Official Blog of GTM360 Marketing Solutions
President Barack Obama’s credit card got declined in a New York restaurant. Because, to quote Obama himself, “…I guess I don’t use it enough, so they thought there was some fraud going on.” While this is the most high profile example of predictive analytics going awry, it’s not the first, and it certainly won’t be … Read more
I’ve been asked several times about the difference between Data Mining and Predictive Analytics. Well, that’s not strictly true. I’ve been asked only once and that too in the following tweet from @IBMAnalytics visible to me among 15.7K of its followers: https://twitter.com/IBMAnalytics/status/459004965298528256 Replies ranged from the ubiquitous “depends” – will some people begin all their … Read more
In their diatribes about the underbanked, unbanked and financial inclusion, many suppliers of financial services technologies to banks (aka “fincumbents“) and members of the digerati threaten banks with the risk of losing customers to prepaid cards, P2P lending platforms, money transmitters, and other types of fintechs. In their urge to dish out free, unsolicited advice, … Read more
Like many, I’ve long held that nothing is broken with plastic cards for instore payments and made the case for mobile wallets to stick to gift, loyalty, ID and other forms of non-payment cards (see Mobile Wallets Should Fix What’s Broken – And It Ain’t Payments). Until I read this line about Apple Pay: “Every … Read more
There’s no shortage of studies about the hidden costs of cash to merchants and others. Take this recent HBR report for example. On the face of it, they all make a solid case for society to turn cashless from tomorrow. However, when I’ve scratched the surface, I haven’t found a single one of these articles penned … Read more
“Financial inclusion”, “banking the unbanked”, blah blah blah. Call them what you want. But they all mean the following: Financial Inclusion / Banking the Unbanked – What They Mean People want to borrow money only from banks; people want to deposit their savings only in banks. But, since they can’t access a bank, they’re forced … Read more
I must be an “early adopter” in Running From Pillar To Post To Link Aadhaar Card To Bank Account: A year later, the early and late majority of LPG subsidy beneficiaries have still not managed to link their Aadhaar Cards to their bank accounts. But it doesn’t matter any more. Politicians sensed that it was a dumb … Read more
In Omnichannel Fiasco #1: Standard Chartered Credit Card, I’d described a recent omnichannel experience that started well but went downhill soon thereafter. In this post, let me describe another omnichannel experience that was a fiasco from the word go. This was with Vodafone M-PESA mobile wallet. When M-Pesa was on the drawing board, my company … Read more
In over two decades of using credit cards, I missed a payment for the first time a couple of months ago. This happened on my HSBC credit card, which I’ve been holding for nearly 10 years. I’m blaming eStatements for my slip up. My payments are due in the third week of every month. I … Read more
Security increases friction. That’s not news. I’ve myself written many blog posts – click here, here and here – on this perennial tradeoff involved in payments. However, I recently found a new security measure that actually creates new sources of vulnerability. Ironic but true. Since December 2013, India’s central bank RBI has made it mandatory … Read more