Here to talk about his Chairman role, his leadership in the financial services sector and notable achievements is Jerry Lees, the founder of Linear Investments Ltd. Throughout his career, Jerry has been an active entrepreneur in the success of multiple technology and financial businesses. Prior to founding Linear, he was the Head of alternative execution at CA Cheuvreux and has extensive experience in providing cost effective solutions to incubate and nurture emerging and acceleration stage hedge funds. He is expert in reducing the regulatory and operational burdens which have continued to grow following the global financial crisis of 2009.
Finance Monthly hears from Jerry on the challenges and complexities involved in managing a successful business and on the future goals and prospects of his company.
What have been your biggest accomplishments? What are you most proud of?
In my late twenties, I set up a business called Northgate, which is still functioning as a company. My partner and I established the company in 1983. By the time we sold the business to McDonnell Douglas Information Systems MDIS and Hoskyns (CAP Gemini Sogetti), we had just under 1000 people working for us. We managed to achieve this in 5 years, while operating in multiple environments and creating opportunities for a large number of people. We trained people who were at that time inexperienced and knowing that these people are still operating within the sector, is the biggest reward for me. Setting up this company and managing it was definitely a lot of hard work, but at the end of the day, it was also a fulfilling experience that I am proud of.
In recent years, I am also very proud of my current business – Linear. Many people keep on telling me that we are now “in the right place at the right time” while I keep on saying that it took us 2 or 3 years of planning and 5 years of work, so yes, after 8 years, I would say that we are in the right place.
How did your career path lead you to this area of specialism?
After completing a degree in Economics and South East Asian Studies at the University of Hull, I travelled and did various different things for a year. Following this, I went into finance and banking and then ended up trading bonds for what is now the London Clearing House (LCH). I started to look at patterns of clients behavior and tried to track what happened in the previous 5 years to see if I could find a pattern of trading. I started to analyse the data, which was all manual back in the day, until I realized that we had a significant computer resource in our office which made me wonder if there’s any way that this technology could help me to track 5-6 years of historical data. Corporate computers were still quite rare at the time. Eventually, we completed the analysis and we improved the performance of this particular strategy. Working on this project made me think that computing was all actually quite interesting, which led me to taking the time to learn how to program. After learning a number of programing languages, I decided to move to a technology company. I started working for Xerox – the company that invented the Ethernet and Windows, not many people realise their contribution. This experience helped me form this blend of financial expertise mixed with an understanding of technology, the combination of knowledge which helped me set up my first company and has helped ever since. At Linear we built a complex IT business in 1983, which happened to be where a lot of people nowadays
aim to be.
What goals did you arrive with as a Chairman of Linear Investments?
I found the company and initially, I started off as a CEO and I brought in various different partners. I moved to the Chairman role more recently - my CEO Paul Kelly is driving the business operationally day-to-day while I’m trying to build the strategic goals of the company. Our initial aim when founding the company was to build a complete and fully-functionalprime brokerage business with a very technology- driven infrastructure. We wanted to be capable of doing anything that any prime brokerage does in the marketplace, combined with a state of the art technology. Many prime brokers in this business have massive legacy systemsand vertical strategies, while we built all of this from scratch with the advantage of new technologies. And I believe that we built a great model which is now very attractive to our clients. Linear Investments is now expanding internationally – we are starting joint venture operations in Hong Kong, following our expansion into Hamburg, Germany, so I could confidently say that the business is currently going in the right direction.
What motivates you most about your role?
Challenge, innovation, dealing with exciting people.
I believe that being occupied with activities and projects that are interesting and challenging is what makes life worth living.
What does 2017 hold for Linear Investments?
We’ve been going through building our infrastructure and we have invested a huge amount of money in technology in the last two years. We went through the Brexit turmoil which I think has not been particularly helpful for our business.
Going forward, we are now in the process of finalising additional financing, while as previously mentioned, Linear Investments is going to significantly expand in 2017. We are looking to capitalise our investments made in in the last 2-3 years. We have also adjusted to operating in a world where Brexit has to be dealt with and we have to make sure that we make the most of the current situation.
Overall, we are looking at many new exciting opportunities at the moment and I believe that both 2017 and 2018 will be very successful years for Linear Investments’ growth and expansion.
Anything else?
Our business strategically is placed to deal with the impact that Basel III is having on bulge bracket banks and hedge funds and their prime brokerage operations.
