So, there it was this morning, the email from Wells about this transaction that took place last Thursday.
The only comment that I would make about this new mobile text alerting system from Visa that Wells has now deployed is that it should have been automatic that when I enrolled for that, the previous (and mostly useless) email alerting enrollment should have been cancelled or at least I should have been able to modify/cancel it.
My guess is that I was actually enrolling for the mobile alerts on a Visa hosted page, branded Wells Fargo. Even if it is not hosted by Visa on Well's behalf, it is clear that the two systems are not in synch. I had to go this morning and de-select the overlapping alerts. The site is; https://rapidalerts.wellsfargo.com/rapidalerts/ .
Referencing my background dealing with Phishing issues (ie; PassMark Security), the Catch-22 with all of these things is the possibility that something potentially good, like these real-time text alerts, can be just another oppty for phishing attacks. A url like the one above could (or should) make someone like me suspicious of if I am really at a legit Wells Fargo page or not. It is also interesting to note that Wells (or Visa) chose not to invest in a "secure" url for such a sensitive page as this. You know those green urls from Verisign and others called Extended Validation SSL Certificates. While I do not put much stock in these (or any of the "trust" seals), I doubt they cost considerably more and I guess they cannot hurt.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Fair is Fair....Hats off to Visa...Genuine progress in fraud prevention!
Wells Fargo announced a few days ago that they were taking advantage of a new Visa feature. Of course, I had to immediately enroll. You then receive text message alerts when certain types and size of transactions occur. The idea is that if it isn't you, you can immediately respond and become part of the fraud prevention paradigm. I was somewhat skeptical, as usual, but as it turned out hours later I was picking up my wife's BMW from the shop (ouch $1200!!!) and while I was still standing at the check-out desk, my phone got a text reporting the transaction to me. It was very descriptive, telling me that my "Wells Fargo Card ending in xx was used at xxx Motors in xxx town for $xxxx.xx ....
This is real progress.
I had previously enrolled in their alerting offer but due to the number of different acquirers and issuers and the batch nature of credit card processing, these often did not arrive until days later.
Since, Visa's switch is involved in the authorization of all Visa transactions, these alerts can go out literally in real time.
Of course someone will try and call this a mobile payment! (see my article in Venture Beat!)
http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/10/what-will-it-take-to-make-mobile-payments-mainstream-in-the-us/
This is real progress.
I had previously enrolled in their alerting offer but due to the number of different acquirers and issuers and the batch nature of credit card processing, these often did not arrive until days later.
Since, Visa's switch is involved in the authorization of all Visa transactions, these alerts can go out literally in real time.
Of course someone will try and call this a mobile payment! (see my article in Venture Beat!)
http://venturebeat.com/2010/03/10/what-will-it-take-to-make-mobile-payments-mainstream-in-the-us/
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Progress...Finally!
Interesting tidbit in the WSJ yesterday - The Fed is down to one site in Cleveland, Ohio from forty five sites 7 years ago that processed paper checks. I specifically recall sitting with the CEO of the company I worked for back in the early '80s as he proclaimed we would be completely checkless within that decade. And you wonder where I get my skepticism about the pace of change in payments!!!!
Monday, March 1, 2010
FasTrak...example of over the top login protocols
The other day I went to log in to my FasTrak account online. I was amazed at how unfriendly their approach to the simple act of logging in was. It reminded me of how something that should be very standard, has taken on a life of its own and god bless them, but developers and bureaucrats left to their own devices, will get this wrong more often than not.
Instead of a simple username/password, with perhaps some underlying risk based analysis and if suspicious maybe some add'l authentication step, they first make you select one of three different username schemes that you have set up (as if you are going to remember which one you chose) and then once you work through that, they make you pick a 6+ digit password with not only a mix of letters and numbers but one letter has to be capitalized (as if you are going to remember). Then, the icing on the cake, is they force you to enter a CAPTCHA on every log-in.
Now, if I was logging in to NORAD, this approach might be remotely reasonable, but FasTrak?
Instead of a simple username/password, with perhaps some underlying risk based analysis and if suspicious maybe some add'l authentication step, they first make you select one of three different username schemes that you have set up (as if you are going to remember which one you chose) and then once you work through that, they make you pick a 6+ digit password with not only a mix of letters and numbers but one letter has to be capitalized (as if you are going to remember). Then, the icing on the cake, is they force you to enter a CAPTCHA on every log-in.
Now, if I was logging in to NORAD, this approach might be remotely reasonable, but FasTrak?
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Starbucks Mobile Card ... Perhaps What's Next in Payments
...or an example of something that meets the criteria...
People are always asking me, what is the next big thing in payments?
It is easy to identify the unlikely candidates, the pattern is common.
But, when something resonates immediately, you gotta give it an atta boy!
I am a recent iPhone convert and one of the apps I downloaded was the Starbuck's Mobile Card. I already was carrying a Starbuck's pre-paid card and had an existing account at Starbucks.com and had registered the card. I often exchange my Wells Fargo Visa card points for those cards.
Yesterday, I was in the heart of Silicon Valley and stopped for a quick meeting at the Starbuck's on DeAnza (near Apple HQ). I noticed the POP signage for the new payment trial and decided to try it. The clerk was well versed and enthusiastic about me using it. With iPhone already in hand (where it is most of the time), I clicked on the app. Since it was my first useage there was one extra step which the clerk took care of with one touch to the screen. Then the bar code showed up on the phone screen and by simply putting it in front of the reader on the counter, the transaction was done!
People are always asking me, what is the next big thing in payments?
