Dorado TrendWatch 2.0 Q1 2021

TRENDWATCH 2.0
Q1 2021
PAYMENTS SYSTEM INDUSTRY
SYNOPSIS
Notice: Materials contained in this document are drawn from several media sources, and Dorado Industries is not responsible for their accuracy. Opinions expressed herein are
presented without warranty. Brand names are the trademarks of their respective service offerors.

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Dorado Industries www.doradoindustries.com
jmacallister@doradoindustries.com
(310) 544-1316
Contents
Random Thoughts ............................................................................... 3
2021 Predictions: What’s Happened in 2021?................................... 4
TrendWatch Summary: Industry Focus Areas – Q1 2021................. 5
TrendWatch Search Light: The New Players..................................... 6
2021 Payments Industry YTD Yields .................................................. 7
Interesting News This Quarter............................................................ 8
M&A and Alliance Activity................................................................. 12
Curiosities .......................................................................................... 15
Useful Links for More Information.................................................... 18
Back in the Day!................................................................................. 19

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Random Thoughts
And the Calliope Plays On
Everyone loves a parade. And, while the Macy’s, Rose and
Mummers cavalcades went by the wayside in 2020, the electronic
payments industry devised parades aplenty to keep us entertained.
Of course, every parade has its obligatory bandwagon and we’re
seeing several stream by as the industry grapples with the challenge
to find something new to keep things fresh.
The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) procession has been refreshed from
earlier days when merchants offered lay-away programs and the
growing number of participants (huge, even before considering me-
too bank programs) suggests that observers will have to wait a bit
before the final float passes by. Readers with a credit background will
know that credit granting, and credit collecting are two quite different
animals. We’re waiting to see if the BNPL motorcade will be disrupted
by the usual naysayers - overly-swollen receivable balances and
collapsing credit quality. Sweeping up after the BNPL parade makes
its way past us might be challenging.
“SPAC” used to stand for Security Pacific Automation Company, an
innovative division of Security Pacific National Bank. Today, it
connotes a quick and relatively cheap entrance to public markets.
Once considered sideshow oddities (or attractions, depending on your
bias), blank check companies have brought online sports wagering
outfit DraftKings and payments processor, Repay, to the front of the
line. Given the gargantuan amount of idle capital lying about, there’s
plenty of time to jump on the SPAC bandwagon. Q1 SPAC
transactions totaled $1.3 trillion; a whopping number comparable only
to Q1 1980. Hopefully, SPAC-ers are smart enough to know good
from bad from those startups destined to fail (and should.) Otherwise,
the “dotcom bubble of 2002” float will bring up the rear of this year’s
parade.
Folks thirsting for a replacement for the notorious Pasadena Doo Dah
parade (Google it) might consider the Non-Fungible Token (NFT)
cortege led by drum major Jack Dorsey and his $2.9 million first tweet
NFT.
Often selling for more than a Super Bowl advertising minute (checkout
the $69 million swag paid for the Beeple collage), NFTs attract an odd
crowd of well-heeled investors eager to showcase their exclusive
access to artsy-fartsy and unique stuff. And, speaking of the Super
Bowl, how can a parade led by Tom Brady and his new NFT platform,
Autograph, not attract thrones of bandwagoners?
All this to confirm that, whether its hoarding toilet tissue or speculating
on digital artwork, everyone loves a parade, particularly during a
pandemic.
One parade that might cause some agita is the compilation of heavy
hitters belonging to the Payments Leadership Council. While the
intent and content of the offering might be benign by design, perhaps
the judging committee (or DoJ) might consider the optics as untimely.
Just a thought.
Until next time, please stay safe!

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2021 Predictions: What’s Happened in 2021?
On the BNPL front, we’ve seen two overseas outfits close down – too much competition. Meanwhile, investors continue to fund the balance
sheets of those firms intending to keep BNPL receivables instead of laying them (and the risk) off.
Visa alone estimates that the number of its contactless cards hit 300 million at the end of 2020, three times the number just one year prior. If
the others follow suit, contactless cards could easily reach 50 percent penetration by the end of the year.
Retailer adoption of QR codes for payments is moving faster than expected. Amazon GO and 7-Eleven are adapting systems.
Senator Durbin jawboned Visa and Mastercard into another postponement of their planned interchange and network fee increases for
another year.
Where the CFPB heads is anyone’s guess at this point. Rohit Chopra, the current nominee to head the agency, is staying with the FTC for a
bit while some of the vacancies at that agency are filled. Confirmation hearings will be held once the FTC gets set straight.
Visa blinked on the Plaid acquisition, something we hadn’t figure could possibly happen. Well, when you’re wrong, you’re wrong.

