Amazon

On July 16th 1995, Amazon started online book store. Now their market capital is in Trillion Dollars

Digital Transformation - In High Level

Open Banking - Risks

• The first risk is related to doing business in general. Newmarket players will affect the operations of banks because they are more technologically advanced – digital and committed to adapt to customer needs with higher speed, better UI / UX, and more competitive pricing. It may result in losing customers for banks if they fail to improve their services.
• Although identity verification and fraud prevention are essential components of both the Open Banking initiative itself and the Open API, there are risks associated with the loss or theft of personal data, data protection violations, money laundering, and terrorist financing. Banks will strive to become fully digital, which will, in turn, create a fertile environment for fraudulent activities.
• Access to customer banking data, such as transactions and balance, has always been on any hacker's wish list. The Open API provides access to customer data stored within the infrastructure and may pose a severe risk to cybersecurity. No matter how banks strive to secure their systems and APIs, data thieves can always find a weak spot. It means that some customer data will be openly available to other parties. And it is not only about compliance with GDPR and PSD2 and scenarios of customers claiming compensation from banks. In addition to financial losses, the reputation of banks may also suffer. As a result, it may directly affect the number of customers and partners who are willing to work with this particular bank.
• The risk of fraudulent transactions is another concern. There is a danger that those who will use the Open API will be able to make unauthorized payments from the bank's customers. In this case, the bank may incur financial losses for every transaction made.

Dominance of US Companies in Global Sectors and Industries

Are global indexes as “global” as you think they are?

With the aim of tracking market performance around the world, these indexes incorporate securities from various regions. However, while the number of securities may be relatively well diversified across countries, a dollar perspective tells a different story. When market capitalization is taken into account, country weightings may become much more unbalanced.

Today’s visualization is based on a concept by S&P Dow Jones Indices that shows the percentage of U.S.-based companies in global sectors and industries as of December 31, 2019. The calculations reflect the market capitalization of companies in the S&P Global Broad Market Index (BMI), an index that tracks over 11,000 stocks across 50 developed and emerging economies.

Percentage of U.S. Companies by Sector

U.S-based companies—those that maintain their primary business affairs in the U.S.—are a major component of many global sectors and industries.

Here’s how it breaks down:

Sector	% of U.S.-based Companies	Most U.S.-heavy Subsector
Information technology	73%	Software (86%)
Health care	65%	Health care providers (82%)
Utilities	53%	Electric utilities (57%)
Real estate	51%	Equity REITs (69%)
Consumer discretionary	49%	Specialty retail (73%)
Consumer staples	46%	Household products (74%)
Industrials	46%	Aerospace & defense (73%)
Energy	44%	Energy - other (73%)
Financials	44%	Financials - other (73%)
Materials	30%	Chemicals (41%)

U.S.-based companies make up a staggering 73% of the information technology (IT) sector. However, China may soon threaten this dominance. The Made in China 2025 plan highlights new-generation IT as a priority sector for the country.

Healthcare is also heavily skewed towards U.S-based stocks, which make up 65% of the sector’s market capitalization. This weighting is perhaps not surprising given the success of many U.S. healthcare companies. In Fortune’s list of the 500 most profitable U.S. companies, 41 healthcare organizations made the cut.

The materials sector has the smallest weighting of U.S.-based stocks, but they still account for almost one-third of the overall market capitalization. Three American companies are in the sector’s top 10 holdings: Air Products & Chemicals, Ecolab, and Sherwin-Williams.

U.S. Equity Views in a Global Context

Given the high weighting of U.S. stocks in global sectors and industries, having a U.S. view is important. This refers to investors gaining a clear perspective on the risks and opportunities that exist in the country. Investors can consider the trends influencing American companies in order to help explain stock performance.