The prime brokerage landscape has been undergoing significant changes recently. However, I believe that we fulfil a very useful role in our field and that what we’re doing in the prime brokerage sector –supporting new hedge funds and people with exciting ideas, is going to be critical in the next few years.
Xero today announced the integration of Apple Pay through Stripe, making it even faster and easier for customers to get paid. Xero’s 862,000 subscribers can now offer their customers the ability to view and pay an invoice using Apple Pay through Stripe. Invoices paid with a payment service get paid almost 80 per cent faster than invoices that don’t offer a payment service. This new feature is available automatically to everyone on Xero using Stripe where Apple Pay is available.
Small business owners consistently point to delays in getting paid as one of their biggest pain points, which puts a strain on cash flow. Xero customers sent 15 million invoices globally in the last 30 days alone. And based on our current data, over 60 percent of those invoices will be paid late. Xero’s connection to the payment services of Stripe and Apple Pay will help address this concern for small businesses owners and help businesses get paid faster.
“Mobile payments are the way of the future,” said Craig Walker, Xero Chief Technology Officer. “Attaching a payment option to online invoices helps Xero customers get paid almost 80% faster than invoices that don’t use a payment service - so they spend less time chasing unpaid invoices for a more productive and cash healthy business.”
“By enabling these connections with payment services, small businesses are able to offer multiple payment options on an invoice, giving them and their customers choice of payment and also the ability to pay the invoice as soon as it arrives, ensuring they get paid faster,” Walker said.
Currently businesses that want to pay an invoice via credit card need to enter their credit card details to complete the payment. Credit card payments via Stripe mean that customers can confirm payment with Apple Pay using their fingerprint ID on their Apple device to confirm the payment quickly. Businesses who take payments via Stripe and Apple Pay also have an extra level of security. All payments made require a fingerprint or passcode, decreasing fraud, and with it, chargebacks.
"Almost a fifth of online commerce in the United States now happens on mobile devices,” said Cristina Cordova, Head of Business Development at Stripe. “We’re excited to work closely with Xero to help hundreds of thousands of businesses use Apple Pay to get their invoices paid with little more than a fingerprint.”
By connecting Xero users with Apple Pay transactions will be automatically entered and matched against invoices in Xero. Automating the invoicing reconciliation process makes accounting easier for small businesses.
"I advise my clients on the amazing ability Xero has of linking to online payment providers like Paypal and Stripe,” said Brad Sewitz, Logicca Chartered Accountants. “These services have changed the way my clients operate their business, reducing the unnecessary burden of data capturing and positively impacting their cash flow, allowing them to focus solely on what they do best - running their business."
“The small businesses we work with get paid quicker and have greater visibility into their receivables by using Xero invoices with an online payment provider like Stripe and Paypal, Mike Castle at Bond, Andiola & Company.
“With Xero, my clients reduce their dependency on paper checks and, in some cases, save themselves fees associated with having check scanners.”
(Source: Xero)
CPRAS are the UK’s pre-eminent payment processing consultancy. They have designed and delivered Europe’s first Payment Services Framework to be available not just for governments but for private sector enterprises as well. In this interview with Finance Monthly, Andy Flavell (CPRAS’ Partnerships Director) explains how their vision for local councils and trade associations is changing the UK payments landscape.
There is a lot of talk about the CPRAS Payment Service Framework. I know that, in most interviews, you like to focus on the innovative aspects of the Framework which allow the public sector to effectively remove themselves from PCI DSS compliance, but could you tell us more about how and why you set up a Public Sector Framework with a Private Sector mirror image?
The payments industry tends to surround itself in mystique, but under the surface it’s just like any other. If you are a massive client placing a huge order, then you can negotiate better quality and price deals than the small business can ever hope to get.
When we were building the PSF, we were actually putting together probably the biggest tender for payment services in EU history. We knew that we would get the best value service packages ever seen in the Public Sector and it seemed obvious to create the mechanisms that would allow Private Sector businesses to access these market-beating packages.
And what are those mechanisms?
We call it the Optimiser. Essentially, it’s an app which cuts through all the complexity around payment services.
The problem is that there is a very real difference between providing payment processing services to a business than to a government office. Processing payments carries risk – for example, a furniture business could close after taking deposits but before delivering the goods. In that case, the processor would have to repay the business’ debts. Risk costs – more “risky” processing will always be more expensive.
