Instant messages by Marcus W. Mosen: #8
Marcus W. Mosen comments payment or banking topics on various portals and delights his followers on twitter (@mwmose) with pointed contributions to Payment, Fintech or politics. From now on you will find his monthly guest column “instant messages by…” on current events in Payment, Banking & Co.
The French and the Scandinavians simply have it better than we do:
they consistently take at least four weeks’ holiday during the months of July and August do business with French people in August? Pas de chance!
And unlike Germany, the French pay almost everything with their Debit Carte Bancaire or Visa/MasterCard credit card, which are accepted everywhere, because the Carte Bancaire is processed on the rails of the Visa system. The Scandinavians have been handling more than 90% of payment transactions at the POS cashlessly for years anyway, so they pay by card or mobile. These countries have already entered the Eldorado of digital payment.
In Germany there is not this holiday consequence, but at most a summer slump for news. During this time we hope to relax and purify ourselves, because it is actually “sour cucumber time” for “news”. In the payment & banking industry, too, there was therefore hope for relaxed and light (news) food. Even the well-known www.finanz-szene.dewho normally motivates us to wake up early in the morning on four working days with her newsletter, had already decided on July 17th to dive into the summer slump for four whole weeks (!). So there was a realistic expectation in the payment scene of a holiday for everyone and a good night’s sleep.
But what about now? Especially the “news” and alleged “no news” of our industry have kept us busy for weeks. The “Wirecard” case has been a motor for constant contributions since the refusal of a certificate on 18.6., sometimes excitingly dramatic, often very speculative. And since everyone knows by now what we could/should have known for many years, it is a must for every (hobby) journalist and other “payment experts”. The Wirecard thriller dominates the lead story of any leading daily newspaper almost every day.
The creeping infiltration of the Payment & Banking team by Deutsche Bank also made it into the headlines of the leading business press. So now we are all wondering when the complete friendly takeover of Payment & Banking will take place and the true intention of Deutsche Bank will become transparent: the strategic entry into publishing, blogging and event management!
At the latest then the 10 Entry with Traxpay as a tactical diversionary tactic and the share (WKN 514000) make a jump up – she could use it Because the fact that Deutsche Bank will now take Wirecard’s place as Germany’s showpiece Fintech is loudly criticized after the closure of Yunar and the unexpected “pivot” of Zeitgold Trade journal hardly to be expected.
The Savings Banks are also contributing their Paymentnews prank to the summer slump and have moved their launch of the Girocard in ApplePay especially into the summer season. Many mobile payment freaks from the “team red” have been waiting for weeks to see when the famous “I’m in” á la Boris Becker becomes – in the Apple Wallet. Because many savings bank customers are neither “techi” nor do they know much about mobile payment and will be quite surprised that it didn’t hurt at all. And the much celebrated introduction of the contactless Girocard, which many people still equate with the Covid-related minimum distance of 1.5 metres, will be over within a year. Because the new motto is now #MobileFirst.
Generally speaking, in this summer slump, many things in payment traffic are taking care of themselves: Many gazettes and public media are reporting these days that we will have no cash at all in the near future, because we have e.g. according to FAZ now pay for the rolls exclusively by “bank card”. And that ZDF warns in a documentary about a “surveillance capitalism” in a cashless world.
I can only contradict here, because our baker in Cologne-Widdersdorf is still insisting on cash for payment and continues to demonstratively place the receipts in a plastic bowl on the counter – so that when buying the Sunday rolls, everyone gets the hard fate of the bakery industry with the imposed obligation to pay for the receipts symbolically smeared on the roll. The one or other felt “top politician” seems to have fallen for the lobby associations of the bakers, butchers and hairdressers in any case on the glue.
And for all those who are in the social-media payment bubble, there are all kinds of #exitingnews under hashtags like #DK, #EPI, #GAFA, #Crypto and #DigitalEuro. Ergo the summer slump in 2020 has turned out to be a bottomless pit in terms of payments. The only hope for the summer slump is 2021, but then the federal elections in October are just around the corner and we can assume that the real political issues will bring us another hot, but hopefully virus-free summer.
- instant messages #1 – 2020 – a key year for the European payment traffic?
- instant messages #2 – Socialist Phantasialand Berlin
- instant messages #3 – Dirty Money in times of Corona
- instant messages #4 – Corona Cash Killer?
- Instant messages #5 – Schumpeter’s legacy – COVID19 as creative destruction?
- instant messages #6 – Acts of strength in politics! Acts of strength in payment?
- instant messages #7 – Wirecard and the German payment world – a cauldron of colorful