U.S. stock dominance also impacts geographic diversification. While it helps non-U.S. investors overcome their home bias, American investors may want to consider targeting specific international markets for well-rounded exposure

Coronavirus and Contactless Payments

Ever since people sheltered at home, payments experts all around the world, started predicting how it would impact cash and cards. Half of consumers say they’re using contactless payments more — and more than half of U.S. consumers seem to recoil at the notion of providing a signature at the point of sale, a new Mastercard survey suggests.

About a third of U.S. consumers also said they’re using their contactless card more than other cards in their wallet, which could be a positive development for large issuers like Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America, which began pumping large numbers of contactless cards out last year.

The data shows that over the course of several weeks, coronavirus has done something that payment industry players had failed to do on their own: jolted consumers into changing long-entrenched habits.

The Futurist Group, a financial services and information management consultancy, conducted a two-wave study of 3,187 U.S. consumers before and after the coronavirus began spreading. About 38% of consumers now see contactless as a basic need or feature of payments, up from 30% a year ago. The proportion of consumers saying they don’t need contactless payments has fallen from 41% in March 2019 to 33% in March 2020.

“The coronavirus could be the tipping point for contactless in the U.S. much like the liability shift was for EMV,” said Demitry Estrin, founder and CEO of the Futurist Group. “Despite issuers pumping out millions of contactless cards and more stores accepting Apple Pay, U.S. consumers have just shrugged their shoulders while the world embraced contactless payments. The question has always been, ‘What will get consumers to change their payment behavior?’ Given coronavirus fears, I think we now have the answer.”

U.S. card issuers have been seeding the landscape with contactless cards since last year — an estimated 40% of cards have contactless capabilities, as banks and credit unions steadily replace expiring EMV contact-only cards with NFC-enabled cards.

About 60% of merchants’ POS terminals are contactless-enabled, supporting payments with contactless cards or mobile payments such as Apple Pay, Google Pay or Samsung Pay via devices and wearables. Mastercard surveyed 1,000 consumers April 10 to April 12.

Significantly, almost half of consumers Mastercard surveyed said they wipe their payment cards clean after using them, which could be a sign that mobile payments — which currently account for less than 10% of contactless payment transaction volume — could eventually gain more traction by eliminating the need to handle a physical card.

Now that more consumers are leery of handling cards and receipts, signatures are more likely to get phased out, streamlining checkouts.

More than three-quarters (77%) of consumers now see contactless as a “cleaner” way to pay, while 70% say it’s more convenient than cash and 67% rate it as a faster way to check out. About half say that contactless payments are more secure.

Supermarkets are the top location where consumers say they’re using contactless payments, at 85%, followed by pharmacies (39%), general retail (38%) and fast-food outlets (36%), while 9% mention using contactless payments on mass transit during the coronavirus.

More than half of survey respondents, or 56%, said they plan to continue using contactless payments when coronavirus fades

PSD2's lack of standards threaten European banks

The success of open banking will ultimately depend on the difference it makes to customers. It’s one thing for people to be able to see all of their various account balances in one place. But if the process for moving money or managing payments remains largely unchanged, is this really much more than a gimmick? It will take something more to influence customer loyalty.

If banks want to maximize the payback from open banking, they must come up with new linked customer-centric services – which, ideally, they can monetize. Under open banking regulations, basic third-party account access must be provided for free. But if banks can build on this facility, they could set themselves apart in the market and develop new revenue streams, by providing richer datasets to third parties which they can charge for.

The first thing to realize as part of this journey is that not all APIs (application program interfaces – i.e. the software interfaces enabling the connections to banking systems) are equal. Although early adopters of open banking in Europe have developed APIs using current PSD2 open banking specifications, each bank has tended to apply them in its own way. This has created complexity as third parties try to gain access to different institutions’ data.

When combined with the general lack of a broader vision for open banking, this has led to a fairly lackluster first generation of new customer experiences. Most financial institutions have settled for a rudimentary pipeline to allow other banks and third parties access to very basic customer account data, which they are duty-bound to do by PSD2 (the Second Payment Services Directive).

