed enterprise security compliance requirements.
Source: Marketwire
Eckoh Provides Mobile Payment Solution to Gas and Electricity Supplier Utilita
Eckoh, a UK developer of speech recognition solutions for customer service centers, has expanded its three-year contract with Utilita Group to include mobile phone payment capabilities.
The new service will enables Utilita’s customers to purchase electricity or gas via SMS. The EckohPAY product handles payments in a PCI compliant manner, and can be deployed through speech, web, mobile and smartphone applications.
Utilita is an independent UK company, licensed by Ofgem and Ofcom to supply gas and electricity. Utilita customers that have pre-pay meters can purchase electricity or gas using the EckohPAY SMS service. Customers register their mobile number online and when they want to “top-up,” they send an SMS message with their electric or gas card number and the amount they wish to pay to a dedicated shortcode. Once the details are validated and authorised, the customer is issued a code to activate the purchased electricity or gas.
“Following the successful launch of Eckoh’s web payment solution last year, we were keen to work with them to expand the scope of services offered to our customers. With this new mobile payment facility, our customers have another convenient and secure method for purchasing their electricity or gas, and we expect to add further services during the course of our contract,” said Bill Bullen, Managing Director and Founder of Utilita.
Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer of Eckoh, added, “We are delighted that Utilita have chosen to adopt Eckoh’s mobile payment solution, and this demonstrates the value that our EckohPAY solution has already delivered them. This new agreement shows the breadth of Eckoh’s offering – covering speech, web, mobile and smartphone applications – which enables our clients to increase customer satisfaction through enhancing consumer choice and convenience whilst improving operational efficiency.”
Source: Business Wire
Google to Test Mobile Payments in New York and San Francisco
Google Inc. plans to start testing a mobile-payment service at stores in New York and San Francisco within four months, letting shoppers use their phones to ring up purchases, two people familiar with the project said.
The company will pay for installation of thousands of special cash-register systems from VeriFone Systems Inc. PAY at merchant locations, said one of the people, who requested anonymity because Google’s plans haven’t been made public. The registers would accept payments from mobile phones equipped with so-called near-field-communication technology.
via Bloomberg.
Integrated Channel Strategy Necessary for Marketing Financial Services to Youth, Says Report
Banks risk jeopardizing future customer acquisition and retention by failing to recognize the continued importance of factors such as traditional branch networks and parental influence, according to a recent survey. The survey was commissioned to understand youth attitudes and behaviors relating to personal finances, payments and banking of 1400 16-18 year olds from the UK, China and Brazil.
While contemporary banking channels such as mobile are gaining traction among the youth segment, the research, conducted by Survey Shack on behalf of Temenos, a Swiss banking software company, found that traditional banking channels and influences are key drivers among this segment when looking at establishing a new banking relationship.
Respondents from the UK and Brazil cited parental influence as the single biggest driver behind decisions to open a bank account. 37% of Brazilian and 33% of UK respondents stated that they would choose a bank because their parents banked there. All three countries rated branch location as the second biggest driver, with 28% of respondents citing this as the most significant consideration. 90% of respondents globally believe that the branch will serve a purpose for them in the future.
The study also suggests an increasing trend emerging in mobile banking among the next generation, notably in m-commerce. This is particularly evident in China, where 17% of respondents already use their mobile for purchases. This evidences an underlying acceptance for performing sometimes complex transactions using this channel, 40% of respondents globally regularly use their mobile handset for accessing social media, the UK being the highest user at 60%.
“With so much market emphasis being placed on digital and mobile channels, which play a very important part in the future of financial services, banks mustn’t lose sight of the continued importance of traditional channels. This research illustrates that banks need to be responsive to these trends and should consider a balanced attitude to channels, using mobile and other modern channels where appropriate but not underestimating the value of traditional bricks and mortar, even when attracting the younger generation.”, commented Mark Gunning, Global Director, Banking Services, Temenos.
