Retail Payments Risk Forum

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December 10, 2018

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A Look in the Rearview Mirror of Payments for 2018

I'm sure just about everyone else in the payments industry would agree with me that 2018 was yet another exciting year for payments. The year was filled with a host of newsworthy events, but fintech most certainly took center stage in the financial services industry, including payments. Whether the news highlighted an announcement of a new product to increase financial access or discussed the regulatory challenges and associated concerns within the fintech space, it seemed that fintech made its way into the news on a daily basis. Still, for payments, 2018 will be remembered for more than just fintech.

The Retail Payments Risk Forum's last Talk About Payments webinar of 2018 will feature Doug King, Dave Lott, and Jessica Washington sharing their perspectives and memories on the year-in-payments in a round table discussion. Among the topics they will discuss are consumer payment preferences, the changing retail environment, and the state of fraud—and fintech, of course. We encourage financial institutions, retailers, payments processors, law enforcement, academia, and other payments system stakeholders to participate in this webinar. Participants will be able to submit questions during the webinar.

The webinar will be held on Thursday, December 20, from 1 to 2 p.m. (ET). Participation in the webinar is free, but you must register in advance. To register, click on the TAP webinar link. After you complete your registration, you will receive a confirmation email with all the log-in and toll-free call-in information. A recording of the webinar will be available to all registered participants in various formats within a couple of weeks.

We look forward to you joining us on December 20 and sharing your perspectives on the major payment themes of 2018.

By Douglas A. King, payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed

December 10, 2018 in banking regulations , banks and banking , crime , cybercrime , emerging payments , fintech , innovation , payments fraud | Permalink | Comments ( 0)

December 3, 2018

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Building Blocks for the Sandbox

I just returned from a leave of absence to welcome my third child to this world. As I catch up on payments news, one theme emerging is the large number of state and federal regulatory bodies launching their own fintech sandboxes. Typically, these testing grounds allow businesses to experiment with various "building blocks" while they innovate. Some businesses are even allowed regulatory relief as they work out the kinks. As I've researched, I've found myself daydreaming about how my new little human also needs to work with the right building blocks, or core principles, to ensure he develops properly and "plays nice" in the sandbox.

But—back to work. What guidance do fintechs have available to them to grow and prosper?.

On July 31 of this year, the U.S. Department of the Treasury released a report suggesting regulatory reform to promote financial technology and innovation among both traditional financial institutions and nonbanks. The report in its entirety is worth a review, but I'll highlight some of it here.

The blueprint for a unified regulatory sandbox is still up for discussion, but the Treasury suggests a hierarchical structure, either overseen by a single regulator or by an entirely new regulator. The Treasury suggests that Congress will likely have to assist by passing legislation with the necessary preemptions to grant authority to the newly created agency or a newly named authoritative agency.

The report outlines these core principles of a unified regulatory sandbox:

• Promote the adoption and growth of innovation and technological transformation in financial services.
• Provide equal access to companies in various stages of the business lifecycle (e.g., startups and incumbents). [The regulator should define when a business could or should participate.]
• Delineate clear and public processes and procedures, including a process by which firms enter and exit.
• Provide targeted relief across multiple regulatory frameworks.
• Offer the ability to achieve international regulatory cooperation or appropriate deference where applicable.
• Maintain financial integrity, consumer protections, and investor protections commensurate with the scope of the project, not be based on the organization type (whether it's a bank or nonbank).
• Increase the timeliness of regulator feedback offered throughout the product or service development lifecycle. [Slow regulator feedback is typically a deterrent for start-up participation.]

Clearly, the overarching intent of these principles is to help align guidance, standards, and regulation to meet the needs of a diverse group of participants. Should entities offering the same financial services be regulated similarly? More importantly, is such a mission readily achievable?

People have long recognized the fragmentation of the U.S. financial regulatory system. The number of agencies at the federal and state levels with a hand in financial services oversight creates inconsistencies and overlaps of powers. Fintech innovations even sometimes invite attention from regulators outside of the financial umbrella, regulators like the Federal Communications Commission or the Federal Trade Commission.

In the domain of financial services are kingdoms of industry. Take the payments kingdom, for example. Payments are interstate, global, and multi-schemed (each scheme with its own rules framework). And let's be honest, in the big picture of financial services innovations and in the minds of fintechs, payments are an afterthought, and they aren't front and center in business plans. Consumers want products or services; payments connect the dots. (In fact, the concept of invisible payments is only growing stronger.)

What is more, a fintech, even though it may have a payments component in its technology, might not identify itself as a fintech. And a business that doesn't see itself as a fintech is not going to get in line for a unified financial services regulator sandbox (though it might want to play in a payments regulator sandbox).