This entry-level, DIY approach has compromised the impact. Banks have incurred more cost and effort than necessary, while restricting their scope for innovation.

The danger now is that next movers, including financial services innovators outside Europe, will step into the breach. They will cut straight to the interesting use cases with a next-level, standard API – one that is globally applicable, provides consistent system integration and data exchange with all banks, and which has been designed to support value-added services for consumers.

A typical service innovation might include support for managing personal finances more readily across diverse accounts, providing loans and investments with different institutions, using easy-to-adjust rules to rebalance funds, irrespective of where each account is held. Another might provide the flexibility to adjust recurring payments effortlessly – say, to a mobile phone contract or subscription service such as Netflix or HelloFresh – or complete high-value purchases or finance agreements instantly, using an on-tap ID verification/affordability assessment service.

Furthermore, offering banking access privileges to a range of other organizations (with customers’ permission) is something banks could charge a premium for. Retailers and brands looking to enhance customer loyalty would relish the ability to understand more about household budgets and consumer spending.

This broader data-sharing potential needn’t be seen as sinister, if those brands respond with more meaningful customer rewards. With an advanced API, it should be possible to create robust controls around all of these scenarios – including first-rate secure customer authentication, permissions management, and more. All of which are critical in building and maintaining consumer trust.

These are just some of the value-added consumer use cases that are opened up by an advanced, standards-based API.

Those banks that command an API advantage today have much to gain as innovative first movers in a next-generation financial services environment – by transforming the customer experience, and cementing and winning more business in the process. This is especially true at a stage when third parties are willing to pay for superior functionality and the ability to roll out their own superior experiences.

Banks that fail to seize the moment, by contrast, could see others commanding all the attention and applause. The latter might include newer challenger banks, or institutions in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, which have been studying and learning from developments in Europe, and hope to cut straight to the profitable opportunities.

The other risk from complacency and conservatism is that established banks give away free access to their crown jewels, before conceiving and formalizing new revenue streams. Rather than lose any more ground now, European banks would do well to partner strategically to bolster their opportunities.

Cards Payments - Out of Box Thinking :)

Americans spend about $4 trillion per year on their credit cards. That’s more than the GDP of both the UK and France. Yet, when it comes to  Cards payments infrastructure, we have not seen "drastic"  improvement for decades. I dont think many of the readers will agree . But thats my observation.

The most significant innovation in payments happened in the early 1970s when the card associations established their interbank network and the complementary messaging protocols. That infrastructure paved the path for instant purchases, instant credit issuance, and cross-border commerce. As long as Anyone had a relationship with a bank that was willing to issue a card, that could take advantage of the plumbing.

Since then, most of the payments innovation has happened at the edges (I’m unfairly discounting the efforts to implement ISO 20022 standards).

Focusing on the last mile of the transaction is understandable because that is the core of the user experience, and improving infrastructure is hard and costly. The problem is that user experience optimization is forever hindered by the limitations of the infrastructure. At some point, an infrastructure lift is required to push the user experience to a level that is orders of magnitude better. We are at that point now.

Having a relationship with a bank is just the accepted reality of how we use card products today.

In the current model, each card is provided by a single issuer. That means my card issuer has a monopoly on every transaction I make. Merchants have little control over what they are charged, and the fees they pay vary depending on which card is used at the point-of-sale. The fancier cards cost merchants more than the basic ones. As a consumer, the banks have taken for granted my limitations to go elsewhere for a robust offering, and my inability to diversify, who holds my credit for each transaction.

Recently I read an article on NEW way of thinking in the Cards infrastructure. Its interesting and definitely out of box thinking from the Author . Just wanted to share that here. 
Enter a new way of thinking: an improvement to infrastructure. Rather than having cards issued by a single bank, what if each card had multiple issuers? A different bank could provide credit for each transaction. In this scenario, various banks would ingest the parameters of a transaction, assess risk, and provide a cost decision in real-time to the merchant. The cheapest provider wins and is rewarded with holding the credit on that transaction. This is an oversimplification, but not far from a potential reality.

