The Green Sheet Online Edition

June 27, 2016 • Issue 16:06:02

Readers Speak

Another disruptor on the scene

I read with great interest your recent article titled "Disrupting the disruptors in payments and banking" [by Patti Murphy, The Green Sheet May 23, 2016, issue 16:05:02, www.greensheet.com/emagazine.php?issue_number=160502].

Many of the themes you addressed tied closely to those covered in an op-ed by Jon Ungerland called "Disrupt the disruptors to strengthen your community" [Credit Union Times, www.cutimes.com/2016/05/08/disrupt-the-disruptors-to-strengthen-your-communit?slreturn=1465834982]. Jon is the CEO of DaLand Solutions, a client of mine.

I mention all of this because I'd like to bring to your attention a mobile transaction platform developed by DaLand called Secure Transaction Image, or STI. It's a visual token-based platform similar in general concept to QR code-based systems, but based on proprietary, patent-pending technology. This makes it more secure and more flexible. It was intentionally designed to provide many of the benefits of blockchain without the obvious drawbacks.

Instead of limiting STI to simple money movement, DaLand stepped back and redefined the digital transaction more like a human being might define a transaction. The end result is a platform that can support a virtually unlimited number of transaction scenarios.

STI-based products that have already launched or are near launch include:

• STI-PocketCash is a simple P2P product, highly secure, but remarkable mostly in that it runs on the same platform as the other products described below.
• STI-SmallBusiness is a merchant solution that allows financial institutions to offer merchants their own world-class, merchant-branded mobile app. This includes prepaid balances (maintained in the merchant's account at the FI), digital gift cards, loyalty and rewards programs, inventory control, data analytics and promotions. An optional module adds support for Bluetooth beacons in a retail setting.
• STI-BranchOnDemand is a branch automation tool. Suppose you need to stop by the branch to deposit three checks, make a loan payment, and get $200 cash back. You can create the entire transaction on your phone before you ever leave home, generating a single STI token that represents the entire transaction. When you present the STI token at the branch, the teller captures it and the entire transaction is instantly "keyed" into the teller platform, with no chance for human error. You're in and out of the branch in record time.

The company is also looking at various lending scenarios, such as using an STI token as a loan preapproval or using the platform to generate digital loan payment coupons. In the latter case, the borrower would only need to capture the token to transact the entire loan payment.

John San Filippo, www.johnsanfilippo.com

P2P taking the lead

Today, June 13, 2016, Apple is expected to open its Worldwide Developer Conference with a focus on software and services, such as Apple Pay. The small mobile payments service has been growing slowly; but, if Apple announces the addition of a money transfer feature similar to PayPal’s Venmo app, the adoption of Apple Pay could see a significant increase.

In the past year a third of consumers overall have reported using a peer-to-peer payment (P2P) app, with 44 percent of those consumers falling between the ages of 18 to 25 and 38 percent between 26 to 35. As part of the Walker Sands' 2016 Future of Retail Study, these findings suggest that, despite mobile payments ranking low as the preferred payment method for different kinds of purchases, P2P payment applications may be more quickly adopted than point-of-sale mobile transactions.

The Walker Sands' 2016 Future of Retail Study also found:

• Millennials will lead the way to widespread mobile payment adoption, with 64 percent of 18- to 25-year-old consumers making a mobile purchase over the past year, compared with only 25 percent of consumers 61 and older.
• The two biggest hesitations for consumers when it comes to mobile payment applications are security (61 percent) and privacy (58 percent).
• Although slowly, the number of consumers using mobile applications is rising. A little more than a third of consumers (36 percent) have used some sort of mobile payment application in the past year, compared with last year (34 percent).

Readers interested in downloading the report can do so at www.walkersands.com/Futureofretail.

Erin Jordan, Walker Sands Communications

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