How Will We Pay in 2025?
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We could soon be tappin’ to pay and no longer dippin’ our chip in, but first there’s a chicken and egg to deal with.
Merchants have been reluctant to buy new terminals as very few contactless cards have been issued by banks in the US. That is beginning to change.
According to an article by PYMNTS.com, “Last year, Visa’s Chief Executive Alfred F. Kelly revealed that 70 of the company’s top merchants now accept contactless cards, up by more than 20 in a year.” And he also said “Over 100 million Visa contactless cards will be issued by US banks by the end of 2019.
Contactless EMV enables the convenience of tapping card to pay, while maintaining secure transactions. Tap or dip, not much difference right? Well, in Australia for example, you can leave your card in your wallet to tap to pay. That’s a game changer right?
Personally I keep two cards in my phone case wallet, which means once contactless EMV is here, I could tap my phone to pay just like Apple or Google Pay. I hate carrying my wallet because you can’t hear wallets drop from pocket. Arggh!!! :)
Though it makes me think, what happens when you have more than one card in your wallet? The convenience of leaving the card in the wallet to pay is gone.
What if you could carry just one “Universal Super-Smart Card” whereas it is linked to a digital wallet, like Apple or Google Wallet? In seconds you could change cards to pay from a securely linked digital wallet. A solution like this could very well be the foundation for a secure and convenient way to pay.
And prior to our current contactless card and terminal chicken and egg dilemma, there was the EMV chip and dip in terminal dilemma. Chip card transactions are very secure, near impossible to make copies of card data, unlike with mag-striped cards. “According to Visa, 97 percent of in-person card purchases were made with chip cards as of June” as shared by NRF’s Magazine online.
EMV’s near ubiquity has stemmed card present fraud, but online or card-not-present fraud has skyrocketed since the EMV mandate began in October, 2015. The fraudsters moved on to skim card data online as the door in stores was shut with EMV. There is no EMV for CNP (card-not-present) solution right now, but there are solutions available such as Dynamic CSC/CVV, vs. the static 3-digit number printed on the back of cards.
With Dynamic CSC/CVV, a new code is generated for each transaction. The solution works by the card issuer and the card wallet working in conjunction. The Apple Card just debuted without card number on it. With Dynamic CSC/CVV there’d be no code on the back of the card. It would be automatically generated and possibly seamlessly integrated into online shopping carts. This was my idea a few year back, but I discovered someone had already patented the idea, so I did not file a provisional patent.
Building a new payment network to compete with existing payment networks is unlikely to be built, but possible. There are ways to build out new payment network. It just takes time, money, contracts w/ alt rails or adding peripherals. The key driver for alt-rails would be 10X more revenues.
Why?
To save #merchants money and offer a more secure network with open, modern API. But that’s only half the equation. Consumers need to have added mass convenience of redeeming and earning rewards, offers and donations, all w/ the tap of a card, phone or wallet at Point of Sale.
Would a new company use existing payment rails offered via Visa, MasterCard or Discover?
Perhaps, they are always seeking ways to gain competitive edge and earn more revenues.
Will there be a “Super-Smart Card” that’s seamlessly, SECURELY linked to phone and a “Universal Digital Wallet App?
Yep that’s coming. With contactless chip cards coming to America, you won’t even need to take your universal card out of your wallet (or phone wallet case) to pay. Just tap your wallet to payment terminal.
With world moving toward a global government, a universal payment app & network will be needed to manage control of money flow, thus an alliance. I’m not for the next global government coming soon, for a short time, I’m against it 100% and am very pro-US and US Constitution and free markets, but a nefarious global government is eventually going to form in the not too distant future.
With launch of Apple Card this year, it brought me back to my past pursuit of building a universal card, securely connected to a universal digital wallet app.
In the mid-late 90’s I envisioned this very product, be it at a much, more simple and less sophisticated level as I was just beginning my road of discovery of payments and point of sale, rewards, offer redemption and consumer loyalty.
I spent thousands of hours, over a dozen years researching online and in attending ETA, how to build own payment network or launch a universal card that also enabled redeeming offers or gift cards and earning rewards. By mid-2000’s I realized how important incorporating “Cause Marketing” and converting to “Cause Commerce” via my universal card would be as essential as rewards or discounts.
In 2010, I was in route to market with a universal card and cause fundraising features. Merchants kept asking “Was I going to have a mobile app too?” This was June, 2010. Mobile apps were taking off. I went to work to invent an app version of card and I realized I needed to invent a mobile payment solution.
