BY KAREN WEBSTER 2019: What To Take Forward And What To Leave Behind 06 What The Launch Of Facebook’s Libra Means For Payments 152 Why The Physical Store Model Is Dead 24 If Facebook Wants To Be WeChat, Why Did It Launch Libra? 168 The Big Tech Canary In The Faster Payments Coal Mine 34 Facebook Slapped With $5B FTC Fine, But Still Has Lots Of Friends 178 Merchants Gone Wild: The Surcharge Edition 40 What ‘Stranger Things’ Teaches Us About Attacks On Big Tech 188 Could Online Intermediaries Control The Physical Point Of Sale? 46 Who Will Be The Consumer’s Everyday App? 196 What Amazon HQ2, Interchange Fees And Facebook Have In Common 54 Why FedNow Will Slow Real-Time Payments 208 Why Restaurants Should Be Worried 62 Why Invisible Will Make 2020’s Payments Innovation Roar 214 Faster Payments: Does The Fed Have A Hidden Agenda? 72 What The Trendsetters Say About How We Will Pay Next Decade 222 Will Amazon Pay Plus Worldpay Conquer Food? 80 The Real-Time Payments Receivables Conundrum 230 Why Me-Too Services Can’t Save Apple 88 Apple – Phone Home 236 Is Uber Next Decade’s Trillion-Dollar Platform? 94 What We’ve Learned From Libra 244 Why Amazon Bet (Almost) A Billion On Certainty 102 What’s Wrong With The Attack On Gig Economy Pay 254 Will Facebook’s Crypto Payments Rails Get A Big Like? 110 What Apple Pay At Five Says About The Future Of Mobile POS Payments 262 Why The Loan Shark Prevention Act Will Harm Consumers 120 Why Super Apps Could Have Superpowers 273 Why Anyone Can Be A Unicorn Now 126 Congress Wants Digital Platforms To Release Their Algorithms – Why? 280 Why Search And Logistics Will Shape The Future Of Retail Payments 136 Why Google’s Deal With Citi Isn’t About Becoming A Bank (But Is Still A Big Deal) 288 The Only Thing Missing From The Big Tech Breakup Debate: A Debate 144 What’s Next For Payments In The Next Decade: The Seven 2020 Trendlines 304 TABLEOFCONTENTS OFFERMONDAYS A DEEP VIEW OF PAYMENTS PAST AND FUTURE ondays have a bad reputation, and that’s understandable. The 52 Mondays 2019 is the third annual magic of the weekend is fading into memory, and sometimes edition of those columns. Think of them, M even the strongest coffee has a hard time sparking the engine perhaps, as a kind of first draft of history needed for the workweek ahead. for forces that are not only shaping the global economy, but also daily life. They are But Mondays have a different meaning here at PYMNTS – and for me. It’s presented in the order published – giving the day we publish my weekly column about the latest trends in these you, more or less, a mini payments and industries we all love. They are not just columns, however. They are part commerce time capsule for 2019. of an ongoing conversation about the deeper currents that drive payments and commerce – data-supported views about what’s working and what’s Enjoy! And, as always, happy Monday. not, what’s happening and what’s to come, where the blind spots might be and how to prepare for the future. That future is taking on prime importance as a new decade dawns. The 2020s promise to bring about a convergence of the technology and innovations that have defined the last 10 years – to bring about new disruptions as the web shifts into higher gear, mobile becomes ever more popular and vital, homes and automobiles become hotbeds of commerce, and Big Tech firms face significant political and policy challenges and Karen Webster redefine themselves for the new decade. New ecosystems are being CEO | PYMNTS.com created as the old methods, in many cases, start to fall away. #52Mondays 52 MONDAYS 2017 52 MONDAYS 2018 Click to download Click to download 2019: What To Take Forward And What To Leave Behind January 7, 2019 elcome to the first Monday Pigs are considered practical, yet fun- 2019: of 2019. loving and blessed with good fortune – as measured by their very generous W According to the Chinese girths. So, if Chinese tradition can be calendar, 2019 is the “Year of the Pig” What To believed, the year ahead will be one of – which may not, at first blush, inspire pragmatic good fortune, delivered with a much excitement for the 358 days side of good humor. Take Forward ahead of us. It’s almost as bad as saying it’s the “Year of The Sloth” – since, let’s Animal metaphors aside, 2019 is a year face it, pigs are not typically prized that should inspire excitement, along for their wisdom, energy, vision or with great anticipation, across the And What To leadership qualities across the animal expansive payments and commerce kingdom. ecosystem: It’s the bridge year between the decades of the ‘10s and the ‘20s. Leave