It is easy to identify the unlikely candidates, the pattern is common.
But, when something resonates immediately, you gotta give it an atta boy!
I am a recent iPhone convert and one of the apps I downloaded was the Starbuck's Mobile Card. I already was carrying a Starbuck's pre-paid card and had an existing account at Starbucks.com and had registered the card. I often exchange my Wells Fargo Visa card points for those cards.
Yesterday, I was in the heart of Silicon Valley and stopped for a quick meeting at the Starbuck's on DeAnza (near Apple HQ). I noticed the POP signage for the new payment trial and decided to try it. The clerk was well versed and enthusiastic about me using it. With iPhone already in hand (where it is most of the time), I clicked on the app. Since it was my first useage there was one extra step which the clerk took care of with one touch to the screen. Then the bar code showed up on the phone screen and by simply putting it in front of the reader on the counter, the transaction was done!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Mobile Payment - Tipping Point?
The type of mobile payment I am talking about is the REAL kind, where the purchase shows up on your mobile phone bill. Now, as it relates to the purchase of content such as a ring tone whose sole purpose is use on the mobile phone itself, my opinion is - who cares? What I am writing about is the purchase of content or services that our outside of that realm. And, to further clarify, I would like to focus on what I refer to as Mini-payments ($2-$5) and especially on Normal-payments (>$5). Micro-payments are $1 or less.
I did find out that the Haiti donations are being handled completely differently than regular mobile payments for all the ring tones and digital goods being purchased. In other words, the vast majority of the $10 is going to get to Haiti (eventually).
The downside is that with all this positive attention paid to this method of payment and potential spill over to more people (who otherwise could easily pay with a credit card/Paypal) buying their digital goods with a Mobile payment, the merchant is going to lose roughly 47% of their revenue.
Now, in places like S. Korea where mobile payments have become mainstream, even for physical goods, the merchant pays roughly double what they pay for credit card transactions.
So, the question is, will Mobile payments (in the US) continue to cost the merchant approx 50%? If they do, then this moment will just be another blip and the mobile carriers will miss out on the biggest opportunity in their lifetime. Real mobile payments priced reasonably are the only real alternative payment threat to the card brands and PayPal.
(Note - I pay my mobile phone bill with my credit card!!! Interesting twist to this discussion?)
I did find out that the Haiti donations are being handled completely differently than regular mobile payments for all the ring tones and digital goods being purchased. In other words, the vast majority of the $10 is going to get to Haiti (eventually).
The downside is that with all this positive attention paid to this method of payment and potential spill over to more people (who otherwise could easily pay with a credit card/Paypal) buying their digital goods with a Mobile payment, the merchant is going to lose roughly 47% of their revenue.
Now, in places like S. Korea where mobile payments have become mainstream, even for physical goods, the merchant pays roughly double what they pay for credit card transactions.
So, the question is, will Mobile payments (in the US) continue to cost the merchant approx 50%? If they do, then this moment will just be another blip and the mobile carriers will miss out on the biggest opportunity in their lifetime. Real mobile payments priced reasonably are the only real alternative payment threat to the card brands and PayPal.
(Note - I pay my mobile phone bill with my credit card!!! Interesting twist to this discussion?)
Friday, January 22, 2010
Text donations for Haiti?
It is wonderful that so many people have been inspired to make donations to Haiti and this has brought a lot of attention to the use of Mobile Payments to achieve this. (I made a donation the old fashioned way via my charitable trust account which will probably be paid by check to the Red Cross.)
In some ways this latest phenomenon reminds me of the people that lined up to give blood after 9/11. The problem was that sadly, not much blood was needed and a lot of it went to waste and with no crisis at hand, we are back to the mode where the agencies that collect blood have to beg people to come in for donations. Yes, I give blood regularly! (& if you can you should too).
The point here is that I wonder how much of that $10 is getting to Haiti? Normally payments by text messaging methods cost the receiver ~50% off the top and take 6-9 weeks to be received since the carriers wait to pay out until they collect from the consumer. Now, I have heard that at least in the case of Verizon, they were not going to wait. But, I have not heard if the carriers are waiving their fees or most of them?
The credit card industry has surely taken some criticism, some deserved, some not, over the last year or two. But, compared to mobile payments, they are much more cost effective and efficient. The fees are generally ~2-3% and the funds usually get to the merchant within 2-4 days. And of course, the dinosaur of all payments, checks, well we won't even go there. Those are close to free and if using the ACH almost as fast (wonder why PayPal tries to get you to use this as a funding mechanism!!)
In some ways this latest phenomenon reminds me of the people that lined up to give blood after 9/11. The problem was that sadly, not much blood was needed and a lot of it went to waste and with no crisis at hand, we are back to the mode where the agencies that collect blood have to beg people to come in for donations. Yes, I give blood regularly! (& if you can you should too).
The point here is that I wonder how much of that $10 is getting to Haiti? Normally payments by text messaging methods cost the receiver ~50% off the top and take 6-9 weeks to be received since the carriers wait to pay out until they collect from the consumer. Now, I have heard that at least in the case of Verizon, they were not going to wait. But, I have not heard if the carriers are waiving their fees or most of them?
The credit card industry has surely taken some criticism, some deserved, some not, over the last year or two. But, compared to mobile payments, they are much more cost effective and efficient. The fees are generally ~2-3% and the funds usually get to the merchant within 2-4 days. And of course, the dinosaur of all payments, checks, well we won't even go there. Those are close to free and if using the ACH almost as fast (wonder why PayPal tries to get you to use this as a funding mechanism!!)
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