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Super interesting read! I work in payments for context and see tons of different payment methods every day. People tend to find a payment method they like, and

by soared 1y ago

Super interesting read! I work in payments for context and see tons of different payment methods every day. People tend to find a payment method they like, and really only ever use that one method. It’s very hard to get someone to switch - even if an alternative is better. It’s just so ingrained to swipe that same card, click the same autofill button, etc. Digital wallets did somehow over come this, and those would be a super challenging but potentially valid approach #4. If Zenobia is in Apple Pay, google pay, link, etc it’s natural and easy for customers, saves money for merchants, and disrupts visa/etc without disrupting anything else (ie making people us QR codes). Tough problem. You need a Jony Ive on your team to help solve it. Or do like pix and give everyone $1500, but only if they use Zenobia :)

lelanthran 1y ago
> Tough problem. You need a Jony Ive on your team to help solve it. I don't think so. A Jony Ive will not be in a position to solve the actual problem - what use is a non-universal payment mechanism to consumers and to retailers? I read the linked page and don't see answers to the main adoption problem: how is the purchaser supposed to pay? 1. Purchaser has to download the app? Okay, but purchaser already has a few equivalents on their phone (Pix, etc) - added friction! 2. How does the App get money to make payment? Purchaser has to fund a new account? Okay, but that is more friction! 3. How does merchant accept the payment? Do they need a new payment terminal? Must their payment terminal be updated with new software? Even more friction! I've worked in the EMV space, even quite recently, and merchants do not want to update and will only do so when forced to. Any new payment system (QR codes, etc) needs around 5 years (maybe more) before it is universally accepted. The best way, where I am, to rollout a new payment terminal is to pitch it to the banks, who then offer it to the merchants who have accounts with them. Adding new functionality to EMV terminals is a lot easier these days, since most of the new terminals are Android, and the vendors have app stores for third parties to write software for these terminals (Pax has Maxstore, etc). Now, maybe I missed it, but I did not see this application on Maxstore, or some of the other stores. I could have missed it, because these stores have literally thousands of payment applications. The long and short of it is, you came up with a non-universal payment method, and predictably it did not take off.
- quesomaster9000 1y ago
  I'd argue that the problem is that QR codes shouldn't be an 'app' problem, and yes there's a chicken-egg problem with PoS terminals verifying incoming bank payments but that's a separate issue. If you want to do account-to-account payments you can show the customer the account/routing number, amount & invoice ID - but obviously that's high friction and the customer needs to login to their account and send a payment with lots of manual data entry. Making yet another app, adding a financial intermediary, requiring you to link your bank account - these aren't solving the friction points. We already have bank apps, when I scan a QR code in an industry-wide format it should ask me or confirm which bank app to open and pre-fill all the payment information. So from my perspective, the problem is that FedNow in the US, and Open Banking in the UK - they could have just dictated "Banks must support EPC QR, or EMV QR code scanning and deep-links", and QR code payments would happen very quickly - even with NFC/RFID you can do passive scanning to achieve the same thing. * Choose Account * Confirm details * Press send That's about as easy as you can get for push payments, with a real industry-wide standard for communicating payment intents via NFC/QR. But both FedNow and UK OpenBanking are structured in a way which requires friction, and onerous regulation, through their clunky APIs - meaning you can't actually solve that problem on your own.
  - _1tem 1y ago
    Yup it’s that simple. That’s how QR code payments work in many countries in Europe.
  - lelanthran 1y ago
    I think my main point still stands: a Jony Ive type person would not be any help whatsoever.
- rprend 1y ago
  1. App Clips meant no app download required- it’s already on your phone 2. No funding of an account required. There was no account required. You do a “connect your account with Plaid” once then the connection is stored in the secure enclave on your iphone. To confirm a transaction you just hit okay then the money is debited from your bank account 3. We were for online ecommerce for specifically this reason. Much easier to deploy a javascript package than a new POS. That said we were working with in person POS’s But these concerns met was not enough
ttoinou 1y ago
The best players to disrupt Visa Mastercard duopoly would rather be a consortium of payment processors such as Shopify / Stripe / Google Pay / Apple Pay and banks taking in sandwhich Visa and Mastercard (where the money is stored, where the money is spent)
- closewith 1y ago
  Pix, UPI, etc have definitively shown that Governments are the best players to disrupt the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.
  - ttoinou 1y ago
    There might be survivorship bias here. One could also argue that Governments are the best players to get and maintain a monopoly or duopoly (:
    - closewith 1y ago
      Well, that's definitely true, and it's also how the MasterCard and Visa monopoly remains dominant. Just look at the extreme backlash of Trump's administration against the Brazilian Central Bank's plans to sell the Pix protocol abroad.
      - _1tem 1y ago
        There’s a geopolitical reason for this. Ability to print a world reserve currency and apply sanctions to control capital flow are among the primary tools of American power.
        closewith 1y ago
        Yes, I'm aware. The dominance of the dollar and the US financial services corporations is no accident. This further reinforces that it's a government that's maintaining the Visa/Mastercard duopoly and it will be governments that break it.
  - 1y ago
Nursie 1y ago
Pix seems to be working really well in Brazil. I'm adjacent to it in that we provide some of the infrastructure around identity etc in Brazil, and it seems to be really popular. I think there's a similar system in India. In the UK you can do payments via Open Banking. I'm not sure how popular it is, but I've used it a few times to send money to Wise to then send over to Australia.