By end of June, 2010 I had invented an alt-mobile payment solution (no NFC — no chicken and egg to deploy) that required no new hardware or software at point of sale or chip in phone to enable mobile payments.
With this new invention, I decided to pivot away from the universal card and place cause fundraising on the back burner. I decided to take MobilePayUSA to market. The company needed capital. That’s hard to come by when you only have an idea and provisional patent filed.
I decided to enter TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley in San Francisco. I was able to assemble a talented team of 10. We built a demo that used a wireless Verifone terminal and integrated it to work with the push of a button to enable our mobile payment solution (we had decided to not to share our non-integrated solution to the world).
Long story short, MobilePayUSA won TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Alley SF on September 28, 2010. This same day TechCrunch was acquired by AOL. Though we were unable to successfully launch to market, this was my debut to payments industry.
In March of 2012, I found out I was going to be a dad, a stay at home dad. So I decided to launch MobileWalletMedia.com to keep connected to payments space while also caring for my new baby girl.
Within a few months, I had built a website and had added Money2020, RSPA and a few other payments related conferences as media partners. I ran Mobile Wallet Media from 2012–2014.
In January of 2015, I invented a universal card solution that would use a conventional card and link it to a universal wallet of wallets to charge the default card last selected, from the wallet last selected as default wallet.
I named my company and product Card1 and built a demo app. Here’s the site: GetCard1.com. I gave it my best effort, but I was unable to secure a strategic payment partnership with a payment network that was required to enable the solution and make it ubiquitous. By January of 2016, I had to put in on the back burner and moved to place cause and rewards marketing app back on front burner.
And then in February of 2016 I read that a company named Curve Card had launched in the UK with a near exact technology and revenue model, minus my card security solution using Touch ID with any card-not-present transaction. They had partnered with MasterCard to enable their solution and I heard they had raised $2M from former Google Wallet team members and others. It was disheartening to know I was right, but had not the resources or connections to make to happen. I applaud Curve Card for building the solution they did. The back-end settlement and clearing (via Wirecard I believe) solution they came up with. It seemed to work well, only with hiccups via Amex.
In 2016, I pivoted back to work on my Cause Commerce model and app. I had the groundwork laid for the innovation I had in mind from research I had done in the mid-late 2000’s and while writing for Mobile Wallet Media.
I diligently worked to refine the model, went through several versions of investor, merchant, cause, school decks, my pitch, the brand and messaging and wireframes/mockups for BuyGiv.
As much as I believed in Card1’s technology and model, the more so I believe that BuyGiv’s model can and will redefine retail marketing for Good.
Right now there is a great shift taking place in affiliate marketing. It is moving offline using card-linking technology. This is THE TOOL to enable simple and universal affiliate transactions anywhere.
Affiliate marketing is loved by merchants as they only pay per sale vs. paying up front for advertising, ad planning, all without a guaranteed good ROI.
Cash back rewards of up to 20% are great, but today’s Millennial and Gen Z shoppers and basically anyone that cares to support good causes value earning donations by shopping as much as rewards.
The key is how to sync it all together. At first glance it appears impossible. When I first thought of the idea back in the mid-2000’s it seemed that way.
Now with a high growth, quick to scale and reach sustainable profits strategy planned and knowing how all the key stakeholders all mesh holistically together, I’m as passionate and confident as ever that BuyGiv will obtain the resources needed to launch to market soon to make the world a better place with each transaction. If we are not connected yet on LinkedIn, let’s do so if you are interested in partnering as a talented team partner, merchant, school, non-profit, corporate sponsor or capital resource partner. I’m making progress every week. The opportunity is greatest now. Let’s talk.
And before I finish, I recently discovered a very interesting technology that could enable the very vision as painted above in image (minus the alliance and needing to build new payment network). I’m saying the technology is there and waiting to be built. I’m not saying I want to re-enter the payments space with another startup, but it is interesting time. You never know!
Apple Card is a great innovation and incredible UI/UX in app and on card, but there’s additional innovation that could be added to end card-not-present fraud via means of Dynamic CSC/CSV code. If you’re interested in learning more about that innovation and as such displayed in image above, then connect with me on LinkedIn.
To conclude, there’s a next-gen solution, a bio-metric implant (?) enabled solution coming that will likely replace the physical card, but don’t EVER use this NEXT solution if it is required by government to buy or sell anything. Your very LIFE depends on it. Reject this next tech at all or any cost.