In the PSF, we asked the service providers to give a cost matrix for every type and size of business. In fact, the PSF had over 200,000 cost input options.
When we give an Optimiser to a Local Council, they can use it to identify and introduce the best payment processing rates and service packages available for any local business, from a corner shop to a global corporation. The Optimiser provides that business with a detailed breakdown of all the savings that they could achieve.
It’s all risk-free, but when businesses select a PSF service package, the provider will pay the Local Council a small % of the processing fee – for every transaction processed. Everyone wins: The Council has more profitable local businesses which recognise the additional help they have provided. The business benefits from service packages that have been based on one of the largest tenders in history. Even the service provider benefits, as they get new customers across a broad range of risk profiles.
So businesses should ask their local council if they have a CPRAS Optimiser?
Yes, or they could ask us who has an Optimiser that they could use. We are providing Optimisers to accountancy firms, Trade Associations and business support organisations.
The payments industry seems to be changing far more rapidly than ever before. Obviously CPRAS are right at the front of this FinTech explosion so what’s next on the horizon for you?
Christmas.
Commenting on the Chancellor’s package of measures to support UK fintech, including a £500,000 a year investment for fintech specialists, Warren Mead, Global Co-lead Fintech, KPMG, comments:
“The UK is a leading global force in fintech but we’re losing power to China rapidly and the announcements in the Autumn Statement will struggle to reverse the trend.
“UK fintech investment has seen a considerable decline throughout 2016 as investors keep a keen eye on the aftermath of the EU referendum and the UK’s changing relationship with America. In fact Europe has not registered a single mega-round (US$50m+ ) in 2016 while Asia has registered 12.* The rise of China is indisputable and picking up pace, four of the top five spots on this year’s top 100 fintech firms were held by Chinese companies.
“Across financial services we’re hearing people talk about technology investment but change is happening too slowly. If we look at banks, they invest just 1-2 percent of their revenue into research and development whilst in technology firms it’s more like 10-20 percent. When one of the technology giants like Google turn their attention to fintech in a serious way we will see dramatic change and it will happen fast. The question is whether Asia will be first? With the diversity of investments and widespread support for the growth of fintech hubs in the region, it’s a very distinct possibility.”
(Source: KPMG)
UK tech startup, Habito, has launched the world’s first artificially intelligent Digital Mortgage Adviser (DMA) allowing millions of consumers to discuss their mortgage needs from any connected device, 24/7, without requiring a human broker.
Built using AI technology and Habito’s market-leading algorithm, the DMA marries all the elements of a customer’s financial life (e.g. employment, salary and personal life plans) with real-time market mortgage rates to calculate an indicative monthly payment. The DMA explains the impact consumers’ decisions will have on each mortgage configuration as a traditional mortgage broker would, but in a fraction of the time (average 10 minutes). Habito has the ability to search 100’s of products (versus a handful), so once the advice is complete consumers can be sure they’re on the best mortgage for them which can result in savings of thousands of pounds per year*.
In designing the new system, Habito analysed hundreds of advice interviews in order to understand what consumers needed and what formed the basis of informative advice. As a result, the DMA’s chat-like interface provides an unbiased, conversational experience, without the need for lengthy in-person queues, waiting on hold or paying a premium for advice.
“Finding the right mortgage product in the UK is like finding a needle in a haystack. Britons are crying out for some innovation and clarity in an outdated and overwhelming mortgage market,” said Daniel Hegarty, CEO and Founder, Habito. “Our digital mortgage adviser is a huge step forward in making mortgage advice accessible for consumers in the way they need it most: unbiased, always available and most importantly free.”
Habito’s digital mortgage adviser is a direct response to the FCA’s Financial Advice Market Review Report calling for greater, more accessible financial services advice for British consumers. Habito plans to roll out additional interactive features later this year, such as remortgage alerts, that will continue to optimise the mortgage application process for consumers across the country.
Anthony Duffy, Director of Retail Banking in UK & Ireland at Fujitsu commented:
“Habito’s launch of its Digital Mortgage Advisor is one of many Artificial Intelligence developments that Fujitsu expects to see enter the financial services industry over coming years.
AI offers the potential to lower costs, improve product and service delivery and enhance the overall customer experience. Furthermore, Fujitsu’s own research has found that consumers are equally prepared to explore the potential that AI offers. It found that 59% of those surveyed would be happy for their bank to use their data to lower their mortgage premium, while 47% of consumers would be content to allow banks to use their data to recommend relevant products and services.