by soared 1y ago

lelanthran 1y ago

> Tough problem. You need a Jony Ive on your team to help solve it. I don't think so. A Jony Ive will not be in a position to solve the actual problem - what use is a non-universal payment mechanism to consumers and to retailers? I read the linked page and don't see answers to the main adoption problem: how is the purchaser supposed to pay? 1. Purchaser has to download the app? Okay, but purchaser already has a few equivalents on their phone (Pix, etc) - added friction! 2. How does the App get money to make payment? Purchaser has to fund a new account? Okay, but that is more friction! 3. How does merchant accept the payment? Do they need a new payment terminal? Must their payment terminal be updated with new software? Even more friction! I've worked in the EMV space, even quite recently, and merchants do not want to update and will only do so when forced to. Any new payment system (QR codes, etc) needs around 5 years (maybe more) before it is universally accepted. The best way, where I am, to rollout a new payment terminal is to pitch it to the banks, who then offer it to the merchants who have accounts with them. Adding new functionality to EMV terminals is a lot easier these days, since most of the new terminals are Android, and the vendors have app stores for third parties to write software for these terminals (Pax has Maxstore, etc). Now, maybe I missed it, but I did not see this application on Maxstore, or some of the other stores. I could have missed it, because these stores have literally thousands of payment applications. The long and short of it is, you came up with a non-universal payment method, and predictably it did not take off.

quesomaster9000 1y ago
I'd argue that the problem is that QR codes shouldn't be an 'app' problem, and yes there's a chicken-egg problem with PoS terminals verifying incoming bank payments but that's a separate issue. If you want to do account-to-account payments you can show the customer the account/routing number, amount & invoice ID - but obviously that's high friction and the customer needs to login to their account and send a payment with lots of manual data entry. Making yet another app, adding a financial intermediary, requiring you to link your bank account - these aren't solving the friction points. We already have bank apps, when I scan a QR code in an industry-wide format it should ask me or confirm which bank app to open and pre-fill all the payment information. So from my perspective, the problem is that FedNow in the US, and Open Banking in the UK - they could have just dictated "Banks must support EPC QR, or EMV QR code scanning and deep-links", and QR code payments would happen very quickly - even with NFC/RFID you can do passive scanning to achieve the same thing. * Choose Account * Confirm details * Press send That's about as easy as you can get for push payments, with a real industry-wide standard for communicating payment intents via NFC/QR. But both FedNow and UK OpenBanking are structured in a way which requires friction, and onerous regulation, through their clunky APIs - meaning you can't actually solve that problem on your own.
- _1tem 1y ago
  Yup it’s that simple. That’s how QR code payments work in many countries in Europe.
- lelanthran 1y ago
  I think my main point still stands: a Jony Ive type person would not be any help whatsoever.
rprend 1y ago
1. App Clips meant no app download required- it’s already on your phone 2. No funding of an account required. There was no account required. You do a “connect your account with Plaid” once then the connection is stored in the secure enclave on your iphone. To confirm a transaction you just hit okay then the money is debited from your bank account 3. We were for online ecommerce for specifically this reason. Much easier to deploy a javascript package than a new POS. That said we were working with in person POS’s But these concerns met was not enough

ttoinou 1y ago

The best players to disrupt Visa Mastercard duopoly would rather be a consortium of payment processors such as Shopify / Stripe / Google Pay / Apple Pay and banks taking in sandwhich Visa and Mastercard (where the money is stored, where the money is spent)

closewith 1y ago
Pix, UPI, etc have definitively shown that Governments are the best players to disrupt the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.
- ttoinou 1y ago
  There might be survivorship bias here. One could also argue that Governments are the best players to get and maintain a monopoly or duopoly (:
  - closewith 1y ago
    Well, that's definitely true, and it's also how the MasterCard and Visa monopoly remains dominant. Just look at the extreme backlash of Trump's administration against the Brazilian Central Bank's plans to sell the Pix protocol abroad.
    - _1tem 1y ago
      There’s a geopolitical reason for this. Ability to print a world reserve currency and apply sanctions to control capital flow are among the primary tools of American power.
      - closewith 1y ago
        Yes, I'm aware. The dominance of the dollar and the US financial services corporations is no accident. This further reinforces that it's a government that's maintaining the Visa/Mastercard duopoly and it will be governments that break it.
- 1y ago

Nursie 1y ago

Pix seems to be working really well in Brazil. I'm adjacent to it in that we provide some of the infrastructure around identity etc in Brazil, and it seems to be really popular. I think there's a similar system in India. In the UK you can do payments via Open Banking. I'm not sure how popular it is, but I've used it a few times to send money to Wise to then send over to Australia.