ISSUE NO.53 – APRIL, 2018
CardLinx West Harnesses O2O Industry Energy for Growth
The CardLinx West Forum in San Diego on April 10th was filled with high energy, powerful online-to-offline insights, and extensive networking. The forum focused on “The Ecology of One” and the impact of artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing on the future of retail. The engaged audience was filled with CardLinx members and prospective members exchanging news and updates about new projects ranging from digital payments, APIs, and data analytics techniques to new innovative commerce platforms. The forum was preceded by well-attended work groups: the Data Sharing Work Group (Crane Standard 1.0) and Merchant Reporting Task Force as well as the CardLinx Startup Roundtable.
Japan's Financial Services Agency Receives Open Banking APIs
Japan is encouraging reduced cash use through credit card adoption and fintech innovation through a law change that supports open banking. Although it is being phased in over the next two years, last month Japanese banks submitted draft policies on their APIs to open their systems to third parties. The Japanese regulatory agency overseeing this effort, Financial Services Agency expects the open APIs to be in place by 2020. MUFG, Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group agreed to collaborate on developing common standards for QR codes.
CardLinx Insight
Japan’s fintech industry is large and growing annually, propelled by government directives targeted at increasing technical know-how and credit card usage. Japan and Europe are leading the way with government regulations to spur fintech innovation and development. Singapore, the Southeast Asian financial center, decided against formal regulations, instead taking a wait and see approach as the fintech market develops. CardLinx’s growth in Japan continues to be strong in 2018 as members of the Asia Council make concrete steps towards beta testing card-linking transactions.
Mastercard and Visa Explore Collaboration for Online Shopping
CardLinx member Mastercard and Visa are collaborating to build a shared single payment button, replacing their current online branded products Mastercard Masterpass and Visa Checkout. The yet-to-be-named new single payment option will begin rolling out at the end of 2018. Mastercard is seeking this new route to streamline the checkout process for consumers and reduce abandoned carts during online checkout.
CardLinx Insight
This is another example of how collaboration creates greater opportunities for more market players in a mature payments infrastructure like the US. With the growth of online payment options and the impending competition from Chinese online fintech players such as Alipay and WeChat, Mastercard and Visa’s announcement will create a powerful, single digital wallet that is easier to use more often. They will also be able to compete more directly with PayPal, the most commonly used online wallet according to a 2018 Bernstein Research survey.