Executive Summaries are 1500 - 2000 word extractions of the relevant features of White Papers, Book Reviews, Conference Proceedings and publications important to payment professionals. We employ graphics, hyperlinks for unknown technologies and industry perspective to insure the return on your time invested on these documents is maximized. Continuing the original PDND value proposition, our objective is for you to save hours of searching / reading and replace it with ten minutes absorbing the relevant aspects of these documents. If you wish to refer to the original document, it's web address is provided. Once again we are furthering our goal of providing payment industry professionals with a means toward increased productivity and confidence in their daily decision making. Each Executive Summary is priced at $10 or free to annual subscribers to the PAYMENT Daily News Digest. In order to provide perspective on making this purchase decision, the first Executive Summary is provided free to our current registered users for one week. We hope you enjoy this initial offering and subsequent additions to this premium content series.

Overview and Relevance:

Visa recently commissioned a vision engagement with Accenture to identify relevant trends in the global payments field and make tactical plans to address both threats and opportunities. This white paper details the results of that research and what has become the blueprint for Visa International’s global deployment of Universal Commerce. A vision of future payments in which buyers and sellers can conduct commerce anywhere, anytime and any way they choose. Soon after the research was released, the campaign slogan: ”Visa the card for Anywhere, Anytime, Anyway payments” began showing up in advertising tag lines. This u-commerce vision became the blueprint for technology investments, alliances and a forced march on the electronic replacement of physical payment options. As the world’s largest payment transaction processor, Visa’s future vision is certain to influence the options payment service professionals are going to be presenting their customers. This Executive Summary briefly lists the market drivers behind U-Commerce, the four factors Visa is using to build consensus for their vision and the implications for our industry in the short-term for payment professionals as Visa moves forward to realize their U-Commerce strategy.

Overview and Relevance:

Retailers are finding new revenue streams by allocating space to self-service devices or upgrading their POS platforms to deliver financial services. Their convenient access advantage combined with discovery of a large under-served / unbanked segment of our society combine to create a new financial service distribution channel. Retailers, that have decided to make financial services a core business, report increased revenues, foot traffic, loyalty and competitive advantage by providing these services. Further fueling this trend is the awareness that prepaid card providers can expand from selling phone / wireless cards to stored value offerings, usually in dual packs. One card to serve the wage earner here in the States and another card for the cross-border family member. Both cardholders represent recurring fee income opportunities. This report details the opportunities and risks associated with this trend. Drawing from a broad base of research sources, the authors provide historic milestones, legal risks, unbanked market demand, technology such as internet enabled kiosks and POS terminals accessing a range of services that typically lead off with stored value and check cashing. Regulators are struggling to keep up with this new distribution channel as they seek compliance with national security issues, money transfer regulations, escheat laws and responsible consumer protection balanced against a history of excessive fees and exploitation of the unbanked segment of our society. One clear conclusion is that equipping retailers with financial service solutions is an extremely large opportunity for processors, terminal manufacturers and payment professionals that have been serving the traditional credit card processing needs of this industry.

Overview and Relevance:

There are an estimated 156 million wage earners in this country that annually represent 375 million payroll runs worth $1.4 trillion. Close to half are on ACH automatic deposit. According to Visa research, an estimated $500 billion of paychecks are issued annually to unbanked employees. Current estimates place payroll cards at less than 3% of paycheck employees, leaving a large market potential for the product. These cards hold a strong value proposition for both employers and employees. Especially for the unbanked segment of our society that is estimated at over one in four workers[1] and growing faster than any other sector. Traditional paychecks contain a range of drawbacks for employers that are making electronic funds alternatives a preferred method of payment. ACH automatic deposit is thought to be approaching a saturation level and payroll cards represent the next wave of opportunity for dramatic cost savings. The employer is looking for a 100% electronic condition as opposed to a third layer of payment. From the employee standpoint, the unbanked segment is unfamiliar with financial services like checking accounts, ATMs and nationally branded debit cards. Employers, payroll processors, banks and card processors are all experimenting with product features that speed the adoption process for these stored value cards. Not only are their cost savings to be realized, but also the prospect of a new stream of transaction fees from card usage over the cardholder’s life time. Payroll processors remain wary of this stored value alternative to the traditional pay check as they experience float reductions from the electronic value load to the card on payday. The Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) published this Insights Working Paper to provide banks with an understanding of their payroll card options and the nine regulatory / legal gray areas surrounding this new payment vehicle. Drawing content from this OCC report, this informative abstract explains what payroll cards do, why they are of interest, how they work, their risks and barriers to their growth.

Overview and Relevance:

The Promise of Financial Services Distribution in the Workplace: The workplace is where most people today obtain their financial resources, so expanded choices and income allocations are convenient to arrange and modify over time.  The access key to this opportunity is the reloadable prepaid card that provides employers and employees a convenient, low cost alternative to payroll checks.  By layering financial services to the payroll card, employers gain by improving and extending their benefits package – at little or no extra cost.  Financial service companies gain by efficiently tapping into larger pools of potential customers than they could reach through alternative channels.  This White Paper reports on how this value proposition can serve to raise the living standards of the close to 22 million individuals in our society who lack basic banking services.  The even larger opportunity is the prospect that over 68 million wage earners are receiving paychecks and less than three million of them are payroll cardholders.  Cards that not only represent dramatic cost savings for employers relative to paychecks but create new revenue streams never imagined by payroll processors or the banks that paychecks have cleared through in the past.  This informative abstract will condense the findings from this paper while also drawing inferences from other relevant research on how various market trends and technology are making it possible to deliver financial services through the workplace distribution channel in a win-win manner for all participants.