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TrendWatch Summary: Industry Focus Areas – Q1 2021
Recent
Activity
Level
Industry
Impact
Entrenched
Player
Impact
Market and Industry Situation
Focus Area Recent Movements
Med New Payment Forms Lots of movement toward contactless at the card and terminal level.
Med ATM Restructuring Consolidation among deployers is leading to device innovation.
High POS Volume Trend Heightened volume numbers are leading to inquiries by regulators; and let’s not forget that
Senator Durbin is lurking.
Low Legal/Regulatory Issues Stimulus packages and the new infrastructure funding bill trumps everything.
Low New Venture Growth Super-specific segmentation among neo and physical bank openings.
Med Earnings
Announcements
Rough year for many but not most.
Low Industry Investments The Visa/Plaid deal would have been more than interesting.
Med Payments Industry
Security
NSA has its hands full chasing potential interlopers!
Positive
Mixed
Negative

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TrendWatch Search Light: The New Players
Industry Players to Watch In 2021
Buy Now, Pay Later Likely as not, some consolidation will begin once the pandemic is behind us.
The Challenger Bank Sector Even though VC and PE money is stilling flow to the sector, profits are slow in coming. Q3 2021 could be
bloodbath.
High Street Lenders The contention between DeFi and centralized finance continues to rage as fintech market entrants gain market share.
Ultimately mainstream bankers will respond.
Real-time Payments The delivery schedule for FedNow has been accelerated and the ISO 20022 specification has been completed. We should
begin see serious progress soon.
The Retailer Sector Freedom from the pandemic should provide some relief and room for further innovation in payments and retailing. Best
Buy’s new membership program – BB Beta – may challenge Amazon.
Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook Recent complaints about privacy issues that a vaccine passport may create notwithstanding, it looks
like we may be heading that way.

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2021 Payments Industry YTD Yields
If you’re holding onto some or all of a Bitcoin or three, life is good; breathtaking even. Mortal investors like us haven’t done poorly this quarter either
with average returns from our basket of payments equities hitting 8.0 percent, beating out both the Dow and S&P averages. A few of our stocks
had record-breaking results in 2020 and fell off somewhat by March 31 but, for the main, the industry looks pretty good when measured through the
investor returns prism. We will be adding a few new players next quarter – BNPL and SPAC-enabled fintechs – when all the relevant data becomes
available.
Sources: Company releases; Morningstar.com; Bloomberg.com; and Coinbase.
Note: 2021 YTD yield excludes dividends; based on 12/31/20 and 3/31/21 closing prices.

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Interesting News This Quarter
Subject Source / Date Summary
Visa Business Insider
March
Seems it never ends for Visa. As noted elsewhere, the card brands have decided to delay their already
postponed increases in acceptance fees for another year, but this largesse hasn’t purchased a pass for
Visa who is being investigated once again by the Department of Justice over its domestic debit card
practices. Litigation with Walmart and Kroger, the 2018 settlement, and the regulatory firestorm that
caused the planned Plaid acquisition walk-away are recent memories for the brand. DoJ is going to probe
allegations that Visa has effectively limited merchant ability to route transactions to less expensive
networks. At the top of the investigative agenda are “network fees,” one of the more opaque bits in
acceptance pricing. Visa has demurred. Time, and lots of attorney’s fees, will tell.
Revolut Insider
Intelligence
March
The OCC queue for U.S. banking charters just got one player longer. UK neobank, Revolut has applied
for legitimacy after its first year of operations in U.S. conducted via a relationship with Metropolitan
Commercial Bank. In addition to the normal headwinds caused by the established banking communities,
Revolut has to compete with neobanks Chime and Varo, both in place for almost a decade. Perhaps
Revolut should consider the path taken by LendingClub and SoFi, acquisition of established licensed
banks. According to the Business Intelligence newsletter, the all-in price tag for forming and licensing a
neobank is in the $100 million range, a far cry from the old days when $5 million and a few fat cat
Directors could get the job done.
On a parallel track, Revolut is walking away from its effort to crack the financial services sector in Canada.
Seems it concluded that the “Big 5” banks up north were too entrenched for the startup to gain any
traction. That and the two incumbent-owned neobanks, Tangerine and Simplii, were eating Revolut’s
lunch.
Walgreen’s Digital
Transactions
March
Yet another retailer considers financial services to be a green pasture. Mega-pharma distributor,
Walgreen’s, will soon offer banking services via an agreement with InComm Payments and MetaBank for
processing and debit card management services, respectively. Debit card use will be tied to the
pharmacy giant’s loyalty program. InComm gets an extra kicker in the deal since the Walgreen’s gift
program will be re-launched through its systems. So, State Farm (M&A chapter) decides that banking
isn’t in its wheelhouse but Walgreen’s thinks otherwise? Odd.
PNC Bank Insider
Intelligence
March
PNC Bank is making a serious effort to lure new customers away from established neobanks and to meet
the needs of underbanked Americans. A new account which has been certified by the Cities for Financial
Empowerment Fund charges a flat $5 per month with no overdraft or NSF fees. PNC is joining other U.S.
banks weaning themselves away from near-term fee income in favor of long-term banking relationships.
Time will tell.