When regulatory restructuring takes place, I hope it will build a dedicated infrastructure to nurture the payments piece of fintech, so that all can play nice in the payments sandbox. (Insert crying baby.)

By Jessica Washington, AAP, payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed

December 3, 2018 in bank supervision , emerging payments , financial services , fintech , innovation , regulations , regulators | Permalink | Comments ( 0)

November 19, 2018

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Smaller FIs Weigh In on Mobile Financial Services

I have previously written several posts on the Sixth District's 2016 Mobile Banking and Payments Survey results as well as the consolidated results of the 2016 survey involving financial institutions (FIs) in the Atlanta Fed's district and six other Federal Reserve districts. Readers will recall that the primary goal of the survey was to allow the Federal Reserve and industry stakeholders to better understand the status of financial institutions' strategies with regard to mobile banking and payments products and services.

As a follow-up to this work, the Federal Reserve districts of Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Richmond conducted a "quick-hit" survey in June 2018 of the FIs that did not respond to the detailed 2016 survey. The survey consisted of just five questions pertaining to mobile financial service offerings. It also gathered some demographic data. A total of 565 FIs responded, representing an 11.7 percent response rate. You can find a report that the Payment Strategies Group at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston prepared on the Boston Fed website.

As a group, the FIs responding to the 2018 survey were smaller in asset size than were respondents to the 2016 survey.

Some of the key takeaways in the report include:

• Of the 2018 respondents, 88 percent of banks and 81 percent of credit unions currently offer mobile banking services or plan to offer them by the end of 2018.
• Fifty-five percent of the respondents reported that more than 20 percent of their customers were active mobile banking users.
• Surprisingly, 14 percent of the respondents indicated they have no plans to offer mobile banking services. All but one of the FIs that have no plans to offer mobile banking had assets under $500 million. These FIs were almost evenly split between credit unions (33) and banks (36).
• Not tracking or being unwilling to reveal customer usage levels of mobile banking services remains an issue; 29 percent of the respondents did not answer the question. My opinion is that it's the latter reason, given that a standard reporting option of mobile banking systems is to be able to track enrollment and unique sign-on activity.
• Offerings of mobile payment services continue to lag significantly behind mobile banking. Of the 2018 responses, 57 percent currently offer or plan to offer them, while 43 percent have no plans to offer them or were undecided.

We will be conducting the detailed Mobile Banking and Payments survey in early 2019 and look forward to sharing the results with you.

By David Lott, a payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed

 

November 19, 2018 in mobile banking , mobile payments , payments study | Permalink | Comments ( 0)

November 13, 2018

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In Payments, What I Say May Not Match What I Do

How do you like to pay your bills? Perhaps you schedule bills to pay automatically by bank account number so you don't miss a due date. Or maybe you would rather review a paper statement and then mail a check.

By number, U.S. consumers report paying 4 in 10 bills by electronic means—for example, by using their online banking bill pay function or providing a bank account number at a biller's website. By dollar value, the practice of using electronic transactions to pay bills is also prevalent: about half of bill payments by dollar value are made using online banking bill pay or bank account number payment. These are among findings from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, a survey of U.S. consumers released in September of this year.

Source: 2017 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice

The diary also asks respondents how they prefer to pay bills, so we can look at how consumers' stated preferences compare to what they actually do in specific situations. It turns out that 36 percent of consumers prefer online banking bill pay or bank account number payment, and about the same percentage prefer either a debit card or credit card.

Keep in mind that 38 percent of bill payments and 36 percent of consumers are not comparable. Actual behavior is measured in percentage shares of transactions. Preferences are measured in percentage shares of consumers (about 2,900 U.S. adults responded to this nationally representative survey).

We can see, however, the transactions for which consumers deviate from their stated preferences for bill payments. Of the bill payments recorded in the 2017 DCPC, about half were made using the consumers' preferred payment instrument.

Why do we consumers deviate from what we say we prefer? Think of your own payment choices. You might be constrained by what is feasible. For example, you might prefer to pay most bills with a paper check but for bills you pay online, it's impossible to use paper payment instruments. Your choice could be limited by what the payee prefers to accept. For example, your plumber might prefer payment by cash or check. Or you might deviate from your preferred method to save money. For example, your local municipality might put a surcharge on card payments, so paying with your bank account number is less costly. Or, for larger bills, you might use a credit card to earn points.

To see more about how consumers adjust our payment choices given the situation, take a look at the interactive charts detailing payment choice by dollar value, payment type, and remote or in-person payments, as reported in the 2017 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice.

By Claire Greene, a payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed

 

November 13, 2018 in cards , payments study | Permalink | Comments ( 0)