Summer Reading List for Payments Bookworms

Memorial Day marks the start of summer, which means it is time to start planning your agenda of beach reads and lounge chair literature. Whether you’re into mobile money, its paper equivalent or finance in general, PYMNTS.com has pulled together some recommended reads from every genre, as well as from some “best-selling” series:

MYSTERY:  NFC and Mobile Payments Ignition

 

“Googling” mPayments Ignition? Why Google’s Wallet May Be the Top Search Result

Google’s announcement Thursday of its NFC-mobile payments scheme is, with a few exceptions, a real textbook case study in what you need to do if you want to ignite a new payments method, according to Market Platform Dynamics CEO Karen Webster. She offers her take on Google’s plan to tap and go their way to the top of the mobile payments ladder.

ISIS: Dialed Back or No Dial Tone?

After AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon announced their joint plan to create a mobile payments network (called ISIS), Market Platform Dynamics Founder David S.  Evans noted the JV didn’t pass his screening rules for successful ventures. It now seems Evans’ prediction has come true.

Will Apple Get Us to Wave At the Point of Sale?

By now it is safe to assume we have all heard the news that Apple will enable their iPhones and iPads with NFC functionality or that ISIS is planning to change the mobile payments world as we know it or that analysts are saying there is proof that mobile payments powered by NFC will take off this year. Well, every coin has two sides and Karen Webster has shared her thoughts on why NFC will not be the flame to ignite the explosive growth of mobile payments.

Analysis: Did Durbin Doom ISIS? Exec Reveals Reason for Strategy Shift

The ISIS team made news again last week when a top executive went on the record saying that if Durbin is implemented as proposed, or close to it, innovation as we know it in payments will be hurt. Karen Webster gives the ISIS team a virtual fist bump, pointing out this announcement set the table for a key debate on the topic of Durbin, innovation and how innovation in payments gets funded.

Analysis: Hip to be “Square?” Why Visa Thinks So

The announcement of Visa’s strategic investment in Square set off a wave of news reports and blog posts about its implications for Visa, Square and the rest of the ecosystem. Yet Karen Webster thinks the more interesting story is what this could mean for one of Square’s major marketplace challengers, Intuit’s GoPayment, and small businesses in general.

 

DRAMA:  Dodd-Frank, Durbin and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

 

David S. Evans Explains Impact of CFPB to House Oversight Committee

This oral testimony by the founder of Market Platform Dynamics sheds light on how the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could make it harder and more expensive for consumers to borrow money. A must-read for those involved with regulation, as well as any Elizabeth Warren Facebook fans.

Economists Expose Durbin Myths

Along with co-authors Howard Chang and Margaret Weichert, David Evans questions assertions that debit card interchange fees have been rising, MasterCard and Visa have been engaging in price fixing, Canadian consumers have done well with zero-interchange fee debit cards and consumers are going to see any benefit from lower fees. The merchants have got it all wrong, these authors say.

Leading Economists Advise Fed to Modify “Unreasonable” Proposals

In a paper submitted to the Fed, Martin Bailey and Robert Litan, both with the Brookings Institution, find that the Fed’s proposals are unreasonable because they will shift costs to consumers, slow the growth in electronic payments, and make it harder for lower income households to get bank accounts. They advise the Fed to modify its proposals since they are at odds with the law’s requirement that the rules be “reasonable.”

 

SCI-FI:  Next-Generation Shopping and Social Commerce

 

S-Commerce- A Fourth Retail Channel: An Overview of Social Commerce and What’s Fueling its Growth

Four distinct elements define this commerce opportunity for merchants: (i) the explosive growth of social networks, in particular, Facebook, (ii) the increasing time that people spend on social networks (at the exclusion of other activities), (iii) the increasing use of social networks for information related to the purchase of products and services, and (iv) the investment that merchants are making in elevating their presence there. This article by Karen Weber provides a foundational framework for examining the potential of social commerce.

Social Commerce: Who’s Turning Visits into Cash?

Social commerce is about helping people connect where they buy and to buy where they connect.  This article, also by Karen Webster, is a survey of how retailers are using Facebook to drive commerce.

Dell Case Study: Why Social Shopping is the Future of E-Tailing

Dell’s use of “social” as an e-tail engagement strategy focuses on experimenting with new ways of bringing people together around the purchase of computers and other electronics. Manish Mehta of Dell in the Lydian Journal shares his approach to tackling social commerce, whether your business is computers, coffee or coats.

 

COMEDY:  Actual Fact or April Fools?    

 

Charlie Sheen Keeps “Winning;” Named CFPB Director

Former “Two and a Half Men” actor and self-proclaimed “Vatican assassin warlock” Charlie Sheen shares his reaction after being named the inaugural director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Beyond T-MO, AT&T Looks to Acquire Entire Payments Ecosystem

In an effort to simplify the path to payments marketplace adoption and citing frustration with the current “distributed ecosystem” model for payments, the Atlanta-based telco today announced plans to follow its T-Mo bid with offerings for purchase of Verizon, Discover, Barclay’s, VeriFone, Hypercom, FDC, Nokia and KMart in an effort to control an entire end-to-end payments ecosystem. Under the proposed roll-up acquisitions, the combined company – tentatively branded “ATISISTMoBarDiscHyperVeriNokiFirstMart”- would represent a veritable colossus astride the retail, payments and telephony marketplace.

Canine Contactless Ignites U.S. Payments Market

This unique adaption of contactless “go tags,” which use RFID-(O) technology, enable pet owners to use their dogs as payment devices at all physical points of sale in the United States and certain European countries. These Woof-WalletsTM issued by PetSmart are linked to underlying credit and debit accounts, creating a “one-paw” payment experience for customers and their dogs wherever they like to shop.

 

BEST-SELLING SERIES

 

Ignition Series

This series by David Evans describes what an ignition plan is, why every entrepreneur inside and outside of major corporations should have one, and why investors and directors should insist on seeing one.

The Lydian Journal

This monthly eMag features cutting-edge commentary for the world’s top financial thinkers. The Journal covers topics including technology, regulation, security and social commerce.

“Invisible Engine” Series

The use of software platforms to drive innovation and transform industries has exploded since the 2006 publication of David Evans’ book Invisible Engines with MIT Professor and former Sloan School Dean Richard Schmalensee and Harvard Business School Professor Andrei Hagiu. This series explains how software platforms are going to transform the payments industry and why you will be touched by this new revolution and perhaps even want to be one of the entrepreneurs or investors who pioneer this new area.

 

Also, be sure to check out what’s new in our Romance and Self-Improvement sections. Happy reading!