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PSCU CU Times
March
Credit union-centric card and payments processor, PSCU, has taken strides to extend the reach of its
service suite delinquency management and collections services to a broader audience. The CUSO has
partnered with Allied Solutions to provide its CU Recovery & Loan Service Center abilities to Allied, a
subsidiary of Securian Financial Group. The partnership is an example of new footprint broadening
relationships and tactics taken by payments industry players recently. More examples can be found
throughout this quarter’s issue.
In other PSCU news, there are plans afoot to go to pilot with a credit union- centric BNPL scheme in
conjunction with Fiserv’s core processing systems. Dubbed “Installment Payments,” the service will allow
credit unions enrolled in the service to customize the criteria used for their respective member offers.
Credit Card
debt
Federal Reserve
March
The January 2021 numbers for consumer debt (exclusive of mortgage and HELOCs) released by the
Federal Reserve suggest that Americans used stimulus monies to pay down credit card debt and moved
from borrowing to saving. True, we did increase our vehicle and student loan borrowings, but these gains
were meager compared to the decline in credit card receivables. In light of the recent round of pump-
priming, it’s likely that the March numbers for credit card debt will be equally startling and will play havoc
with issuer’s monthly budgets.
Payments
Leadership
Council
Payments Dive
March
Might be old news but we’ll cover it anyway. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover have
joined with FIS, Fiserv, and Global Payments to form Payments Leadership Council, a trade
association. Notably, all seven have been on the M&A road over the past 18 months. Raj Date, formerly
the first deputy director of the CFPB during the Obama administration, has been retained as the group’s
founding director. In its first publicly viewable action, PLC encouraged congressional leaders to pass the
$1.9 trillion stimulus package. Pretty benign beginnings, right?
BNPL Digital
Transactions
March
The Q4 2020 issue of TrendWatch 2.0 included a snapshot look at the burgeoning Buy Now Pay Later
(BNPL) segment. We likened the growth to that of a trembler along the San Andreas fault in California.
Now we know a bit more. Digital Transactions reports some user growth numbers for key players in
BNPL for 2020: Klarna – 106 percent, Afterpay – 261 percent, Affirm – 63 percent. Moreover, the industry
attracted $1.47 billion across 20 deals: there were five deals in 2016 for a paltry amount of $106 million.
Clearly, these growth numbers won’t be sustained long term but the novelty of the financing tool (old as it
is) appears to be alluring to consumers. Visa and Mastercard have responded through creation of an API
toolkit for use by Visa’s members and Mastercard’s acquisition of Vyze early last year. Here to stay?
We’ll see.