The implementation of this type of platform requires
- a new frame of thinking for how money moves.
- requires a brand new infrastructure to be built, but it enables a whole new paradigm of customer experience.
It’s on this point where the tech GAFA giants have a role to play in financial services. The tech-focused consumer brands are well-positioned to deepen their relationship with customers by offering a simplified financial services experience. Apple Card exists for this reason. A tech-focused company has been inserted at the center of the payments experience with a plan to win your relationship away from the retail banks.

Why Debit Cards are having EDGE in Europe?

According to the European Central Bank, the rate of adoption of credit and debit cards varies by nation, with eastern and central Europe largely preferring cash transactions. But when it comes to cards, debit ruled nearly everywhere on the continent.

The United Kingdom, France and Germany all also preferred debit, but they do tend to be much more credit friendly.

For example, in 2018, 99% of card-based transactions in Estonia and Croatia were done through the debit system. Whereas the U.K. processed 85% of card transactions through the debit system.

But just because credit is more welcome in the U.K., that doesn’t mean it is the preferred method of payment. Debit transactions — and in particular, contactless debit — are the most common types of transaction in the United Kingdom, overtaking cash as the primary payment method in 2017, according to the industry trade group UK Finance.

Part of the reason credit transactions are so scarce in much of Europe comes down to tradition, history and good old fashioned market forces, said Sam Murrant, senior payments analyst for GlobalData.

“In general, it is more that the European consumers don’t have so many credit cards,” he said. “Partially it comes down to cultural attitudes toward card fees, but since so few customers are carrying credit cards, that tends to have a strong bearing on whether a merchant would accept them.”

He said many people in eastern Europe see credit and debt in generally negative terms, whereas attitudes toward credit in the U.S. and U.K. tend to be much more permissive and forgiving.

Bridging the gap between credit and debit across Europe is the emergence of so-called deferred debit cards, Murrant said. Deferred debit cards act much like a charge card, where a balance accumulates throughout the month and then is paid in full at the end of the month. There is no carried-over balance or overdraft function.

Many countries that tend to frown on credit are warming to these deferred debit cards.

Regulation also stunted the growth of credit across Europe. While banks in the U.S. offer juicy incentives like airline miles or points — paid for through relatively high transaction fees — to entice cardholders to swipe their credit over their debit cards, European regulations have made that much more difficult.

Through 2015's Interchange Fee Regulation, the European Union capped transaction fees for both credit and debit transactions — a maximum of 0.2% of the transaction for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards.

Before that, these fees varied considerably from one European country to another.

But even before those regulations took place, credit cards struggled to gain popularity in many European nations. For example, in the Czech Republic, credit cards were culturally seen as expensive and not really worth getting, said Petra Vodstrčilová, spokesperson for Czech National Bank.

And after the interchange regulations took place, their popularity declined even further, Vodstrčilová said. “Some banks actually stopped issuing them,” she said.

Businesses will ultimately accept the payments that their customers demand, Murrant said.

“If you know most customers will carry cash, you will lose less by refusing card payments. But if you are in a place where people just don’t carry cash, if you are refusing card payments, you are losing money,” Murrant said.

Why the Acquirers are under severe pressure? - From Payment Source

Due to Digital Disruption, there are many good things happening. At the same time, acquires are facing many challenges.

They are under severe pressure from the digital payments revolution, challenged to hold onto clients by stitching together legacy systems, existing hardware, mobile, cloud and apps. Those that can harness innovation and find the right startup partners can not only stave off elimination, but drive the next generation of multi-channel shopping and transaction revenue."Acquirers have a much more important role in this business then they did 10 years ago," said Brian Riley, director of card services for Mercator Advisory Group. "In Europe they are forced down to be more efficient and in the U.S. they are forced to be more competitive, and that is reflected in the recent mergers we have seen."

