More On The FASTLANE Payments Network
FASTLANE has published a press release with a bit more background on their new driver's license-based payments network planned for official introduction at the ETA show in April.
FASTLANE has brought commerce to a new level by fusing payment methods onto a card that virtually every consumer carries. “Everyone is our customer,” says Carl Towner, CEO FASTLANE, “they just don’t know it yet.”FASTLANE will provide savings to the merchant and will be at no cost to the consumer. Merchants have no upfront cost barriers. The payment network also allows merchants to participate in the transaction fee revenue stream. For every consumer that enrolls at a merchant's location, the registering merchant will receive revenue from every subsequent transaction processed by that customer even at other FASTLANE merchant locations.
The FASTLANE transaction fee is a fraction of the fee charged by the traditional payment networks. The goal of the new FASTLANE payment network is to provide a free payment-processing platform to their merchant network. This will be accomplished by offering rebate revenue streams from terminal advertising, and consumer transaction fee sharing.
I was initially mislead when I read this.
To me, FastLane is a registered trademark of NCR and refers to their self-checkout solution.
Two Predictions:
1. They will have to change their name because of the implied association with NCR's entrenched product.
2. While the idea of using DL's for payment may have been good at one time, like the early 1990's, it's too late and no matter what the speed limit is in his FastLane, he'll never catch up to other emerging technologies.
Instead, expect this to get stuck in the technology traffic jam. The only ramping up they'll see is if the "exit" ramp slopes upward.
Pay by Touch isn't their biggest competitor, they've already partnered with FastLane (NCR, not the startup) His biggest competitor is technology (which is in the real fastlane and has passed this idea by) Does he have any idea what and how long it takes to start a new payment mechanism? Save your money Mr. Towner...
Like I said...at one time (before biometrics and ID theft) this would not have been a bad idea, but the future is NO cards, not a different one.
In my humble opinion, magnetic stripes for payment are dead in the water and contactless cards are inherently doomed as well.
Posted by: JBF | January 31, 2006 at 07:36 AM