Online payment issue needs to be solved

Walk into a Nordic brick and mortar retailer, and it is usually simple to split a purchase among different payment instruments. You can pay part with cash and part with card, or split the amount among multiple cards. But move online, and you are forced to complete the entire transaction on a single instrument (one card). 

This can obviously be an issue when a customer doesn't have enough funds in a single account, but becomes especially grieving when paying with a scheme-based prepaid card. Unless the prepaid balance matches the exact amount of the shopping cart, there will either be breakage on the transaction – or no payment made at all. 

Splitting an e-commerce purchase across multiple cards shouldn't be that difficult from a technical point of view. It can be done in the brick and mortar environment, after all, and according to fellow industry professionals, e-retailers across the pond can already do it. Nordic payment service providers are hereby encouraged to step up and look into this issue. It could result in a competitive advantage. 

This post is an extract from MACAW Payments Bulletin 62: Payment issues that need to be solved.

The year m-payment will take off...

“This is the year mobile payments will take off… Really!” Really? We hear this pitch every year, but we have yet to see actual take up reach the levels forecasted for the last five to ten years. 

Maybe it’s time to evaluate the actual benefits of mobile payments to merchants and consumers, and which forces are driving adoption forward – and also those holding it back. This applies both to proximity payments and remote payments. 

There are literally hundreds of European companies claiming to be in the mobile payments business (whatever they mean by mobile payments, another story.), but most evidence we've seen points in the direction of gradual evolution rather than an overnight revolution. 

In the end it all boils down to actual benefits for consumers and merchants from adopting mobile solutions compared to their existing options. Mobile has to be cheaper, faster, easier, more accessible – and/or just as secure as a bank/card transaction. Ideally, mobile payments should give consumers something extra on top – like a discount, coupon or gift card. If not, what incentive do they really have to switch habits?