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Interac
(Canada)
Finextra
March
Payments Canada has opted for a real-time payments solution stacked on top of the country’s existing
debit system, Interac. This approach is different from that being employed in the U.S. Different, not
wrong. Mastercard’s Vocalink is building the settlement and clearing infrastructure. Canada has only 300
banks, making system design and implementation somewhat easier than ours.
Eftpos Finextra
February
Another example of what national debit systems are up to can be found in Australia. That country’s
national debit card scheme, Eftpos, is moving in the direction of a full-blown rollout of a QR code system
for online, mobile, and brick-and-mortar merchant purchases. Concurrently, Eftpos is using the assets it
acquired via the Beam It mobile wallet purchase in 2020 to develop a real-time deposit and withdrawal
messaging capability for country-wide P2P. Interac and Eftpos are demonstrating what good things can
be done when collaborating FIs use their debit rails to meet consumer demand for real-time funds
movement.
Affirm Finextra
February
Recently IPO’d BNPL operator, Affirm, is gearing up to launch a decoupled debit card for future deferred
payment transactions. PayPal co-founder Max Levchin’s design will enable consumers to either pay for
goods in whole or part via APIs tied to the user’s depository bank/credit union. A post-purchase feature in
the card’s companion app will allow users to flip a whole purchase into installments. Pretty clever; we’re
eagerly awaiting the launch date.
Intuit Digital
Transactions
February
While it’s commonplace for merchants to launch litigation against Visa and Mastercard over interchange
rules, we don’t often see an ISO picking up the battle flag. Yet, on February 19, Intuit filed suit claiming
the card brands use unlawful price fixing methods to undermine the letter and spirit of the Durbin
Amendment. Intuit is both an ISO and a merchant, so the suit also takes aim at the honor-all-cards rule in
place for both of the defendants. It is hard to say how Intuit’s claims will fare in court, but one thing is for
sure, it won’t be the last time Visa and Mastercard have to appear before a judge.
BitPay Business
Intelligence
February
Cryptocurrency is slowly but surely moving closer to legitimacy with the help of those dedicated to seeing
success (e.g., BitPay) as well as network operators and processors like Visa, Mastercard, Apple and
Google. For instance, holders of BitPay’s prepaid Mastercard may now add their cards to Apple Pay;
Google Pay and Samsung Pay users will receive the same benefit shortly. Mastercard is playing catch up
in the cryptocurrency world since its global programs number a mere seven while Visa has 32 schemes
working around the world. Again, we’re talking slow progress but progress, nonetheless.

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BNPL Finextra
January
It seems that 70 Members of Parliament (MPs) had concerns over where Buy Now Pay Later credit is
heading and offered up NC7, a bill to amend the existing financial services bill. Part of the furor stems
from a study by Capco revealing that more than half of the 18-34 cohort have missed a BNPL payment
and two thirds assert that the service encourages the segment to spend more. These worries aside, the
UK Government voted down the bill, opting instead to wait for the results of a separate study being
conducted by the UK Financial Conduct Authority. Government studies taking the time they do, 18
months from now the MPs will have another opportunity to consider their options.
Green Dot Presser
January
Green Dot has launched GO2bank, a mobile bank focused on the needs of the underbanked and the
financially strapped consumers that will inevitably evolve post-pandemic. Low or no monthly fees will
complement the companion advice on financial health. GO2bank offers $200 in overdraft protection and
early access to wages and government benefits. Timely.
Discover Presser
February
Discover Financial Services has paired up with BNPL player, Sezzle, to extend buy now pay later
services to its extensive base of merchants. It is reported that the steps necessary for retailers to link
existing payments systems to Sezzle’s platform will non-disruptive. Good way for Sezzle to expand its
market reach on a wholesale basis by partnering with Discover. Smart.
Stripe Finextra
February
Meanwhile, major POS acquirer, Stripe, is casting its lot with Afterpay and its four-installments credit
program. For now, the arrangement serves the needs of Stripe merchants in Australia, New Zealand, and
the U.S. Yet, with Stripe’s presence in 140 countries, it follows that more territories will join the queue
shortly. Look for the UK and Canada to be next.
Facebook Finextra
April
Coming soon to your P2P digital wallet: QR code powered Facebook Pay transactions. Users scan the
intended recipient’s QR code to generate a link that takes them and the payment outside of the FB realm.
If users adapt to the new system, FB will be able to facilitate in-person payments for splitting a dinner tab
or settling up from the Baylor/Gonzaga ball game. Pretty slick if it meets a need.

