Mobile Payment Standardization Technology

In 2015, there seemed to be a turning point in the mobile payments industry. Europay, MasterCard, Visa or EMV is the global standard for chip-based Debit and Credit Card transactions. It is a joint effort between Europay, MasterCard and Visa to ensure security and global acceptance so that MasterCard and Visa Cards can continue to be used everywhere.

Consumers are adapting to new ways to pay with credit and debit cards. Banks are searching for new ways to issue and process transactions to its customers. This year throughout 2016 and maybe into 2017, banks will continue to issue cards with chips. Financial institutions and independent deployers still have until this October to make their ATMs EMV compliant for MasterCard transactions, and until October 2017 for Visa transactions. Moreover, operators of automated fuel dispensers have until 2017 to become EMV compliant for both MasterCard and Visa.

Many retailers who have the proper equipment to take chip cards still have not activated acceptance. Some retailers who have activated acceptance provide an uneven checkout experience because store staff is not properly trained about EMV. Consumers, in turn, have complained about longer-than-usual checkout times. Thus, consumers who are frustrated with “dip-and-pay, mobile apps that allow for “tap-and-pay” via smartphone suddenly become a more attractive option.

Much like the mobile wallet market, mobile person-to-person (“P2P”) products flood app stores on both Android and iOS platforms. The most popular app for millennials seems to be Venmo. In 2014, Facebook hired former PayPal executive David Marcus to revamp Facebook Messenger and he eventually turned it into a mobile P2P vehicle. Square Cash is also popular and gaining ground. Snapchat, a messaging app that in 2013 turned down a $3 billion offer from Facebook, recently added Snapcash in November 2014. In November 30, 2015, Sweden-based mobile wallet provider, Seamless, announced that Dwolla will power P2P money transfers on the SEQR platform designed by Seamless. The service will launch in North America in the first quarter of 2016. Dwolla, Inc. is the operator of a software platform that communicates user instructions for funds transfers to Veridian Credit Union and Compass Bank. Seamless CEO Peter Fredell said that the agreement with Dwolla is part of a larger effort to expand within the United States. “Money transfers between private individuals is a very popular service in the U.S.,” Fredell said. “With Dwolla, we can quickly offer SEQR’s U.S. customers a peer-to-peer service which is something our customers in Europe already make great use of.” He added that the deal will also help Seamless offer P2P services in the States before its own money-transmitter licenses are approved. Additionally, Google has its on P2P mobile app solution, Google Wallet. WeChat is popular in China, while Line is the mobile P2P app of choice for many Japanese consumers.

What has the industry changing its mind is the Blockchain. Blockchain is the underlying technology powering Bitcoin. In 2015, Bitcoin had a low of $177; however, is trading now over $400. But most of the talk about Bitcoin this year had to do with the underlying technology: the blockchain.

When news broke in September that some Wall Street heavyweights had invested a combined $30 million in chain.com, a blockchain developer platform that serves the enterprise market, it represented a “come to Jesus” moment not only for the traditional financial industry, but also for those Bitcoin enthusiasts who once were the sole guardians of the virtual currency’s underlying technology.

“All the banks are starting to see the benefits of a system of information stored on central location [and capable of] faster transactions,” Paul Vigna, co-author of “The Age of Cryptocurrency,” told the audience at a panel discussion during September’s ATM & Mobile Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C. The summit is an annual event co-hosted by the Electronic Funds Transfer Association and Networld Media Group, publisher of Mobile Payments Today, ATM Marketplace and Virtual Currency Today.

Blockchain is usually synonymous with “digital currency.” In fact blockchain really means and relies on decentralization. Andreas Antonopoulos, the author of “Mastering Bitcoin,” said in a recent Google Hangout interview, “[The banks] want to adopt the efficiencies without the decentralization, the low cost but with control, and the global nature but with censorship,” Antonopoulos said. “You can’t have the revolutionary nature of Bitcoin while stripping it of all the things that make it innovative and exciting.”

Smart Token Chain, LLC’s (STC) has a patent-pending technology which is establishing a new global standard for payments worldwide and to unite closed networks. STC’s architecture is derived from a patent-pending combination of the three most disruptive financial technologies today: Smart Contracts, Tokenization and Blockchain into a proprietary SaaS Cloud Structure. STC’s revolutionary “Smart Token” or ST architecture bundles and includes: counterparty identities, tracking and retrieving funds, transaction and invoice data, customer onboarding and management, execution and transparency. STC’s technology instantaneously embeds next-generation identity verification into every transaction to meet/exceed regulatory and payment security standards while reducing FX clearing timeframes and cost. Financial assets of all types move securely, instantaneously with high margin scalability and are far more cost effective than current world exchange trade.

For more information, please visit STC’s website: http://www.smarttokenchain.com.