Up and Down the city Road, in and out the Eagle
That’s the way the money goes – pop goes the weasel
W.T. Mandale, Pop Goes The Weasel
This as it is now coming to light that, despite the six (6) days of delays by Sony in reporting the breach, that only ten million (10,000,000) of the reportedly seventy seven million (77,000,000) accounts that were compromised, had credit card information attached to them as stated in the article “
Sony: PSN Services return this week, compensating for customers”, published April 30, 2011 10:52 PM PDT by Erica Ogg, Circuit Breaker –
CNET News.
Great!
Now all I have to do is be vigilant for email spam both in my letter box as well as in my email, as if the hackers did not get Cash, the got something more valuable fro all of the seventy seven million (77,000,000) accounts: personal information. So the jury is still out on what fellow bloggers and techies may be calling the
The Great Train Robbery (1979) of the IT and Gaming World – in my lifetime!
Apparently Sony PSN does NOT heavily encrypt their Member Data stored on the Servers that power their Cloud-Based Services or ALOW the use of Credit Card or
Virtual VISA Debit Card go-between Payment Services such as
Paypal Accounts or other means of protecting your valuable sixteen (16) Digit Card number and the associated Three (3) Digit CVV Code such as that on my
Virtual VISA Debit Card from theft!
Sony Really!
Very handy, Debit and Credit Cards! Ditto to for online Banking in
Jamaica on offer from the Big Three (3) Banks
So despite the bad press surrounding online transactions and Credit and Debit Cards, it is good to find some news Internationals can look forward to in the future, especially SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) who wish to take advantage of Debit and Credit Card Transactions.
This is an interesting development that comes on the heels of a major endorsement by CEO Steve Jobs of Apple Inc, in which he has allowed for the retail of the Square Card Reader in their Retail Stores in on Monday April 2011AD, with the App already free for download on the Apple App Store as stated in the article “
Square’s Disruptive Payment Service about to get a huge retail boost from Apple”, published April 16, 2011 by Leena Rao,
TechCrunch.
Looks like
TechCrunch Reporter Leena Rao, like a good bloodhound, has been fascinated following
Square progress, making me realize that I have to add
TechCrunch to my RSS Feed!
I even sent a copy of my proposal to entitled “
CLARO and Square – The App of Year 2010 and CLARO’s Saviour” to Telecom Provider
CLARO that even suggested a way that it could be implemented even on regular feature phones, thus making the SME or even Street Vendor with a basic Mobile Phone and the Square Card Reader be capable of making Debit and Credit Card Transactions.
To date, not even a peep from Telecom Provider
CLARO. Oh well!
Hopefully these entrepreneurs working with the help of VC’s (Venture Capitalists), should attempt to implement it for Mobile feature phones such a the lowly Flashlight “Go-Go” phone as my deceased beloved Audia Granston used to call the
Nokia 1208.
It would make POS (Point of Sale) Platform more widely available by reducing the cost of ownership by virtue of using the Customer’s Mobile phone as the Equipment Platform in what effectively would be a Cloud-Based Service.
Bank of Nova Scotia Mobile Banking Platform allows for Mobile Banking by the Customer i.e. checking your Bank Account on the go, Inter- and intra-Branch Bank Account Transfers etc.
It DOES NOT allow the user to accept Credit and Debit Card transactions on the device from a Customer in much the same way a POS or ATM. In such has hypothetical transaction,
Square would work as follows:
2. The Customer A on completion of the transaction would sign on the smartphone of Customer B to indicate the completion of the transaction.
3. Customer A would then receive a receipt in their email to indicate the transaction took place, which they could check on there smartphone, should they have one connected to their email Account
Effectively, the above transaction, which would take place on Customer B’s smartphone would effectively involve transferring funds from Customer A Bank Account to Customer B’s Bank Account via the Mobile Phone Platform from Account to Account via the smartphone, effectively a M2M (Machine-to-Machine) Transaction as stated in the
Geezam Blog article “
NFC and M2M – Cashless Society and the Internet of Things”.
Or even accept cheques, a task easily achievable via an app that could take a picture of the front and back of the cheque and its security code and signature of the issues of the cheque to verify the validity of the cheque.
Telecom Provider
CLARO and the Big Three (3) Banks in Jamaica are missing out on a slice of a very lucrative market in Jamaica as it relates Debit and Credit Card Transactions, which if
implemented for SME’s and Street Vendors, would spur a rapid adoption of the use of Merchant Accounts with Debit and Credit Cards.
This as more people would realize that instead of walking with Cash when visiting their favorite Street side Vendor, they instead could walk with a Debit or Credit Card, which would be safer than walking with live Cash.
Thus the Local Banks here in
Jamaica would be able to make more Debit or Credit Card with lower overheads for maintaining POS Devices, as the SME’s and Street Vendors feature phone or smartphone would be the POS using the
Square Card Reader.
They have also received US$27.5 million in Venture Capital Funding from Khosla and Sequoia VC Investors. The Second Quarter of 2011 set to see a tripling of business, despite any public qualms about Credit Card security in Cloud-Based Services.
Not bad for a company that is barely a year old that started in May of 2010!
One can thus logically conclude that Credit Card Giant
VISA paltry US$37.5 million for a company that clearly is doing well is merely an endorsement with bigger implications that may result in the above idea for Jamaicans and Internationals coming to pass.
This as, more importantly than money, the partnership (May I call it that,
VISA and
Square?) would result in
VISA breaking into the still untapped Mobile payment business for SME’s in the
USA and Internationally. This partnership would enable SME’s and Street Vendors with the ability to process
VISA Credit Cards or
Virtual VISA Debit Card as described.
These are the same SME’s and Street Vendors who can’t afford to have a dedicated Credit Card Reader or the foot traffic in terms of customers but have a smartphone or feature phone handy.
Thus making the idea of “payment anywhere” a reality!
Square benefits by having the endorsement and approval of a fifty three (53) year old company
VISA with contacts worldwide and would thus help to spread
Square’s business internationally, inclusive of
Jamaica.
After all, Credit and Debit Card fraud in
Jamaica at an all time low.
Hence these numbers can be seen as an indication of returning consumer confidence in Debit and Credit Card usage. They are a also a result of the removal of the Card Readers at the ATM Machines and the Public Relations Campaign by the Big Three (3) Banks to make Credit and Credit Card Holder more aware of how to protect their Credit Card and Debit Card from theft and cloning.
If
Square,
VISA, the Big Three (3) Banks and Telecom Providers do as prescribed above, they could make some
Mad Money (2008) come this Fourth Quarter of 2011 in Jamaica and Internationally and beyond in London, England as the
London Olympics 2012 slated to commence on July 27
th 2012AD, comes up on the radar.
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