The response from incumbent payment processors is to respond to the rise of software challengers like Stripe and Square by adding scale. Consolidation between bank technology sellers and merchant acquirers is the name of the game as
- FIS acquired Worldpay,
- Fisesrv bought First Data and
- Global Payments obtained TSYS.

"That type of activity is going to set the pace in acquiring for some time," Riley said.

The combined companies still have to differentiate themselves--it's not enough to just be larger since the fintech challengers often use the size of the legacy acquiring industry as a selling point, positioning themselves as smaller and more nimble. Expect the combined companies to seek third-party collaborations, especially to serve smaller businesses, to counter PayPal, iZettle, which PayPal acquired in 2018, and Square.

This is particularly true in Europe, where payments represent a more diverse mix, depending on the various payments schemes and local regulations in each country.

"Europe is a mix of highly innovative countries, such as Sweden, which is pushing for a cashless society, and rather traditional ones like Germany and France, who are proud of their local payment schemes both in offline and online commerce," said Martin Herlinghaus, market analyst for payments technology integrator AEVI, which completed recent research on acquiring challenges and trends in Europe.

Providing full service

The challenge for merchant acquirers is
- Serving customers who want flexibility with their payment networks,
- Numerous payment options and
- Add-on business services.
For example, travelers and small businesses want to support "own currency" payments in which consumers want to make payments abroad in their own currency and with their own device. This has been apparent in acquirers seeking ways to serve those merchants who want to accept a payment from customers using their national payment schemes or through mobile payments like Alipay

Europe Bank's plan to counter VISA and Mastercard - PEPSI

Isolationist politics are creeping closer to the payments industry, with European banks threatening to build a localized payment ecosystem to push back against the major American card brands.

The planned European network, called the Pan European Payment System (or PEPSI), includes 20 European banks and has the tacit backing of the European Central Bank. There's no formal announcement, but PEPSI would be a catchall counterweight to cross-border mobile payment fintechs, challenger banks, blockchain startups, cryptocurrency and the cloud, and other initiatives that the incumbent financial services industry sees as threats.

PEPSI would be a rival to Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, other American payment brands, and U.S.-based data giants such as Google and Amazon. The ECB did not return a request for comment, but multiple European media outlets quoted Carlo Bovero, the head of global cards at BNP Paribas, referring to the initiative at a conference.

European politicians have floated the idea of creating their own payments system before. Just a few months ago, Deutsche Bundesbank board member Burkhard Balz suggested European banks build their own mobile payments platform, citing the influence of Google and Amazon as a threat. What’s new this time is the participation of a large number of banks, with PEPSI reportedly including most of France and Germany’s banking industry as a base, and a group of banks willing to invest in the initiative.

The ECB and PEPSI are hardly alone, as traditional authorities are taking a harder line against alternative payment initiatives, whether it’s Facebook’s Libra, Apple Pay or challenger banks.

The EU is reportedly moving closer to investigating Apple Pay for antitrust violations, and the pushback against Facebook’s Libra project is widespread as politicians in the U.S., Europe and Asia push back against the social network's crypto initiative. This political climate is present elsewhere, with India requiring outside payment companies to store data locally, a move that's drawn the ire of Mastercard. And China often shifts requirements for outside payment companies to do business inside the country, usually in the direction of requiring substantial investments and a local presence.

Central banks around the world are also building digital currencies, again to counter what they see as a threat to monetary sovereignty by blockchain-based currencies such as Libra.

PEPSI’s advocates suggest another indirect threat, with media reports saying Europe needed its own payment system to counter an “upset American president” who may change trade policy with the eurozone in a way that could harm the continent’s banks.

