Notes from America

UK-based micropayments venture tibit (IBS Journal’s very first Startup of the Month) launched in the US last week at the Online News Association’s Denver event. Carl Beetham, Business Advisor, brings you this post from his travels

I’m the least-travelled of individuals and the daily commute to Peckham still fills me with an equal combination of trepidation and excitement. So you can only wonder at my feelings when faced with the joyous prospect of a business trip to the US – imagine a midget ginga Mickey Rooney-esque individual playing the Eddie Murphy character in Coming to America and you won’t go far wrong.

PSR announcement ushers in new era for payments innovation

The Payments Systems Regulator (PSR) has this week announced that the UK payments infrastructure will undergo a reform, in order to increase innovation, competition, and ultimately seek to better serve consumers.

This announcement seeks to break down the current payments status quo which has remained stagnant in this country for too long. The best case scenario is that we now see a flood of innovative competitors coming to the fray, where the needs of consumers, and not the needs of the major payment players, will drive the sector forward.

Three decades of automated payments – but what next?

In 1986 Barclaycard was the first payment provider to introduce Process Data Quickly (PDQ) technology, which allowed in-store transactions to be processed faster and more securely than ever before. I joined Barclaycard in 1972 and was working in the Business Research team when we embarked on a huge project to transform how retailers take and consumer make payments.

Before PDQ technology was introduced retailers relied on “zip tap” technology, which involved taking an imprint or carbon copy of a customer’s card to create a voucher, which was sent to the appropriate bank to process. This system was not only admin heavy but also susceptible to human error and with ever increasing volumes desperately in need of modernising.

Throwing good money after bad

Clearing house Bacs has said that it is working on a number of initiatives to boost the UK’s struggling Current Account Switch Service (CASS), following intervention by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Sibos: day three round-up

Innotribe

Sibos entered its third day with the introduction of new forums, a focus on real-time payments and the conclusion of the annual Innotribe start-up challenge.

Are real-time payments in the US a realistic prospect?

There has been a lot of coverage of real-time payments projects around the globe in the IBS Journal over the last few months, and it was certainly one of the key themes of the EBA Day conference in Helsinki in June. Europe looks like it is getting its act together in this respect, especially with SEPA now in the rear-view mirror and ISO 20022 gaining prominence, whilst the likes of the UK and Sweden have been ahead of the curve.