The payments industry is a compelling space, but it’s a time consuming one as well. You might not have time to keep track of every major story and trend or every funny and fascinating tidbit that we cover on everyone’s favorite payments site.
With that in mind, we bring you What’s In And What’s Out: a weekly look at the best stories from the PYMNTS.com EMEA newsletter, and a bit of light reading for you before you take off for the weekend.
Make sure to understand What’s In so that you avoid being part of What’s Out!
Contactless Payments At Marks And Spencer
What’s In: Paying for your Marks and Sparks groceries with your swanky new contactless card.
What’s Out: Unknowingly paying for your Marks and Sparks groceries with your swanky new contactless card, while standing well-beyond the suggested reading proximity.
What happened: Marks and Spencer customers reported complaints about the new contactless payment readers making serious errors. One woman said she was standing at least a foot away from the NFC reader when her contactless card was charged from her purse. Before she could reach in her purse, the M&S employee asked the perplexed customer, “Would you like cashback?”
M&S has refunded customers and said they were investigating further.
PayPal Study Reports Physical Wallets Are On The Way Out
What’s In: Going out to dinner with friends and using a digital wallet via smartphone. This way you can and your friends can make person-to-person transfers right then and there, and split the bill equally. No huss. No fuss.
What’s Out: Having to awkwardly hassle your friend, two weeks later (for the third time) if they can pay you back for that appetizer you covered last week when they “forgot” to bring cash to dinner.
What Happened: A new PayPal study revealed that a large majority of consumers from around the world are ready to say good-bye and good-riddance to physical wallets. Younger consumers reported that they were often stiffed by friends who didn’t have enough cash to foot the bill.
U.A.E. Report Reveals Banks Are Outdated, Have Flakey Customer Service
What’s In: U.A.E. consumers paying for auto loans, mortgage and credit card bills with … paper checks?
What’s Out: Erm, U.A.E. consumers are paying for auto loans, mortgage and credit card bills … with paper checks.
What Happened: Readers who didn’t get the joke, not to worry. New research revealed that over half of U.A.E. bank customers are desperate to switch accounts because of poor and outdated customer service. Many financial institutions and companies are still requesting customers to make payments via checks. Seriously?
Alas, 36 percent said they probably wouldn’t switch because of a daunting process of long paperwork and other inconveniences.
French eCommerce Surges
What’s In: Buying the limited edition Louis Vuitton bag on a French eRetailer site.
What’s Out: Sitting in ridiculous traffic for two hours, and finally getting to the Louis Vuitton store on Avenue des Champs-Élysées just to have the saleswoman tell you’ve they’ve sold out. But, “Madame, I am sure you can find it online.”What Happened: A French study reported the country’s eCommerce market was growing at rapid speed. In the last year the market has grew up to €12.1 billion, and now has over 120,000 active sites and 32.6 million online shoppers. Voilà !
Nigeria Rolls Out 13 Million MasterCard-Branded Identity Smart Cards
What’s In: Sub-Sahara African countries integrating payment applications into a national identity card and moving towards a cashless world.
What’s Out: Stifling consumer and personal finance in Nigeria. Oh yeah, and cash.
What Happened: Thirteen million MasterCard-branded identity cards were rolled out in Nigeria earlier last week. Nigeria and MasterCard share a confluent vision to move towards a cashless society, and have told PYMNTS.com they have big plans to integrate further payment solutions onto the card later down the road. This is definitely a space to watch.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
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