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M&A and Alliance Activity
Buyer/Investor Target
Payments
Emphasis Possible Strategy
Fiserv Pineapple
Payments
Payments
processor
Half-decade old Pineapple Payments has been acquired by Fiserv as the processor
continues to expand its stable of acceptance assets and market reach. Pineapple focuses
on SME businesses and attempts to put them on an equal footing with larger retailers by
offering omni-channel capabilities. Fiserv picks up 25,000 merchants to pad its portfolio of
merchants.
Next Level
Ventures, seven
credit unions
LenderClose Loan
processing
We don’t see this often. Seven credit unions joined a VC firm to generate $10 million in
Series B funding for LenderClose, an Iowa-based an automated loan processing
servicer. An additional distinction about this transaction is that of the seven credit unions
involved, only one has assets greater than $1.0 billion. Perhaps this new fintech
collaboration model might gain traction in other payments and acceptance spaces?
Altimeter Capital Plaid Financial
services APIs
Despite Visa’s move to unravel the deal it had in place to acquire premier API creator,
Plaid, the firm’s market valuation and esteem has skyrocketed. VC firm Altimeter is
leading a syndicate of investors putting together a $600 million funding round based on an
aspirational market cap of $10-$15 billion. Plaid claims 4,000 customers including
Microsoft, Coinbase, and Robinhood. In the meantime, existing stakeholders in Plaid at
selling their interests to others at premium prices – one sale recently went for $850 per
share. Through it all, Plaid continues to innovate. Its newest product is Plaid Income, an
income verification tool; pretty important to players like Robinhood and other investment
houses.
SoFi Golden Pacific
Bancorp
Retail banking SoFi (full name: Social Finance Inc.) has taken a shortcut in becoming an OCC-chartered
bank. It had previously been granted conditional approval but opted to take the M&A
route. Golden Pacific is a $150 million (assets) retail bank with three branches in the
Sacramento region. SoFi paid $22 million to the owners and will recapitalize the bank
with $750 million to enable it to go national and digital. Interestingly, the pandemic has
put a pall over the bank acquisition game; 2020 transactions and value were half of what
they were in 2019.

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Payments
Returning
investors
Klarna BNPL As testimony to the interest being paid to the BNPL industry, key player, Klarna raises
another $1.0 billion in funding bringing its imputed market value to $31 billion. This, on
the heels of a successful IPO by fintech competitor Affirm. Klarna and others continue to
face stiff competition from established players PayPal Credit, American Express’ Pay It
Plan It, and merchant proprietary credit cards. For now, the industry appears to be
settling in for a long run. Let’s see what happens as stimulus checks continue to arrive
and we get clear of pandemic-related business and home life restrictions.
Bank of America Axia
Technologies
Medical
merchant
processing
Older readers will immediately grasp the logic behind BofA’s acquisition of Axia, a
specialty acquiring concern focused on the healthcare industry under the “AxiaMed”
brand. Not only is the healthcare segment important and growing, the bank is sprinting to
rebuild its merchant services business line that took a hit when the BAMS partnership with
First Data came to an end in June 2020. Look for more of these tuck-in transactions. Of
course, terms were not disclosed; it’s Bank of America, after all.
Ikea Ikano Bank Retail banking Furniture-in-a-box retailer, Ikea, wants to be in the banking business, in parts of Europe
and the UK, anyway. Ikea has purchased 49 percent of Ikano Bank and holds an option
to purchase the balance at a later date. The organizations have common lineage (same
founding family) and have worked together for years. Ikano’s UK operations have been
focused on fixed-rate savings instruments and white label merchant cards since 1994. No
announced plans to come to the U.S. but you never can tell.
FTAC Olympus
Acquisition Corp
Payoneer Global
payments
Payoneer is one of the first startups in the transborder industry. Originally designed to
handle remittances to gig workers in foreign lands, Payoneer now focuses on facilitation of
payments to sellers operating on the Amazon and Alibaba ecommerce platforms. This is
a SPAC transaction similar to Paysafe Group and Paya, other payments genre SPACs.
The head of FTAC is Betsy Cohen, founder and former CEO of The Bancorp Bank.
Valuation via the SPAC transaction is $3.3 billion. Nice return for investors accumulated
throughout Payoneer’s 15-year history.