Of course, the use of AI in financial services is not new. Trading businesses have used algorithms for many years. What is new is the increasing levels of interest being shown in AI by the industry and the widening range of applications to which AI technologies are being put. Many banks are already looking at their operations carefully, with a view to prioritising opportunities to deploy AI. Advisory offerings are proving particularly popular amongst retail-led companies.
In an industry increasingly characterised by sluggish revenue growth, costs which remain stubbornly high but where customers are open-minded towards using technologies, the attractions of AI will prove difficult for many banks to overlook.”
For more information, please visit: www.habito.com
The financial sector has paid 465% markup for IT products.
Suppliers are exploiting a lack of transparency in the IT market to inflate product prices, according to the annual KnowledgeBus IT Margins Benchmark Study.
Now in its fourth year, the study shows that the practice of charging excessive margins by suppliers is still commonplace across the financial sector.
Identifying the best price for IT products is notoriously difficult, given the short lifecycle of products and the constant fluctuation of trade costs. Although industry best practice, as specified by the Society of IT Managers, states that organisations should not pay more than a 3% margin to suppliers.
Despite this guidance, the research revealed that one supplier successfully charged a financial company a margin of 465% for an order of memory sticks.
The study suggests that awareness of the high mark-ups charged by some suppliers may in fact be worsening. The average margin paid across the financial sector was actually found to have risen to 19% in 2015 from 14% in 2014.
This also compares unfavourably with the average margin paid across the board by buyers, which currently sits at 17.6%.
Al Nagar, head of benchmarking at KnowledgeBus, said: “Organisations are getting better at scrutinising purchases and negotiating better deals with suppliers. But the analysis shows the many purchases are far in excess of industry best practice.
“The most extreme example of excessive margins are regularly found on those lower volume, spontaneous, ‘as and when’ purchases. These are typically unplanned purchases consisting of items such as memory sticks, power adapters and cables.
“All procurement officers need to be aware of this trend. Although this type of purchase may be perceived to be of a lesser value, compared to major pieces of IT infrastructure, they can make up a good 25% of the IT budget. By the end of the year, this can easily add up to a six figure difference to the overall IT budget.
‘‘Today’s procurement managers don’t have endless amounts of time to talk to multiple suppliers to find the best price. What they need is for there to be greater transparency between suppliers and customers. With the right tools organisations can gain that transparency and bring those margins down to 3%.’’
For organisations looking to achieve best practice levels on IT product purchasing, Al Nagar offers three key tips:
1. Benchmark
Organisations can empower their negotiators, and speed up the IT procurement process, by deploying benchmarking tools. This provides IT buyers with access to up-to-date and validated trade level information that will identify the exact margins suppliers are charging.
2. Agree ‘cost plus’ contracts
Companies can agree ‘cost plus’ contracts with their suppliers to ensure no IT product purchased exceeds an agreed maximum margin level. Procurement teams can use their benchmarking tools to police these contracts.
3. Monitor price trends
By analysing historic or seasonal trade price trends, IT buyers can identify the best times to buy. When trade prices fall to their lowest, suppliers often try to maximise margins achieved, but by monitoring the market, companies can counter this practice.
(Source: KnowledgeBus)
According to the Pulse of FinTech, the quarterly global report on FinTech VC trends published jointly by KPMG International and CB Insights, Asia’s FinTech funding has risen to US$2.6b in the first quarter of 2016. Following a significant pullback in funding in Q4’15, mega-rounds lifted quarterly investment into VC-backed FinTech companies by over 150%.
Global investment in private FinTech companies is said to have totalled US$5.7 billion in Q1’16, with US$4.9 billion specifically invested in VC-backed FinTech companies across 218 deals, a 96% jump in comparison to the same quarter last year. The fact that three mega-rounds accounted for 54% of VC FinTech investment in Q1’16 has resulted in the increase in funding. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, VC-backed FinTech deal activity rose 22% in Q1’16.
Warren Mead, Global Co-Leader of FinTech, KPMG International said: “Global VC investment into the technology sector may be experiencing a bit of a pause, however FinTech, propelled by some very large mega-rounds, has proven to be an exception to the rule. Investors are putting money into FinTech companies all over the world – from the traditional strongholds of China, the US and the UK – to up and coming FinTech hubs like Singapore, Australia and Ireland.”
