Market Mad House

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Friedrich Nietzsche

Search Results for: NFC

Market Insanity
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Is Square (SQ) Making Money?

Importantly, Cash is a money-transfer app accepted by big retailers. Recode claims Walmart (NYSE: WMT), America’s biggest retailer, and McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) were the biggest recipients of Cash payments. That indicates Cash is reaching a mass market with ordinary people.

CNBC claims 33.5 million people had downloaded Cash in August 2018. If that is true, Cash has more users than Venmo. Additionally, Venmo they have downloaded Venmo 32.9 million times.

In detail, Cash supposedly lets you send money instantly in exchange for a 1.5% fee. Notably, Square (SQ) offers a personalized Cash Card that allows for ATM withdrawals and provides discounts at some merchants.

Therefore, a huge opportunity at Square is to offer POS devices integrated with Cash. To explain consumers could pay with Cash, receive Cash-based rewards points, and use Cash at ATMs. A Terminal that allows Cash users to receive change in paper cash will be a popular product.

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Grocery Wars
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Apple Pay at CVS, 7-Eleven, and Square

Entering CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) is a major coup for Apple Pay, because CVS operates 9,000 pharmacies and 1,100 Minute Clinics. Moreover, CVS Health is a major prescription processor that is acquiring the health insurance giant Aetna (NYSE: AET).
News reports did not say if the CVS Health pharmacies in Target (NYSE: TGT) stores will accept Apple Pay. Like, Walmart and Kroger (NYSE: KR) Target has been a notable Apple Pay holdout.
In addition, convenience store operator 7-Eleven will accept Google Pay and Apple Pay at its stores. 7-Eleven is accepting NFC payments , Retail Dive reports. However, Retail Dive did not say if 7-Eleven gas pumps will accept NFC payments.
Importantly, 7-Eleven operates nearly 8,000 stores nationwide. Acceptance by 7-Eleven is important because it shows working-class accept of mobile payment. To clarify, most of 7-Eleven’s customers are working-class Americans with limited incomes.

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Grocery Wars
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Kroger and Walgreens Team Up for Pickup

A Kroger/Walgreen hybrid is an obvious use of the capabilities provided by Ocado. A robotic fulfillment center could obviously support both Kroger supermarkets and Walgreen drugstores.

Moreover, a Walgreen drugstore is a logical addition to the 2,782 supermarkets Kroger operates. In addition, Kroger food brands like Simple Truth will be a logical addition to Walgreens inventory.
Importantly, Kroger operates 37 food manufacturing facilities across the United States. Therefore, Kroger offers Walgreens a source of low-priced food products to counter Amazon’s discounting.
Equally important is Kroger’s ability to provide hot takeout meals, meal kits, deli foods, and hot entrees to Walgreen. Markedly, Kroger has a good relationship with the delivery specialist Instacart.
Additionally, an obvious use for Instacart is delivery of Walgreens prescriptions. America’s growing legion of senior citizens will be obvious customers for prescription delivery.

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Cryptocurrency
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Will a Cryptobank make Money at Crypterium?

Crypterium’s virtual cards are potentially a billion dollar idea if they work and payment providers accept them. App based payment is big business; the most popular solution Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay had 600 million users in August 2017, Statista reported. Alipay reportedly had 400 million users and PayPal had 210 million users in August 2017.

Crypterium is probably worthless without a widely issued central-bank issued cryptocurrency. The cards might hold value as gift cards used at online merchants.

To succeed Crypterium will have to solve the cryptocurrency convertibility and liquidity problems.

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Opportunities
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Google Tez Becomes Google Pay

The Tez rebranding is likely to convince Walmart not to accept NFC payments. Instead, Walmart will demand that Alphabet and Apple adopt QR Code.

Google Pay is likely to roll out QR Code in the United States. That will force Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) to add QR code to Apple Pay. A natural consequence of Google Pay QR Code is PayPal adopting QR Code. The addition of QR Code to Venmo is inevitable too.

The tech giants will have to go along because Walmart is on track to generate $500.34 billion (half a trillion dollars) in revenues in 2018, Statista forecast. Access to that revenue is probably what convinced Alphabet to add QR Code to Google Pay.

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Grocery Wars
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Costco Accepts Apple Pay and Google Pay

The lack of a major hack of Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, or Google Wallet probably convinced Costco those solutions are secure.

Retailers are afraid of lawsuits from consumers who lost financial numbers to hackers. Target (NYSE: TGT) paid $39 million to settle such a suit in 2015.

Retailers like Costco might abandon NFC payment if crooks crack Apple Pay. Given the volume of Apple Pay transactions; over one billion in 2nd Quarter 2018 Tim Cook bragged, it is only a matter of time before some criminal genius cracks its encryption.

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Cryptocurrency
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Is Pundi X a Great Cryptocurrency Opportunity?

Pundi X and Manticora Capital plan to set up 1,000 Pundi XPOS POS (Point of Sale) payment terminals across Colombia, Pundi’s Medium announced. The terminals will be placed in stores, hotels, and other businesses. That means average people and not geeks will use the devices.

“By rolling out the device to hundreds of retail outlets each month we’re hoping to play a role in progressively furthering the adoption of cryptocurrencies in Colombia,” Manticora CEO Ivan Correa said.

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Cryptocurrency
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The TokenCard where Cryptocurrency Meets Plastic

The potential market for TokenCard is vast because debit cards are one of the most popular payment technologies on Earth. There were 867 million MasterCard (NYSE: MA) debit cards worldwide and 210 million MasterCard debit cards in the United States in 2nd Quarter 2018, Statista calculated.

Just one debit card brand has close to one billion users worldwide. Therefore, marrying debit cards to an altcoin is a logical way to facilitate cryptocurrency and blockchain use.

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Cryptocurrency
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Is Apple Pay Really a Major Fintech Player?

This is big news because Chase is America’s largest bank and it operates 16,000 ATMs nationwide. Tellingly, Chase’s press release does not mention Apple Pay or Google Pay specifically it simply states “you can you use your phone’s mobile wallet.”

The Chase announcement is big because it would enable customers to get cash without a wallet. That might get more people, particularly older folks who are afraid of being without cash to use mobile wallets.

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Grocery Wars
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PayPal use growing faster than Apple and Google Pay, Microsoft Plans Automated Store

Mobile payment apps are still a tough sell to America’s consumers and merchants, Kount’s data indicates. The company that can change that paradigm will make a fortune.

That means more two thirds of American retailers or 71% still refuse to accept mobile wallets. Once again it sounds as if Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is losing the payment wars, and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) is not doing very well.

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