Source: Temenos
In Rural Kenya, M-Pesa Used as Savings Account Too
In Kenya, with banks often few and far between, 65% of population uses M-PESA. 81 percent of M-PESA users said they used M-PESA for saving.
As the developed world begins its recovery from the global economic meltdown, the financial architecture in parts of the developing world is being rapidly transformed by a mobile payment system that enables people to deposit, send, and withdraw money with a push of a few buttons.
Established in 2007, the sms-based service, known as M-PESA, has enabled Kenyans to both save money and better withstand serious blows to their personal finances, according to new research by Tavneet Suri, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.
Suri and her colleague William Jack, a professor at Georgetown University, conducted two surveys of 3,000 households in Kenya: the first was in 2008, the second in 2009. They found that nearly 60 percent of Kenyan households now use M-PESA for person-to-person transfers, as well as to pay for everything from school fees to mobile phone credit to electricity bills.
“Kenyans find using M-PESA faster, more reliable, and more convenient than a traditional bank,” says Suri. “There are nearly 25,000 M-PESA agents in the country compared with 850 bank branches. In Kenya, if you want to transfer money from your bank, you need to travel long distances, stand in line with a fistful of cash, and fill out a bunch of paperwork. M-PESA agents, on the other hand, are often found at gas stations and grocery stores, and some are open 24-hours a day.
Although M-PESA balances do not earn interest, the service has some of the functions of a bank account but is much easier to access, and much easier to manage.”
According to their survey, the vast majority of Kenyans – over 80 percent – stash some of their money “under the mattress,” but M-PESA is fast becoming an important savings tool.
In 2008, about 75 percent of users said they used M-PESA for saving, and by 2009 this increased to 81 percent. By that year, half of all households said M-PESA was one of their two most important savings instruments.
“People are able to amass savings on their M-PESA accounts over time,” says Suri. “By providing a safe storage mechanism, the service could increase net household savings over the entire population.”
Most important, the expanded ability to make interpersonal transfers deepens the person-to-person credit market, which helps Kenyans withstand shocks to their household finances through risk-sharing networks.
In the developing world, a poor harvest or an illness can quickly portend financial ruin. Because mechanisms like unemployment insurance and health insurance are limited, people in Kenya have created informal risk-sharing systems whereby wide networks of friends and extended family give money to those in need with the implicit understanding that when they one day find themselves in grim circumstances, the favor will be returned.
This arrangement in the past has been fraught with risk. Poor roads, an inadequate transport system, and expensive money transfer services, like Western Union, mean that people wait a long time for their money, and often, conditions worsen.
“In the US, if you lose your job you may well be eligible to receive unemployment insurance, in which case you would continue to be able to eat three meals a day,” says Suri. “But in developing countries, when you lose your job, there are often no formal safety nets. People don’t have a lot of savings or other ways to smooth these shocks so their food consumption drops.”
But this is not as true for users of M-PESA. According to Jack and Suri’s research, the consumption of M-PESA users falls about 6 percent less during a crisis because they are able to receive money from a network of family and friends.
“It appears that M‐PESA facilitates efficient risk sharing and enables support networks to keep negative shocks manageable,” says Suri. “For example, a household head with access to M‐PESA who suffers a mild health shock might quickly receive a small amount of money via M‐PESA that allows him to keep his children in school. If this money was delayed, the children might have quit school, the effects of which are hard to reverse.
“The way M-PESA improves the ability of households to manage risk is dramatic and has important implications for the welfare of virtually all Kenyans,” she adds. “M-PESA has helped households overcome some of the most impenetrable barriers to financial services, and has provided real value to Kenyans, especially during a time of need.”
*The Risk Sharing Benefits of Mobile Money By Tavneet Suri, MIT Sloan School of Management and William Jack, Georgetown University; January 2011
Source: PR Web
CSI Virtual MasterCard Team Joins Forces with Advantage Software
CSI Enterprises, Inc., a leader in innovative financial solutions for enterprises and business, announces its new alliance with Advantage Software. The CSI Virtual MasterCard program will be offered as a “new feature” available through Advantage Software, designed by agencies for agencies.
