Industry Lacks Clear Vision for the Future of Payments

My fellow Americans, the state of our payments is… a mess.

A panel discussion on future challenges in payments the ABA Annual Convention in New Orleans this week laid bare the lack of clarity about the direction the payments industry should take. Panelists Carol Coye Benson of Glenbrook Partners, Michael J, Kennedy of clearXchange and COO of the Chicago Fed Gordon Werkema spoke with moderator Jeff L. Plagge, CEO of Northwest Financial Corporation (and incoming Chairman of the ABA) about where payments are today and where they should be headed.

Person-to-person payments were a major topic, with clearXchange’s Kennedy polling the room and finding that while about half of the bankers present worked for banks that offered mobile banking, only a small fraction of that same group offered P2P payments. Kennedy pointed to a study that said 73% of customers prefer P2P products from their banks, rather than giving financial information to a third party such as Square or PayPal. (ClearXchange, not coincidentally, whitelabels a P2P solution for banks.)

Benson cautioned against taking much solace from that figure, and spoke about the early days of PayPal. “No one took PayPal seriously,” she said. But the company gained users because “it allowed them to do something conveniently they couldn’t do with their banks.” Originally created as a vehicle for online payments between individuals that didn’t necessarily want to share credit card information with one another, PayPal has steadily expanded into payments of all kinds and now counts 137 million users.

Panelists agreed that the underbanked, with a greater need for informal payments and largely operating outside of traditional financial channels, may be pathfinders in the area of P2P payments.

Opinions were divided on realtime P2P transfer and whether the market demanded them or banks could meet that demand. Benson said that immediate movement of funds to any bank account in the country, as is done in the UK and much of Europe, will be the gold standard moving forward. As consumers see it in action, they will want it and demand it from their banks. Dwolla and Fiserv currently offer realtime payments.

Most customers don’t need immediate funds, Kennedy argued, but are content to know the funds are on their way. “Some do [need immediate funds], and there will be a cost for that,” he said. This cost to FIs can be passed along to customers, who are used to paying for expedited services relating to bill pay. Kennedy added a further note of caution. “As you speed up payments, you will need new fraud controls,” he said, pointing out that current fraud countermeasures are not designed for a realtime system.

The question arose whether payments are moving fast enough in the US. Kennedy thought that the payments industry was slightly behind where the customer wants to be, but that caution and measured movement forward is the appropriate course. Werkema pointed to the Fed’s payments road map and survey.

Benson was categorical. “We’re not moving fast enough,” she said, and this failure to close the gap “opens the door wide for nonbanks and it’s hard to regain those relationships once lost.”

Plagge agreed and mused that longtime Blackberry users such as himself, once they made the switch to iOS or Android, would have little incentive to switch back to Blackberry. He mentioned his friend Bob Steen of Bridge Community Bank in Iowa, who said, speaking of a school in his community that had chosen PayPal as the payment vehicle for its school lunch program, “We underestimate what [our customers are] doing in this electronic space. We only know what they’re doing with us.”

Payments are not simply a revenue source for banks. They are an important piece of the customer relationship. Few bankers in the room offered P2P payments. Panelists could not agree on whether realtime payments were needed in the market, let along how they might be implemented. Further, panelists were not in agreement over the pace of innovation. This was just a few people speaking, but it is indicative of a lack of clear purpose or direction in payments for the United States. This is just what the Fed’s payments survey is designed to help provide. Now if only some bankers will fill it out.