“While FinTech startups continue to attract large investment both in the US and abroad, and investors gravitate to areas yet untouched by much tech innovation including insurance, recent events and public market performance suggest that growth-stage FinTech fundraising will be harder to come by moving forward in 2016.” commented Anand Sanwal, CEO at CB Insights.
Lyon Poh, Head of Digital + Innovation, KPMG in Singapore, added: “In Singapore, we have seen a flurry of activities in line with the government’s push for financial institutions to adopt innovative technology. For example, many insurers are building innovation centres and programmes to rapidly identify and adopt FinTech solutions to bring innovation back into their core businesses. This has in turn encouraged more FinTech startups to come to Singapore and use it as a base for developing their propositions, and for fund raising.”
In an attempt to give companies the ability to experience how technology is transforming the financial world and how it can be deployed to solve critical business issues, an ultra-modern innovation centre has recently opened its doors in central London.
Dedicated to next generation banking and finance, the state-of–the-art centre was launched by Synechron Inc. – a global consulting and technology innovator in the financial services industry, which has plans to open innovation centres in New York, Florida, Amsterdam and Pune over the next few months. The first innovation centre that the company launched was in Dubai in October 2015 and was the first of its kind internationally.
Through the combined innovation of augmented reality, artificial intelligence, block chain, natural language and biometrics, mobile, and touch and smart technologies, the brand new centre gives businesses the chance to fully immerse themselves in the plethora of new technology available.
The Synechron Digital Innovation Centres’ aim is to act as innovation hubs for individuals and businesses willing to invest in technology and particularly in digital transformation - solving critical business issues and scaling these investments to achieve greater future business success.
The Synechron’s centre will be fully-operational from May 25th 2016 and will offer a number of options: from a half day of brainstorming session for executive management, to a rapid prototyping challenge, or even just a one hour dedicated technology workshop. Some of the key technologies available to visitors include artificial intelligence, Amazon Echo (Alexa), new apps around block chain and tablets with new apps and gamification.
Faisal Husain, CEO of Synechron, said, “We envisioned and invested in building a space where our clients can come and touch the latest in the digital world, get inspired and learn about what trends and technologies are disrupting their customers’ banking experiences worldwide. We want to help our clients be at the very forefront of digital transformation to drive an entirely new concept of banking interaction and engagement.”
As technology’s tentacles increasingly affect every business, technology CEOs around the globe are notably more optimistic about growth prospects than CEOs from other industries.
According to PwC's 19th Annual Global CEO Survey: 90% of tech CEOs expect to increase company sales this year, while 94% of tech respondents anticipate that revenues will rise in the next three years. Responses from the 167 global tech CEOs surveyed gave way to four overarching themes that can help explain the mindset behind the CEOs’ optimism.
Growth in complicated times
“Despite some discomfort about the global economy, tech CEOs are clearly bullish about their own growth prospects,” said Raman Chitkara, PwC Global Technology Industry Leader. “While historically sensitive to managing costs, the number of tech CEOs highlighting cost management as a top priority has come down—consistent with their increased confidence in future growth.”
Only 50% of tech CEOs are focused on cost reduction this year, compared with 60% in last year’s survey. Cost reduction is also a lower priority for tech CEOs than it is for CEOs across other industries, where 68% are focused on cost reduction.
Overall, tech CEOs’ optimism about growth opportunities outweighs their worry about threats, and they are significantly more optimistic about opportunities than CEOs in other industries (72% vs. 60%). But tech CEOs remain aware of major business threats. Topping the list of threats, 80% of respondents are concerned about the availability of key skills—up from just 58% in 2010. Cyber security was second on the list of concerns, followed by the threat of being unable to keep up with accelerating technological change.
Cyber security moved from sixth on tech CEOs’ list of top threats to second this year, and tech CEOs are notably more concerned about cyber security than CEOs from other industries (76% of tech respondents vs. 61% in other industries).
Addressing greater expectations
The majority of tech CEOs believe top talent prefers to work for organisations with social values that are aligned to their own, with 65% of tech CEOs saying that corporate responsibility is core to everything their businesses do. So, not surprisingly, 75% of tech CEOs are making changes to their values, ethics and codes of conduct. Eighty-three percent of tech CEOs say that in five years’ time, successful companies will be guided by a purpose centred on creating value for wider stakeholders. A full 95% of tech CEOs name customers and clients as the wider stakeholders with the highest impact on their organisations’ strategies.