The CSI Virtual MasterCard Program is an electronic payment system that works with its customers’ existing accounts payable (A/P) systems. The solution provides security and control by generating unique “one-time” use credit card account numbers for each vendor payment. It reduces A/P processing costs and offers cash rewards on all payments made through the program. The program is offered at no cost and includes complete implementation services. Implementation includes full vendor enrollment support, maximizing vendor participation and minimizing the time commitment by the customer’s A/P personnel. CSI maintains an extensive database of participating advertising agency vendors which helps facilitate the rapid roll-out of the program. [Read more…]
BillingTree Forecasts Over 20 Percent Growth for 2011
BillingTree, Inc., an on-demand payment processor, today announced company growth of 33 percent during 2010. In January and February 2011, BillingTree closed two consecutive record months and the company has expressed confidence in forecasting over 20 percent growth for 2011.
In 2010, BillingTree significantly added to its suite of solutions and grew presence in two key markets, Healthcare and Utilities. Additionally, the company won substantial orders in these markets and in 2011 has added Insurance to its list of markets served. In Q1, BillingTree launched a new generation of mobile payment solutions which it is rolling out across all industry segments during 2011, significantly driving its strong growth forecasts.
“A recent report from the AITE Group forecasts the number of bills paid with a mobile device is set to grow by 377 percent over the next three years,” commented Scott McCollum, BillingTree’s president. “BillingTree is set to take advantage of this with our mobile payments suite of solutions, and penetration into the new and rapidly growing markets of Healthcare, Utilities and Insurance.”
During 2010 BillingTree increased its staff headcount by 25 percent and added to its executive leadership team. The company has now established a 1,600 strong base of customers, along with the formation of 63 strategic alliances and its new ISO program, which has already led to considerable opportunities in new verticals.In
2010 BillingTree added key technology developments to its payments processing portfolio to drive its growth, including Pre-funded accounts, PaynCash and Debit Cards Only. In 2011 it has already added a new mobile payments suite, which includes billing and paying by text. Additionally, in 2010 the company continued to abide by PCI Compliance guidelines and will maintain PCI Certification for 2011.2010 saw BillingTree host its first user conference attended by customers and partners, and continue with its charity work by raising $100,000 for two charities, JDRF and ChildHelp, through the Rock Block concert.
BillingTree supplies the leading fully integrated, multi-channel electronic payment platform to a growing list of Industries, including Insurance, Utilities, such as energy, cable, municipal, and phone, as well as Healthcare and Subscription-billed services. Benefits of electronic payment solutions include an accelerated availability of consumer funds, reduced costs associated with manual-payment processing, improved cash management, and integrated processing by managing all payments, returns, and corrections through a single portal.
Source: PRNewswire
Western Union Launches New Foreign-Exchange Payment Service Via Mobile
The Western Union Company has introduced a new foreign-exchange (FX) payment service that will enable small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) business clients to make payments from their smartphones.
The new mobile-friendly payment service is now available in countries where Western Union currently offers online payment and FX services through its Business Solutions division, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France and Australia.
The new mobile service is designed for busy professionals and offers an intuitive interface for customers making international business payments. The service, which offers more than 140 currencies to choose from, allows users to make payments to suppliers in global markets anywhere, anytime, and lock in a currency-exchange rate and fee before transferring funds.
“The sheer demand for innovative mobile services is evident, and our clients want to take advantage of new m-payment options,” said Raj Agrawal, General Manager, Western Union Business Solutions. “This new mobile payment service not only makes it easier to transfer funds globally to foreign suppliers and workers but also offers the ability to take advantage of foreign currencies when making international payments.”
According to an IEMR Global Mobile Payment Market Forecast report, mobile payments will reach 1 billion users and the $1 trillion transaction mark in the next five years. To take advantage of this growing market opportunity, this service will allow Western Union Business Solutions clients and partners the ability to take advantage of diverse foreign-exchange payment solutions that are flexible and easy to use.
Source: Business Wire