“Certainly PEPSI could have an enormous impact on EU payments if the ECB and EC put their considerable shoulders behind it and if banks seriously commit to a politically driven payment system,” said Eric Grover, a principal at Intrepid Ventures. “EU regulators are viscerally hostile to dominant U.S. payment franchises like Visa and Mastercard. They’re spooked by the prospect of Libra.”

Politics is just part of the battle, as challenger banks have expanded quickly over the past few years, often gaining hundreds of thousands of enrolled customers and drawing funds from fintech investors. There is likely frustration in the traditional banking industry that is fueling the push for an alternative payment system. Incumbent banks have faced an expensive and long path to comply with data regulations such as PSD2 and GDPR, which are seen as favorable to challenger banks and fintechs since these younger companies can take advantage of new mandated data sharing between banks and third parties.

Revolut, which is teaming with Visa to expand geographically, and N26, which just raised $300 million, have both achieved unicorn status and are rapidly adding new markets and scale. Another European fintech, Monzo, says it’s adding 100,000 clients per month, and is developing services such as B2B payments.

These firms started as mobile payment providers, using U.S. card brands to support transactions, and their growth adds to the U.S. card networks’ scale.

“These challenger banks are distinguishing themselves by providing payment services — that’s how they entered the market, as a glorified general purpose reloadable accounts,” said Richard Crone, a payments consultant. “So directly or indirectly, Visa and Mastercard have new distribution channels.”

PEPSI would face an uphill battle, considering most European banks issue Visa and Mastercard, and Apple Pay and PayPal have made major inroads among European consumers and merchants. And international payment networks don’t expand overnight. Reported estimates say PEPSI would cost several billion euros to build a system that would cover about 60% of the European electronic payments market.

“Building a network of last resort is a difficult and expensive endeavor,” said Sarah Grotta, director of the debit and alternative products and advisory service at Mercator. “Getting enough consumers and merchants behind the solution to create the network effect, plus all of the required infrastructure, operating and regulatory considerations is an undertaking that will take many years to develop.”

Third European Card Scheme - Will it come in Europe???

Since we are seeing lot of commonality in payments throughout Europe, the banks began pondering the creation of a third payment scheme.

Because past attempts to establish a third European card scheme to compete against Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and others never materialized, the new proposal called Pan European Payment System, or PEPSI, is garnering some attention. The European banks behind PEPSI announced their intentions last month.

The European Central Bank has not weighed in heavily on PEPSI, other than to state it supports the effort of the 20 French and German banks pushing the concept.

With bank support and a common eurozone, it is expected that PEPSI could more easily develop into a payment scheme than something like the ill-fated Merchant Customer Exchange, a merchant-backed effort in the U.S. that came and went over a three-year period. MCX, designed to operate through ACH payments via a mobile wallet, promised to lower costs for merchants but never made it past the pilot phase.

It won't be easy for PEPSI, especially when consumers are content with their chip-and-PIN or contactless cards and mobile payments throughout Europe.

"I think SEPA for cards has not yet been achieved," Aite's van Wezel said. "There is no SEPA cards rulebook because, from a consumer perspective, there is no issue. Cards work the same everywhere in the EU."

Still, merchant acquirers facing increasing competition are longing for ways to deal with inefficiencies and different standards, local exceptions and different card fees in each country.

"There is a growing number of merchants who are using real-time payments at the point of sale to displace cards," Celent's Lodge said. "Whether these are truly to be a third card rail is almost not the point, because the goal of the third scheme was to provide competition to the card duopoly, and these initiatives seem to be addressing that."

For the time being, an initiative like PEPSI is garnering viewpoints from bankers, merchants and consumers ranging from it having "no impact" to becoming "a major disruption" — and all points in between, Lodge (Gareth Lodge, a London-based industry analyst with Celent.added.

How SEPA helps to modernize the payments world.