Transforming: Technology, innovation and talent
Indeed, technology is transforming relationships with customers and other stakeholders. An impressive 92% of tech CEOs agree that technological advances will most likely transform wider stakeholder expectations of technology businesses over the next five years. As a result, 86% of tech CEOs are changing how they use technology to access and deliver on wider stakeholder expectations.
“Consistent with their focus in previous years, tech CEOs believe data and analytics, R&D and innovation, and customer relationship management systems will generate the greatest return in terms of engagement with wider stakeholders,” said Chitkara. “This is one area where tech CEOs and their counterparts from other industries are in alignment.”
Two-thirds (67%) of tech CEOs plan to hire this year, a 12% increase from last year and the highest number in the past six years. As a result, they’re increasingly concerned about finding the right talent, in part because more than three-quarters of tech CEOs (78%) believe a skilled, educated and adaptable workforce is the most important outcome for society today.
A new study from Juniper Research finds that the global number of banking apps accessed via smartwatches will reach the 10 million mark in 2017, rising to more than 100 million by 2020.
The research found that the use of smartwatches to access ‘push’ banking information services has been steadily gaining traction over the past 12 months. A number of global banks have launched apps for the wrist, while the launch of Apple Watch in April 2015 further accelerated the demand for wearable banking apps.
Identifying Wearable Banking Use Cases
However, the new research, Worldwide Digital Banking: Mobile, Online & Wearable 2015-2020, notes that while wearable based banking information services has emerged as a key trend, it is perceived by many as a gimmick at present.
Juniper believes that while wearables, including smartwatches and glasses, are not suited for conducting complicated financial instructions, wrist based wearables will become a key device for multi-factor authentication - for banking transaction approval in the future.
“Digital banking has experienced a substantial progression towards personalised computing. We do believe that, keeping pace with technology evolution, wearable banking will witness a faster adoption rate than mobile banking especially amongst millennials”, added research author Nitin Bhas.
The Future of Digital Banking
The research also observed that although banks have introduced a number of innovative new services in the space, such as AR (augmented reality) banking apps and a cashless money box, these generally have a short life span with the consumers.
Juniper believes that banks and financial institutions will need to offer customers more targeted services, aimed at specific user needs. This will be enabled through customer analytics and big data management platforms from vendors such as Oracle, Infosys, Fiserv and SAP.
Babbel, the leading app for language learning, today announces the successful completion of $22 million investment round to drive further growth. The round is led by Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) and supported by existing investors Reed Elsevier Ventures, Nokia Growth Partners (NGP), and VC Fonds Technology Berlin managed by IBB Bet.
The investment will add momentum to the company’s impressive growth, while ensuring the continuation of its cutting-edge product development. Babbel has been profitable since 2011, with its mobile app now seeing up to 120,000 downloads per day. As the highest grossing language-learning app in both the iOS App Store and Google Play Store, Babbel operates a subscription-based business model with www.mynikevisit-na.com a clear focus on consumers outside the realm of formal education. With its recently released app for Apple Watch, the company presents a strong vision for the future of language learning.
Babbel helps people to discover the fun of language learning and motivates them to stick with it. In fact, the average customer continues to use the app for more than 12 months. In order to get users conversational quickly, the company employs a team of education and language experts who create specific courses for each language pair – 14 learning languages and 7 display languages are currently on offer. Babbel is available on the web, for smartphone and tablet, and now for Apple Watch.
Apple Pay contactless payments use proven NFC (near field communication) technology built into compatible devices in conjunction with the iPhone’s existing Touch ID fingerprint sensor for security, allowing single step transactions. NFC automatically launches Pay when placed near a NFC terminal resulting in rapid transactions; supporting ‘queue busting’ customer journeys, such as transport hubs or supermarket checkouts.
Apple Pay can also be used online in a similar manner as long as merchants add support to their mobile apps. The payee credentials are held in the scheme’s enterprise systems but the transaction is tokenised, so no card information is available to the retailer.
Apple Pay maximum contactless payments will initially be limited by the wider industry agreed of £20 (rising to £30) but as early confidence builds in Apple Pay, it’s hard to see this limit remaining in the long term.
From a merchant perspective there is a 0.15% fee per transaction, which may initially limit merchant adoption. Following Apple Pay's UK launch, many of the earlier disputes over Apple transaction fees seem to be resolved – so all eyes are on the level of adoption in the UK which many think will comfortably surpass the US.
