The mobile payments competitive landscape is heating up and banks have a limited window of opportunity to retain and strengthen their own payments relevance. The likes of Facebook, Google and Apple are all creating their own mobile payment solutions. They’re all following the same formula that the Scandinavian banks and the likes of Alipay did.
”Many European banks we talk to want to jump on the Apple Pay/Samsung Pay/ Android-Pay/Masterpass train. They are attracted by the volumes of retail business and start by connecting a card to the wallet to address in-store payments.” Auka says, in a report called ”How to succeed in mobile payments – a guide for bankers”.
”Those who had a card from before can already pay using a terminal in the store. The new way of payment doesn’t really solve any problem. For merchants, it’s an investment in hardware that does not yield any new payment scenarios. The bank is still tied down to the same location, the same customers and the same card payment. Only the mechanics (swipe vs. chip vs. tap) have changed.”
A blueprint for bank-owned mobile payments success exists. In Scandinavia, multiple bank-owned solutions have used this blueprint and managed to saturate the market to reach up to 65 – 70% adoption rate across the whole population. In China, the market pioneer Alipay and their challenger, WeChat, have given access to financial transactions to over 1.5 billion users – hitting $5.5tn in 2016. That’s 50 times the size of the US’s $112bn mobile payments market.
”We believe that the banks are in a good position to challenge third party initiatives and come out on top. In this free guide we explain how banks can use their existing strengths to launch new mobile payment channels.”, according to the report which also includes 1) How banks can monetise mobile payments, 2) Current European banker perception with regard to their own digital strategies, 3) The difference between successful and unsuccessful mobile payments and 4)The formula all the successful solutions have followed.
For more details download Auka report: ”Mobile Payments – a guide for bankers”
Who is Auka
Founded in 2010, Auka are mobile payments pioneers. They are the technology company behind mCASH, the first mobile payments platform to launch in Norway. Since then, the Nordics have enjoyed the highest rates of mobile payment adoption in the world.
Auka’s white-label mobile payments and digital channel products support banks’ customer acquisition and revenue generation efforts. These products are delivered using the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Auka has an e-money license, is PCI compliant and is fully FSA approved. They were also the first licensed financial services company to run entirely on the Google Cloud Platform, later followed by tier 1 bank, HSBC.
Auka’s mobile payments platform has been integrated by 18 Scandinavian banks. It was one of the core technologies in the establishment of the mobile payments cooperation initiative of 107 banks in Norway in August 2017. Auka specialises in mobile payment services that allow users to pay with their smartphone using their preferred source of funding in any payment scenario, agnostic to either the payment device or the bank.
Its Peer-to-Peer (P2P) mobile payments platform can be configured to allow individuals to make fast, personal payments using a number of different identifiers including mobile phone numbers, bank account numbers or social media profiles.
Auka’s Peer-to-Merchant (P2M) mobile payments platform enables retailers and SMEs to offer customers the option to pay for goods and services using their mobile phone.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„So many people are coming here to Bucharest, people that I see and interact on linkedin and now I get the change to meet them in person. It was like being to the Football World Cup but this was the World Cup on linkedin in payments and open banking.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