Though SEPA is an unique to European Union. It made a big change in entire payments landscape in the world.  I have been working in SEPA since 2010. Started working in SEPA CT Reachable. And then

• SEPA Direct Debit Reachable 
• SEPA Direct Debit Initiation 
• SEPA Credit Transfer Initiation

Now Its being implemented in SEPA in instant payments too.

When SEPA got started, it didn't include a vision for real-time payments and the potential for a third European payments scheme. Since its growing and I have been seeing that its making big impact in payment.  Just thought of writing on this SEPA evolution.

The intention for SEPA was slightly less ambitious: Convert fragmented payment markets into a single domestic scheme to improve cross-border payment efficiency. What SEPA planners did not foresee was that this effort would become the largest payment-integration project of modern times.

SEPA began in 2008 and became operational in all eurozones in 2014, but it did not eliminate local payment schemes. Nevertheless, it became the method for all cross-border payments and reduced the cost of moving money around the region, to an estimated 3% of the total GDP, according to the European Union.Article 5 Big bets in retail payments

It didn't take much longer for SEPA to enter into, and even bypass, the faster payments initiatives unfolding across the globe.

The SEPA Instant Credit Transfer scheme came about as a real-time money transfer system. SEPA regulators quickly touted it in 2017 as the largest faster payments system in the world.

SEPA Instant Credit Transfer is built around the ISO 20022 standard, a coding message for cross-border payments that allows the movement of data that includes relevant information about the purpose of a payment for banks to share.

SEPA was breaking ground for other faster payments initiatives and planners, especially the one unfolding through the Federal Reserve in the U.S.

"The instant payment scheme is adhered to by more than half of the EU banks, and real-time payments will become the norm," said Ron van Wezel, senior analyst for retail banking and payments at Aite Group.

"Payments is considered the 'lubricating oil' for EU's single market," he said. "And regulators — the European Commission and Parliament — have strongly focused on creating a payment law that opens competition, stimulates innovation and protects consumer interests."

SEPA has plenty of moving parts, as global and European stakeholders on the payments landscape keep tabs on how all of the directives intersect and affect one another.

"SEPA isn't just one thing, but a continuing set of actions to deliver the political vision that is SEPA," said Gareth Lodge, a London-based industry analyst with Celent.

In that regard, SEPA is somewhat joined at the hip with the initial Payment Service Directive and PSD2, which opened the payments innovation landscape to more third-party providers.

"The core ACH payments, SEPA Credit Transfer and Direct Debit Core have been operational for years and are, with few exceptions, the main payment types in all eurozone countries," Lodge said. "Pricing for cross-border payments have been brought in line with their equivalent domestic transactions."

Payment companies need to see mobile as the incumbent channel

Mobile phones are turning into an extension of our arms. If not having access to the internet makes you feel like you've traveled back to ancient times, forgetting your mobile phone at home has turned into the ultimate modern tragedy.

From contactless payments to electronic tickets and boarding passes, smartphones have triggered a whole new world of possibilities for traditional industries to jump onto the m-commerce bandwagon. The new decade will see Generation Z become adults, and they will expect more and more services and activities to be facilitated by their device of choice: mobile.

Leaving home in the morning means ensuring we’re carrying the vital three: wallet, keys, and cellphone. In this scenario, which includes adults spending an average of over 3.5 hours per day on their mobile phones, we can only expect to see more and more daily activities being facilitated by just reaching out to our smartphones — from making money transactions and getting food delivered, to booking doctor appointments and gym classes.

In the coming decade, we're leaving behind an era marked by e-commerce as the retail space’s key player. E-Commerce isn’t disappearing, but it is allowing m-commerce to take center stage. Even if the consumer decides to purchase items on the larger, more easily visible computer screen, they often begin the funnel process of browsing on a smartphone.

By 2021, m-commerce sales are expected to account for 54% of total e-commerce sales. Europe is currently leading the way with m-commerce: 67% of online shopping comes directly from mobile (compared to 59% in the U.S.) Mobile users downloaded 5.7 million retail apps in 2018, a 50% increase from 2015. The trend is not only taking a foothold in the U.S., though. South America, for example, is growing at an impressive pace and leads the world in m-commerce growth between 2018 and 2019, with a 36% increase.

