What's in a name?
Contactless. Direct Debit. Pay By Bank. How easy would it be to get consumers to adopt another easy, obvious, descriptive brand? Widespread adoption by merchants and retailers of a 'single acceptance badge*' could do what fintechs, banks and the several organisations set up to promote Open Banking have so far failed to do (sorry to sound disloyal, folks, but you have).
*Not my phrase; Hannah Regan's recommendation in the British Retail Consortium 2023 payments survey: https://brc.org.uk/media/683937/payment-survey-2023.pdf
To be a part of the OB payments ecosystem, fintechs have done the really hard work - they've met the standards set out to ensure that payments actually work and the consumer should be reassured by that. But in a recent (entirely statistically invalid) survey, 0% of respondents could name an Open Banking payments brand. 0%.
By contrast, 100% could make a stab at drawing the Contactless symbol (and I bet they could draw the Visa and Mastercard logos from memory).
18 months ago I registered Digital Debit as a UK trademark - purely because I wanted to use something in my own business that could grow to mean something to customers - and also because I couldn't stand either the term 'VRP' or its full-fat name. The much more obvious trademark never even crossed my mind as I assumed that someone, somewhere in the OB world, would realise the value of a brand and do something about it. 18 months later, with no sign of any action, I've taken the liberty of applying to register Pay By Bank with the UK IPO.
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Apologies to internationalists - this is likely only to work in the UK, but I have my parochial hat on and would like to see the UK back out in front as far as adoption is concerned.
If this trademark gets approved (and there is the possibility of it being derailed by Mastercard, though it doesn't, in my advisor's view, risk confusion with their Pay By Bank App logo), Open Banking merchant and retail users will have something they can put alongside those well-recognised graphics on the shop windows and ecomm checkouts and we can stop dividing the OB payment 'recognition pie' into tiny slices each identified by its provider's logo.
I've been privileged to meet so many members of the UK OB community over the last couple of years and from your company and brand names I know you to be an amazingly creative bunch. Sometimes, though, you just need to say what it does on the tin.
Chief Commercial Officer at Prommt, the Payment Request solution for Card and Open Banking across Automotive, Building Supplies, Luxury Retail and Hospitality
1 年Pay by Bank is the de facto name for what we're doing, and as Hanna says it's well past time to settle on a single acceptance mark. Good work Mike!
Partnerships Leader @ Nomupay | LinkedIn Top Voice | Writer of The Payments Shed ??
1 年We looked at this a few weeks ago Mike Mann but we saw various declined applications listed. Seems ironic given there are two approved Mastercard logos listed like you have referenced ????♂? Fingers crossed yours gets approved ??