Behind Chinese tradition, however, takes a different view. That makes it the most important year of the last decade. © 2019 PYMNTS.com All Rights Reserved 6 © 2019 PYMNTS.com All Rights Reserved 7 Payments Innovation 2019: What To Take Forward And What To Leave Behind This is the year that everyone takes a today, but their purpose was the same In fact, it already is. phones to enable those connected, very critical look at the innovations they’ve – little “document windows” on the contextual commerce experiences. Software platforms are taking pursued over the last decade to decide desktop screen that functioned as commerce to new worlds, independent That suggests those who today are what’s worth taking forward into the shortcuts to working documents. of any single device to provide that dominant in enabling mobile payments decade of the ‘20s and what’s best left Those document windows gave birth point of entry. via those devices may soon find behind in the decade whose door will to the icons that today serve as the themselves at risk. close 358 days from today. Devices with chips can flag problems predominant shortcuts to apps on and alert consumers or businesses Voice will be a huge catalyst for Naturally, I have a few thoughts. mobile screens, which have blurred the of the need to replace a part or call a this ambient commerce shift. As an lines between the digital and physical repair technician. enabler to commerce, its adoption worlds for going on four decades now. LEAVE MOBILE PAYMENTS, rate is staggering across all ages and Washing machines can calculate the EMBRACE AMBIENT COMMERCE We have seen the power of those icons demographics. That’s because voice is number of loads and estimate when on those devices over the last decade: the most ubiquitous commerce access I’m glad I got your attention. laundry detergent needs to be ordered 52 percent of all internet traffic in 2018 device in the world. – and auto-order it. And, yes, this likely sounds came via a mobile device. That’s up blasphemous from someone who’s been from 50 percent in 2017 and 43 percent Refrigerators can reorder food when beating the mobile payments drum in 2016. sensors detect that quantities are since 2005, well before the iPhone and low. Wearables – watches, shoes and Commerce via those mobile devices has the App Store changed how consumers, clothing – can alert users to the need ridden those connected device coattails, retailers and payments players all use to replace them while providing tips on except at the physical point of sale, mobile devices. diet and exercise. where adoption has been a long, four- That just makes the point year slog that has never amounted Cars, today, have the capability to meter much stronger. to much. usage for insurance premium billing, and to order (and pay for) food and fuel from Consider this. In 2018, it was estimated that roughly in-vehicle systems. 45 percent of all digital purchases, and Icons and apps as an interface – first 40 percent of all commerce, was done Payments are and will be embedded in to the internet and, later, to commerce via the mobile device. That’s up from 35 each of these experiences, enabled by via digital payments – have been around percent in 2017. an intermediary that will authenticate since 1980. That was the year Apple the user or the user’s device and enable introduced the first Mac, the Lisa, and a Mobile handsets have made commerce secure, private and interoperable new shortcut for accessing work on possible anywhere a consumer, handset commerce experiences. the desktop. in hand, wants to buy something. We won’t be talking about mobile Thirty-nine years ago, they weren’t Soon, that may seem so last decade, as payments at the end of the next decade, The How We Will Pay study, done in called icons, nor did they have the commerce will be all around us. because consumers won’t need mobile collaboration with Visa and published functionality of apps as we use them © 2019 PYMNTS.com All Rights Reserved 8 © 2019 PYMNTS.com All Rights Reserved 9 Payments Innovation 2019: What To Take Forward And What To Leave Behind last fall, made this point quite vividly. need until the end of the next decade to year in which they must decide how to time. And that will muddy even further Twenty-eight percent of all consumers find the door shut on themselves. leverage their mobile and digital assets the brand waters of bank, payments and owned a voice-activated speaker – and to exist in this new, ambient retail brands that feel invisible today In other words, pay no attention to the that was before this holiday season, commerce world.