Why Do Banks Partner With Visa When They Can Create Their Own Credit Card?

(This post is a slightly edited version of my answer to the above Quora question.) Banks have created a plethora of products like checking account, savings account, mortgage, High Frequency Trading, Structured Finance Products, and so on. What’s one more? Therefore, the OP’s question prima facie makes a lot of sense. In fact, back in the … Read more

Two Ways To Boost The Adoption Of UPI Lite

A couple of years ago, ET Prime reported that core banking systems (CBS) at Indian banks were creaking under the load of burgeoning UPI volumes. Being an account to account realtime method of payment (A2A RTP MOP), every UPI transaction pings the CBS of the payor’s  bank. Suppose a payor (aka remitter) spends a total … Read more

Safety Of Money: Bank v. Neobank

Fintech Mafia Carousel Pumping is the circular shilling of one another’s financial products and services by a bunch of fintech founders with least regard for truth or consumer interest. I recently came across the following exhibit of Fintech Mafia Carousel Pumping on LinkedIn. Why do some of us trust Barclays or Bank of America more … Read more

Google Play Store – Small Brother Shouldn’t Act Like Big Brother!

To: editet@timesgroup.com Subject: Big Tech, Don’t Be A Big Brother Dear Editor of Economic Times: This has reference to the op-ed entitled Big Tech, Don’t Be A Big Brother by Dhanendra Kumar, Former Chairman, Competition Commission of India (CCI), in The Economic Times. This article is full of factual and logical inaccuracies. Let me list … Read more

UPI – Too Many Or Not Nearly Enough Players?

On the one hand, there are 48 Payments Services Providers offering UPI payments in India. Which is a lot. On the other hand, many people say there are very few UPI players and claim that there’s a huge concentration risk in UPI. This FUD narrative has scaled new heights after RBI recently cracked down on … Read more

My Two Cents On PayTM Kerfuffle

PayTM is the first digital payment product I’ve used at scale in India. When RBI enforced the two factor authentication mandate for online payments, bill payments became a major PITA. By requiring users to fill credit card number, expiration date, and half a dozen fields, Reg 2FA caused tremendous friction. After they received the OTP, … Read more