I was a big fan of the '80s Wendy's commercials that featured an older woman uttering the phrase, "Where's the beef?" I recently found myself muttering something similar to myself: "Where's the mobile payment?" In early July, I came across the American Banker website headline "Six Fintech Startups That Wowed Bankers." The article highlighted six tech startups that recently pitched their financial products and services to executives from 15 of the largest banks at a one-day event. I was expecting to read about several mobile payment or mobile wallet startups, but surprisingly, none were mentioned.
According to the article's author, for a fintech startup to capture a banking executive's attention, it must address a need in the marketplace that few others are meeting. Could it be that the executives don't view mobile proximity payments as a customer need? I recently blogged about mobile payments fatigue and received some mixed feedback—but I heard little from our banking community readers. From a mobile payments perspective, they are extremely active in both person-to-person and bill payment initiatives. But outside of a few limited pilot programs, financial institutions have made little noise regarding mobile proximity payments or mobile wallets.
Given the prominent role financial institutions are playing in mobile payments through person-to-person and bill payments, why aren't they actively participating in proximity payments at retailers? Are they failing to meet the needs of their customers? According to the J.D. Power 2014 Retail Banking Study, customer satisfaction with banks is at an all-time high. And though the study found that some banks are falling short of meeting their customers' needs, the large banks covered in the survey experienced a significant rise in customer satisfaction scores, leading me to believe these banks are doing as good of a job as ever in listening to their customers and fulfilling their needs.
Is it possible that there isn't currently a driving consumer need for banks to deliver a mobile proximity payment or mobile wallet solution? My colleague Dave Lott suggested earlier this year that for mobile adoption to take place, the experience needs to follow Andy Grove's 10x rule and be 10 times better than what consumers are used to. What do you think it will take to catch the eyes of banking executives in the mobile proximity payments space?
By Douglas A. King, payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed