Beware of Credit Card Reward Redemption Theft

In Will The Sad State Of Logistics Hurt eCommerce?, I highlighted how DHL, FedEx and other multinational courier companies are 8-10X costlier than the local ones, and are, therefore, affordable only for high-value consignments. I recently went through an experience which highlighted the risk of sending anything valuable via couriers. I placed my credit card … Read more

Is The US “Closed Loop” Payments System Making Americans Less Creditworthy?

For several years, American travelers have been having a tough time trying to use their magstripe credit cards in EMV Europe. In India, as highlighted here, many ecommerce and bill payment websites have recently started refusing American credit cards. This is because these cards don’t have Mobile OTP, a two factor authentication mechanism that is now … Read more

Mobile Wallet Has Few Takers – Even At Starbucks

In a world that’s awash with exuberant projections in 2022 for products that are not yet launched in 2013 – no, I’m not just looking at you, ISIS – GigaOm injected a touch of reality by providing some actual figures for mobile wallet payment volumes: US$ 500M in USA last year (Source: GigaOm / Berg … Read more

Season’s Greetings!

Season’s Greetings and Best Wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2014. We’re happy to share the following highlights of 2013: Our Location Based Task Reminder app LBTR360 made it to the Computerworld Top 100 Android Apps list We released the QR360 Framework that provides QR code best practices. While we have a vested interest in this … Read more

Let Banks Chase Their Defaulters Instead Of Seeking Bailouts

The old saying “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” crossed my mind when I recently read this article in which loan defaulters protest against the aggressive procedures adopted by banks to recover their loans. The typical refrain of almost every defaulter profiled in this article is “I couldn’t keep up with my … Read more

From Multichannel To Omnichannel & Beyond

Over the years, my background in IT marketing and product management has brought me close to the subject of how a software should be extended to new channels. I can recall at least five occasions on which I’ve been involved with spec’cing channel support in the past 15-odd years: ERP in Branch Office in the … Read more

Doubling Mobile Wallet Adoption By Halving Its Scope

In Mobile Wallets Should Fix What’s Broken – And It Ain’t Payments, we saw why consumers were more likely to try out mobile wallets for store loyalty cards than debit or credit cards. In this post, we’ll go beyond initial adoption and see where these two mobile wallet use cases – “mobile loyalty” and “mobile payment” … Read more

Mobile Wallets Should Fix What’s Broken – And It Ain’t Payments

My leather wallet wore out recently. With so much buzz around mobile wallets, I was wondering if I should even bother with another leather wallet. Before switching to a mobile wallet, I inventoried the contents of my wallet and arranged them into two piles. LHS: This pile contained payment related items such as cash, two … Read more

Open Letter To My ePayment Gateway Company

The proverbial ink has hardly dried on my blog post titled Mobile OTP: Cyanide Or Caffeine For Online Payments? than I saw the following “payment failure” screen on my laptop: This ‘kiss-of-death’ message appeared when I tried to pay for my broadband connection. Incidentally, it was the very first online bill payment I attempted after the … Read more

Mobile OTP: Cyanide Or Caffeine For Online Payments?

I recently received an SMS from one of my credit card issuing banks informing me about the following change in procedure for using its credit cards online: With immediate effect, for each online transaction on your BANK1 Credit Card, an OTP (One Time Password) will be sent via SMS to your registered mobile number. In … Read more