COVID-19 and its Impact on the Asia Pacific Commercial Credit Card Market

How did Covid -19 affect payments? 

Here we look at the impact of COVID-19 on the Asia Pacific commercial credit card market.

The problem with Artificial Intelligence ….. it’s artificial

There is a problem with artificial intelligence and that is because it is artificial. No amount of coding can replace human intelligence and more than that, intuition; the ability to see the bigger picture and to make the correct assumptions and decisions from a myriad of factors. Hence the major concerns that the overhyped driverless automobile will never really become a reality.


Let us look at a much simpler example, something that happened to me today and that has left me totally frustrated, with the amount of time wasted and the sheer incompetence of the technologists and the lack of understanding of business.


A close relative indicated that a certain Apple accessory would be a suitable gift for a coming birthday and given that the closest Apple Store to where I live is some 50 km distant (not to mention all the restrictions relative to the pandemic), I sat myself down to order the item online. I was quite happy to pay the exorbitant delivery charge as it was still cheaper than the cost of petrol, parking costs and the road tolls involved in getting there in person.


Great. I find the item I want, I enter my name and delivery address, mobile number and confirm that this is all ok and then proceed to the checkout. I enter my credit card details and my national ID number (a requirement in the country I live in), card expiry date and CSV number and hit enter ….. and?


Well then my problems began. A second or two later a message pops up on my screen “Thank you for submitting your card details. As soon as the credit card is authorised we will advise you”.


Odd that. I am used to getting an immediate confirmation of payment. After all, the amount is tiny too, in the region of $90. This was at 1:30 pm.


Five minutes later I get an SMS on my mobile with a link asking me to do a verification on the credit card details. The verification consists of confirming that it is my own credit card and confirming my address. The address verification is semi-automated. As soon as I begin entering the name of the town the system pulls up a list of towns to choose from. The same happens with the street names. All very smart. Then I have to enter my national ID number, and press submit.


At 5:07 pm I get another SMS. Big problem, I am told. Some of my credit card details are WRONG! Which ones? My address and my mobile number. Apple cannot process my order. They have the gall to give me the telephone number of the credit card company.


Well the details are NOT wrong! I have lived at my current address for 14 years now and it's the same one that shows on my credit card account that arrives in the post each month. I have had the same mobile number since mid-1999!


I try to telephone Apple, but after hanging on for what seemed an age I give up. My fuming is slowly rising to boiling point. It's then that I notice that the notification came through to me via WhatApp and possibly gives me a way to communicate with the folk who don't answer the phone. So I craft a diplomatic enquiry.


17:20 <This is wrong. Please call me>

17:54 <I am waiting for a reply...... Please!!!!>


I have just about given up when at 8:16 pm I get the following reply.

<credit card company claims they have different contact details of the credit card owner>


What follows becomes a comedy of errors.


I send a reply together with a copy of the address section of the last credit card account, clearly showing the same address, but to no avail. I am told that Apple can do nothing. I must contact the credit card company.


So, seeing that they won’t (or can’t) take my money I ask them to cancel the order. Yes, they can do that, they tell me, BUT am I aware that there is a 5% cancellation fee, with a minimum of $29? NO I am not. How, I wonder, are they going to collect the cancellation fee as they can’t charge my account (or can they if it suits them)?


I have no intention of contacting the credit card company and no, I am not cancelling the order either. So much for Artificial Intelligence which is clearly at the back of all this - one machine talking to another with not intuition. Any natural intelligence would have seen the stupidity of the two errors and adjusted for them.


Perhaps the paranormal will help and someone at Apple can organize a seance to contact Steve Jobs and ask him for a solution.

Characteristics of modern vending machines

Electronic payments is moving vending machines out of the gumball era. About half the vending machines in the United States are still cash-based; a sad reflection on the industry’s slowly modernizing technology. The technology gap extends far beyond payments, however, lagging in user interfaces, machine management, inventory management, merchandising, etc. Exciting technologies and applications are available for vending machines. The question is whether these will be deployed in time to grow the industry or whether some surprising competition will present itself that is better positioned for success.

Credit Card 101

What Does a Payment Gateway Do? Credit card processing and security can be overwhelming. A secure gateway can help simplify the process and protect customers' credit card data from breaches.

U.S. stores are about to pay up for security

From Fortune –

“New rules are making cards more secure, but fraud may be a step ahead. Right now, if someone steals your credit card information, it’s a cinch for thieves to use it to make a counterfeit card. If that happens and they buy, say, a diamond necklace, your bank is on the hook to pay the damage. But not for long. Starting this fall, it will be individual stores (or jewelry dealers) and their insurers that will have to pay the bills for counterfeit credit card fraud. And many retailers are very, very unhappy about it.”

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Cyber crooks scouting for vulnerabilities in Apple Pay

From The Economic Times -

“Cyber criminals are looking at ways to exploit tech giant Apple's recently-launched digital payment solution Apple Pay, according to top cyber security solutions firm Trend Micro.

Even though no actual attacks on Apple Pay have been reported yet, Trend Micro's 'Security Prediction for 2015 and Beyond' warned that cyber criminals will increase attacks on mobile payment systems.

"It's safe to assume that as early as now, the bad guys are already looking for vulnerabilities to exploit in Apple Pay. They will continue to scrutinise NFC (Near Field Communications) as well," Trend Micro said.“

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The challenge of creating a new payment type

From Mobile Payments Today –

“Few would disagree that innovation is necessary in order for companies to thrive. If you have been following the mobile payments space, it seems a week doesn’t go by without a new solution being announced. This implies an enormous amount of industry innovation; however, almost all of these new solutions are focused on creating new ways to pay which utilize existing payment types, primarily credit or debit cards. This post looks at these “new ways to pay” and contrasts them to “a new payment type.” “

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