Regardless of how the Durbin Amendment worksout, retail financial service business models are alreadytransitioning and it’s unlikely they’ll be clawed back even ifthere is a delay in enacting the final rules. That’s because theDurbin Amendment is just one dynamic in a very fast-moving market.Stakeholders that continue to focus solely on this issue, run therisk of missing the bigger picture and being left behind byconsumers in the run up to building an interactive paymentsmarket.
An interactive payments market is one where buyers/sellers andpayers/payees communicate with one another through a combination ofelectronic channels. This channel grouping can include mobiledevices, ATMs/financial service kiosks, POS devices, self-servicecheck-in or check-out, QR codes, and location-based marketing.Using this group is all manner of consumers, who most importantly,want a choice in the way they transact and how information isdelivered to them.
Currently, the interactive payments market looks a lot like the oldEFT network market from back in the 70’s when everyone “did theirown thing” and kept their transaction channels proprietary. We’rein the same market mindset now except there are quite a few moremoving parts than they were 40 years ago. In order for theelectronic payments market to truly enter its next phase, there isgoing to need to be some collaboration and consolidation (hence the2 c’s). Collaboration in the areas of standards for transactionmessages, fraud and risk management, and operating rules, andconsolidation of nimble, flexible technology with fast, secure,real-time payment processing infrastructures.