If millennials embraced the internet and online shopping, Gen Z, the generation that succeeds them, is not only all about online shopping but also about the convenience of making any transaction through their mobile phones.

As a report by Google explains, "while millennials were mobile pioneers, teens are mobile natives." Born in or after 1995, this generation hasn’t lived in a world without the internet or mobile phones. Mobile is the number-one device they use — and they’re connected all the time.

According to the same report, Gen Z uses social media for consumption (and stalking) but not for sharing since it's not seen as "cool." For them, online shopping eliminates friction, and some of its benefits besides convenience and being faster than going to physical stores, include access to better deals, brands, and retailers without leaving home. Additionally, social media has created a persona for every brand, and Gen Z high hopes for the brands they choose.

From Nike to Xbox, they expect personalization, even when they make a purchase online. Influencer marketing appears to work the best, with 57% of Gen Z consumers making a purchase based on a media influencer. Again, the key player in this scenario is their mobile 

Whats the use of CVV in Creditcard?

Often, I always get questions from my colleagues, friends and my kids why it requies CVV in creditcard alone though its been there long time now. Wanted to write something on the need of CVV.

If you have done any type of online shopping, you will most likely have had to input your credit card’s CVV. The CVV is the three digits on the back of your card (four on the front if you have an American Express card), which act as an anti-fraud measure.

But what does CVV really mean, does it go by another name and is it safe to give out over the phone?

What is a credit card CVV?

CVV stands for a card verification value.
It can also be called a card verification code (CVC) or card identification number (CID). It is the anti-fraud measure for when purchases are made without the card being presented, for example online or over the phone. It is the way that the retailer can ascertain that you have the physical card and are therefore authorised to make the purchase.
If you want to get technical, it is a Secure Socket Layer (SSL), which is a digitally provided certification process. The CVV was introduced in order to reduce fraud for internet transactions and provides a cryptographic check of the card’s information. This means that the CVV is not part of the card number itself; instead it is separate.

How do I find my CVV?

For cards provided by Visa and Mastercard, the CVV is on the back of the card. However, you may be fooled by the fact that there are more than just three numbers on the back of your card. This is because providers typically include the last four digits of your 16-digit account number, followed by the CVV.
Of course, American Express often dances to the beat of its own drum. So if you happen to be an American Express cardholder then you will find the CVV on the front of the card, and it will be a four-digit number instead of three.

Is it safe to give out my CVV?

Most of the time, yes – it it safe to give your CVV. As I mentioned, the CVV acts as an anti-fraud measure. So if you are required to input your CVV when making an online purchase, this is a good sign that the retailer takes fraudulent transactions seriously. You may also be asked for your CVV when making a purchase over the phone. If this is the case, make sure you are not in a crowded place. While it is unlikely, there is always a small chance that your conversation could be overheard and your information recorded.
If you are making a purchase in person, you do not need to give out your CVV; your PIN or signature is enough for the retailer or service provider to process the transaction.
If you lose your card or have it stolen, make sure you cancel it immediately. If someone has your physical card, and therefore also your CVV, there isn’t much to stop them making online purchases.

Conclusion

Overall, a CVV is a good thing. The CVV adds an extra layer of security to online purchases, verifying that the user has the card at the time of the transaction. As with anything to do with credit cards, there is a risk of fraud – but using your CVV means there is a check when you are performing a ‘card not present’ transaction. The CVV provides a second number that fraudsters would have to steal in order to use your card without your authorisation.

As always, if you are concerned with making purchases online or over the phone using your credit card, monitor your account closely so that you can spot any fraudulent transactions.

Similarly, some providers or credit rating agencies set up notifications to alert you when they suspect that your card has been used without your authorisation.