What's again? The revival of non-bank debit cards

 
The new product received funds from deposit accounts of other issuers and worked for any merchant accepting MasterCard. With it, Capital One holding simultaneously offered consumers something fresh and implemented an innovative business model around which a new loyalty program was created.
 
 
For users, the benefit was to gain functionality similar to debit products. Funds to pay for the services of merchants were taken directly from user checking accounts, and there was no need to transfer your deposit account to a certain bank for the sake of a profitable cashback.
 
 
Inspired by the prospects, retailers began to develop their own products with the same benefits: debit functionality, large rewards for loyal customers and reduced interbank fees for all transactions in their stores.
 
 
And these efforts
material Bloomberg about how retailers throw their forces on launching branded payment applications that work directly with ACH, and are looking for ways not to pay interbank fees, there is a desire to double-check the release date of the article due to strong deja vu.
 
 
This article seems to take us back to 200? and then to 200? when the initial rush related to non-bank debit arose.
 
 
Or in 201? when r3r377 was launched. Softcard
with its merchant-oriented mobile payment scheme.
 
 
Or in 201? when earned CurrentC - branded mobile payment product based on ACH.
 
 
And every time the media talked about how great these initiatives are from the point of view of the merchants.
 
 
Detailed financial models promised the merchants billions of dollars in savings from using a new scheme that bypasses card networks. Beautiful PowerPoint diagrams showed examples of the implementation of such schemes, guaranteed savings and improvements in the total profit.
 
 
However, all calculations ignored a simple but important fact: consumers themselves chose to pay merchants with bank cards and take advantage of this type of payment.
 
 
As a result, many of the non-bank debit projects are either already closed or are living out their last days.
 
 
Even the only successful story - Target REDCard - has reached its plateau. During launch in 200? this project was represented by a child prodigy in the world of branded ACH payments and a pioneer among merchants who want to retain the most loyal customers through offering an economically advantageous payment product. REDCard holders tied the card to their checking account and received 5% cashback on any purchases using it.
 
 
Today, 3r3-109. according to Target
, the share of transactions REDCard accounts for almost 24% of network sales, and this is a solid figure. A quarter of all sales is a decent figure for a modern payment method. However, it is possible that the project will not be able to jump higher than this bar.
 
 
According to data for 3r3115. 2010-201? 3–3–3213. , sales increased from 6% to 19%, which is pretty good. But in the period from 2013 to 201? the situation changed. Since 201? the same year when data leaked to Target, product growth rates began to drop significantly. Over the past two years, REDCard sales have grown from just 19% to 22% of total Target sales. And two years after 2015 brought only 2% growth.
 
 
In May, the retailer offered a new loyalty program with the ability to link it to any customer payment card. However, users of REDCard, whose basket size, according to Target, is 50% more than that of regular customers, will still receive more rewards. But top managers of Target admit that not all consumers will use the new payment method in order to be called loyal retailer customers and receive bonuses.
 
 
So how does a new wave of interest in non-bank debit cards differ from the past? It turns out that nothing. Although there is one difference.
 
 
The battle for commissions 3r3-33130.
 
For the past 60 years, merchants have been trying to circumvent interbank commissions that operate when paying with bank cards. And this despite all the benefits that have brought them the spread of bank cards as a method of payment.
 
 
The struggle continues, despite the fact that merchants manage to seduce only a handful of consumers with branded cards. They are also not stopped by fruitless attempts to launch cards linked directly to user ACH accounts, in whose projects large investments and promotion expenses flowed.
 
 
Consumers do not use such cards for one simple reason. They make payment decisions for reasons of personal gain, not the savings that a merchant can receive.
 
 
And if you turn to the experience of experiments with mobile and contactless payment methods, you can learn a lesson: it is very difficult to get consumers to change established habits. Even the most effective advertising and promotion of various mobile products did not lead to an increase in consumer interest in them.
 
 
It is also unclear what the merchants are trying to deal with when it comes to interbank commissions. 3r3149. Derbin Amendment
limited the maximum amount of commission to 24 cents, significantly reducing the difference between direct work with ACH and debit bank cards. This change led to the closure of many non-bank debit schemes that existed during its entry.
 
 
If one imagines how events would have developed in the absence of a Derbin amendment, there would still be no reason to believe that consumers would want to take advantage of the lucrative offers of non-bank debit. All because of the numerous and continuing leaks of personal and financial user information from the systems of many merchants.
 
 
According to some sources r3r3213. Since 200? ?500 system burglary and data theft incidents occurred in the United States, 3455 of which occurred after a massive data breach in Target in 2013. Merchants were victims of many such cases, and the billing information of their customers was made publicly available. Fortunately, consumers could easily replace bank cards and were generally protected.
 
 
As for debit products based on ACH, their level of protection is questionable. Consumers will probably think twice before giving their bank details to unreliable merchants.
 
 
In the summer, the analytic group PYMNTS conducted a study in which consumers were asked who they trusted in matters of payment experience innovation. Not surprisingly, the merchants (with one exception) were far from the first places. If not to say that closer to the latter.
 
 
The top five are card issuers, PayPal and Amazon. It seems that consumers need a “protective layer”, a trusted intermediary who would stand between their billing data used by the merchants and the funds in their bank accounts. People willingly use their debit cards, but only those issued by banks.
 
 
This state of affairs should not upset merchants, given that technologies and digital platforms open up new channels of communication between them and the consumer. The favor of consumers for these new products depends on their confidence that every click on the payment button is properly protected.
 
 
As for the interbank commissions and the current business model, which provides a turnover of trillions of dollars, someone has to pay for it.
 
 
Consumers do not pay, so this burden falls on the merchants. The largest of them pay a little, despite the high level of protection that consumers get in return. And for each history of the promotion of payment schemes, branded by merchants and reducing their costs, there are a thousand of their colleagues who just want to make a sale before anyone gets ahead of them.
 
 
Also, the irony is that earlier the need to reduce interbank fees was explained by the desire of merchants to equalize the costs of accepting credit cards and cash - a payment method that they once called the most profitable for themselves.
 
 
But even here there have been changes.
 
 
Non-cash payment methods become essential as merchants move from paper money and coins to digital interactions for the sake of efficiency and improved quality of service. Consumers, too, are increasingly resorting to bank transfer, as cash provokes difficulties and delays in queues in front of the cash register.
 
 
And now merchants, who advocated regulating the use of cards, to keep cash in hand, will have to obey the laws, forcing merchants to accept cash without fail.
 
 
In any case, the New Jersey legislature
already considering similar bill.