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Payments
Payment Alliance
International
B&B Music
ATM portfolio
ATM fleet Cleveland-based B&B Music & Video has been building an ATM fleet over the past 15
years. PAI is acquiring 580 company-owned devices and 120 merchant-owned machines
to expand its existing network of ATMs. In addition to the devices themselves, PAI is
getting Vantage Technical Services, a cash and equipment management resource and
AMP+, a portfolio management toolset. The PAI juggernaut rolls on.
April 6 update: Brinks pays $213 million for PAI. Will the PAI executive who took
exception to an earlier reference to a flip being in the works please give us a call.
NCR Cardtronics ATM
Deployment
NCR comes out the winner (for a mere $1.7 billion) in the bidding war (skirmish, actually)
for Cardtronics. The processor out-bid PE firms to complement the company’s banking
products and services sales catalogue. Yet another example of an established payments
player making a move to broaden/lengthen its reach.
Angel investors Fair Neobank Scheduled to launch in April, Fair is a membership-based neobank that promotes social
responsibility and promises to donate 2.5 percent of its profits to support refugee missions
globally. The African American and Latinx communities are Fair’s primary target markets.
Membership in the fintech scheme entails either an upfront or monthly fee. The standard
list of participant benefits are in place plus interest-free loans for home, automobile and
businesses based on available equity. Coast Community Bank will provide FDIC
protection and Mastercard debit access. This one will be interesting to watch.
Truist Ventures Greenwood Neobank Rapper Killer Mike and others have attracted $40 million in VC funding to launch
Greenwood Bank. The primary focus is on the Black and Latinx segments. Fifteen
institutions making up the round including Bank of America, Visa, Chase, PNC, Wells, FIS
and several VC firms. Initial funding of $3.0 million came from the actor Jesse Williams.
Greenwood intends to link with other banks through a Minority Deposit Institution program.
An FDIC source has not yet been named.
Payroc
WorldAccess
Retriever
Merchant
Solutions
Payments
acceptance
Payroc, an ISO cobbled together through the merger of four others, has acquired
Retriever Merchant Solutions a (former) FIS ISO making Payroc the eighth largest non-
bank processor. The deal moves Payroc up to $33 billion in annual volume with 100,000
merchants located in 40 countries. It had been anticipated that the Big 3 mergers would
trigger second tier combinations. Seems like things are well underway.

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Curiosities
We’ve found a few items in our payments review that we consider mildly amusing (despite COVID circumstances).
Bitcoin ATM ATM Marketplace
March
“Bitcoin,” “money laundering,” and “ATM” aren’t often found in a single news article but in Keane, New
Hampshire we found them all. Seems a group of locals organized a number of churches and used an
ATM located in a downtown bar as a withdrawal point for the currency converted from Bitcoin scams
involving “romance, investment and your-relative-is-in-jail” fraud. “Live Free or Die,” they say in New
Hampshire, right? Six citizens have been arrested including one who had run for county sheriff in 2020.
Visa and
Mastercard
Bloomberg
March
Isn’t it amazing how press releases can be crafted to make the subject companies appear to be Mother
Teresa-like? Both Visa and Mastercard have pulled back from plans to raise pricing in April 2021.
Originally scheduled to become effective in 2020, these CNP and brick-and-mortar increases drew
scrutiny from Senator Richard Durbin. So, for the sake of “maintaining stability in our payments system”
and being “mindful that some merchants are still facing unprecedented circumstances,” the card brands
blinked until next April.
State Farm
Bank
ATM Marketplace
March
Twenty-one-year-old banking venture, State Farm Bank has ceded its claim on U.S. retail banking
operations to U.S. Bank. The transfer should be completed by this April. In the meantime, State Farm
has sold its 24,000 health savings accounts and $140 million in deposits to HSA Bank. Banking seemed
like a good idea at the time, we surmise.
Chase Pay Payments Dive
March
JPMorgan is very close to completing its plan to shutter the bank’s Chase Pay digital wallet, a move it first
announced in August 2019. The last step in the process is the removal of the wallet from all merchant
apps and websites. Mind you, this isn’t a particularly arduous effort since less that 1 percent of online
merchants accept Chase Pay in 2019. Timing being everything, JPMorgan launched the wallet at almost
the same time that Samsung Pay and Google Pay were going live. Even with a 2017 deal with PayPal to
link Chase cards with PayPal accounts, Chase Pay was destined to go nowhere. Lesson learned, time to
move on.
Google Pay Ars Technica
March
Conde Nest publication, Ars Technica, has offered up its view of the “New Google Pay” app and its pretty
dim. First, existing Google Pay users will have to download a completely new app if they wish to
continue using GP after the April 5 release date. The NFC transaction functionality won’t change much
but users will not be able to their existing Google account P2P payments; a new account is needed.
Worse, your contacts won’t be able to get paid until they get the app and open a new account. The old
Google Pay website won’t work for transferring money, looking at payment activity, or balance browsing.
And, what used to be free in the old app now costs money. Transfers out of the new account with a debit
card now entails a 1.5 percent or $.31 fee, whichever is higher. Yet another chapter in the long-running
Google novella, “How to Screw Up Debit Payments Without Really Trying.”

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Curiosities
Biden
Administration
PYMNTS.com
March
Those readers that tend to ponder ethereal questions like “is bigger really better?” may soon have their
answer. President Biden has added Tim Wu to his staff as Special Assistant to the President for
Technology and Competition Policy. The Harvard Law School graduate has made his opinions known in
a number of quarters. Among his writings are books bearing foreshadowed titles including “The Curse of
Bigness” and “The Attention Merchants.” He is credited with creating the phase “net neutrality.” Mr. Wu
is not a fan of weak antitrust policies. So, if you were a big card network or payments processor, wouldn’t
it be wise to keep a low profile instead of forming a trade association with the word “leadership” in the
name? Just a thought.
HSBC ATM Marketplace
Others
February
After six months of internal discussions, HSBC has decided to exit the U.S. retail banking industry ASAP.
The bank will close the remaining 150 branches left after shuttering 80 units last year. It’s been said
before; the U.S. market for retail banking remains attractive due, in large part, to its patchwork design and
weak central bank but continues to bedevil those trying to find workable solutions. Americans are a fickle
lot, it seems.
Biometric
payments
Finextra
February
UBS has issued a report supporting its belief that biometric payment cards could capture as much as 15
percent share of the card market in five years. The bank believes that fingerprint sensor cards will be the
mainstay for biometric authentication of users by 2026. USB points to BNP Paribas’ new Visa Premier
upgrade to contactless fingerprint authentication as an example of the way things will be going. Oh,
there’s a €24 annual fee for BNP’s upgraded card. One has to wonder what all the fuss is about. We
thought cards (along with currency) were on the way out. Maybe not.
Wells Fargo PYMNTS.com
February
According to Bloomberg, Wells Fargo has tested the market for buyers of its private label credit card
business and has decided to stay in the business. No one is likely to be surprised by the dearth of
potential buyers given the rise in BNPL volume and American’s recent penchant for saving over
borrowing. The bank will have to continue slog it out with the big three private label banks – Synchrony,
Citi, and Capital One. Tough job.
Walmart Glenbrook
PaymentsNews
January
No doubt still festering over being hammered over its application for a banking license, mega-merchant,
Walmart, is heading in a different direction. The retailer has joined forces with Ribbit Capital to form a
fintech startup. The intent is to “develop and offer modern, innovative and affordable financial solutions.”
While the initial focus is on “Walmart’s customers and associates,” we believe that the roadmap has
several more destinations.

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Curiosities
Beam CNBC
October/April
Beam, a mobile app claiming to offer extraordinarily high savings account rates, has been shut down by
the FTC. Late last year, the company claimed to have 186,000 subscribers and $2.4 million in deposits.
Problem was that depositors couldn’t get their money back. So, the FTC kicked everyone off the
bandwagon and prohibited the company and its founder, Aaron Du, from ever operating a mobile banking
app or service involving deposit-taking. Some parades can be bad for one’s health, it seems.

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Useful Links for More Information
This quarter we are providing URL links to give readers the option of reviewing some of the firms cited in this month’s issue.
Company Role URL
Fair Minority-focused neobank https://bankwithfair.com
Greenwood Minority-focused neobank https://bankgreenwood.com
LenderClose CU lending consortium https://www.lenderclose.com
Payoneer Trans-border payments https://www.payoneer.com
Payroc Merchant services https://payroc.com
SoFi Fintech lender/bank https://www.sofi.com

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Back in the Day!
Back in the day before two-factor authentication!
Image: © Mike Baldwin / Cornered. www.CartoonStock.com

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