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Why System Of Records (SOR) is critical for Prepaid Card Issuers?
Wallet limit breaches and data duplications are crucial problems for prepaid card issuers. They hold the risk of consumers overriding the loading and spending limit.
That’s why RBI mandated that all prepaid programs deploy a centralized System of Records (SOR) in October’17. All prepaid program partners must mandatorily connect to the issuer’s SOR system.
What is a System of Record?
A System Of Record (SOR) or Source System of Record (SSoR) is a single source of truth or data source that stores important information about a system or process within the organization. It serves as a shared reference point that protects prepaid card issuers against data repetitions that arise when individual data is created, handled, and processed by multiple individuals or business units. As a result, SOR provides a single source of truth for operations.
The System of Records monitors the consolidated prepaid balance of all wallets issued to the end customer by the same issuer, independent of the prepaid program partner. It is a central ledger that tracks every registered customer’s overall balance in real-time based on their KYC status. In addition to holding centralized data on the consolidated balance of a customer’s prepaid wallet, it also carries issuer-specific information. This is in cases where the balance of multiple partner wallets is integrated under a single PPI issuer.
How SOR works for prepaid cards?
Say an individual holds two prepaid wallets with the same issuer. His personal information is captured in the issuer database for profile creation and KYC verification. Issuers who partner with Token Service Providers for SOR will have all data automatically transferred to a centralized database. Then KYC-based wallet limit, dedupe check, and customer profile creation will need to be managed.
Why SOR is critical?
SOR is critical for prepaid issuers who deal with huge volumes of data from multiple source systems. This system of truth helps secure the integrity and validity of any data set as it remains the only source of truth. If there is any other agreed system of record, the data element must be either linked to or extracted from it. In other situations, the provenance and estimated data quality should be documented. Here are some key benefits SOR offers to users.
- Provides the most complete, accurate, and timely data
- Best structural conformance to the data model
- Nearest to the point of operational entry
- Can be used to feed other systems
How can M2P facilitate SOR implementation?
We help banks and prepaid card issuers build a SOR, which will serve as a final source of truth for all customer data. Our robust API-led infrastructure offers a centralized database to track and monitor the data in real-time. The built-in checks and balances comprise AML, negative listing, and real-time watch listing capabilities to ensure compliance and zero limit breaches across programs.
Looking to implement SOR for prepaid cards?
We would like to help. Write to us at [email protected].
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Why System Of Records (SOR) is critical for Prepaid Card Issuers? was originally published in M2P Fintech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Why Payments Interoperability is a Must for Today’s Generation?
Imagine you own a digital wallet. Its primary function is to let you spend viz., shop with partner merchants, make payments, and transfer money to other wallets and bank accounts. Then the same wallet offers a card (any authorized card network Visa, Mastercard, RuPay) to facilitate card-based in-store and online payments. Further, the wallet also comes with a UPI virtual ID to allow payments via QR codes and UPI.
This is payments interoperability making life easy for you.
What is Payments Interoperability?
Now, there are several definitions for interoperability. But at its core, it is the basic ability of multiple digital systems, applications, and databases to connect and communicate with each other.
Payment platforms leverage financial technology to connect and share data among ecosystem partners, viz., banks, payment gateways, payment processors, merchants, and consumers. This integration helps carry out transactions between payment service providers, third-party processors, and other networks without hassles. The interoperability occurs at the origination point, at the network level, or through an intermediary, both in national and international payment systems.
Here are a few common attributes of interoperability.
Payment system interoperability can be at domestic (national) and international levels.
National Payments Interoperability
National payment interoperability is limited to payment systems within a single country. National interoperability usually involves the same type of accounts. It happens between:
- Deposit accounts issued by various banks
- e-money transaction accounts offered by mobile network operators
National interoperability is ensured through bilateral agreements between Payment Service Providers (PSP) and Payment Systems Infrastructures (PSIs). Or through a centralized interoperability solution, with standardized regulatory measures stipulated by the central bank.
RBI’s Mandate for Domestic PPI Interoperability
Governments and Central Banks are giving interoperability a significant push to accelerate cashless ecosystems. RBI aims to make interoperability mandatory for all full-KYC Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) and acceptance infrastructure by 31 June 2022. The move is to drive inclusion in cashless payments, and optimally utilize payment instruments like cards and wallets, given the constraint of scarce acceptance infrastructures like point-of-sale (POS) devices, ATMs, QR codes, and bill-payment touch points. Any user who signs up for a wallet, payment card, or UPI on PPI rails should be able to make digital payments via any network.
LivQuik is the first PPI issuer in India to achieve full interoperability as mandated by the RBI. This feat enables customers to enjoy optimized card and UPI payments across wallets. Similarly, initiatives like Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) will further drive interoperability, inclusion, and innovation.
Need for Interoperable Cross-Border Payments
Interoperability in cross-border payments is critical to making financial services accessible, affordable, and reliable. It involves coordination between multiple stakeholders, including central banks and regulators. It encompasses technical, regulatory, and usage interoperability to enable quick, convenient, secure, and seamless transactions regardless of the Financial Services Provider (FSP) network.
According to a recent Visa survey, only 50% of merchants have a cross-border trade-compatible payment processing infrastructure. Without globally interoperable payment systems, small and medium-sized merchants cannot tap into international trade and markets. Interoperability levels the playing field and eliminates the inefficiencies of a closed-loop payment systems, i.e., payments between users of only one payment provider.
An end-to-end interoperable platform delivers access to cross-border payment services through an integrated gateway. It enhances the user experience through its ease-of-use customer onboarding and digital KYC.
A centralized interoperability platform calls for stringent global regulatory compliance and data security standards for utmost security. It enables faster reconciliations with real-time reporting and data-driven insights into payment patterns and customer behavior. Moreover, an automated platform saves time, reduces human error, and cuts costs. It enables infrastructure and data sharing which helps tech-driven payment ecosystems reach economies of scale.
While international interoperability comes with a few challenges, it can be overcome with the support of the regulators, the global schemes, and with a compatible business model across international borders and technology.
India’s Global Partnerships with Cross-Border Payment Networks
A clear example of an interoperable cross-border payments partnership is that between India’s UPI and Singapore’s PayNow. The need for faster cross-border payments and financial inclusion has been a catalyst in establishing the link between India and Singapore. The interoperable link between UPI and PayNow, enables instantaneous, cost-effective, and transparent payments across borders.
Now for those new to UPI, it is India’s real-time payment system with a Virtual Payment Address (VPA). It is completely mobile-based and supports person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) payments and funds transfers.
And PayNow is Singapore’s real-time payment system available to all participating banks and non-bank financial institutions. It is also a mobile-based system and enables peer-to-peer funds transfer using mobile numbers, VPA, or Singapore NRIC/ FIN. The UPI-PayNow partnership is only the beginning and is established to foster faster and smoother transactions between India and Singapore.
India also holds strategic partnerships with the following payments networks and banks to enable seamless, interoperable international transactions.
- Discover Financial Services (DFS), US
- Japan Credit Bureau (JCB), Japan
- Union Pay International (UPI), China
- Royal Monetary Authority (RMA), Bhutan
- Mashreq Bank, UAE
- Lycra Network, France (in the pipeline)
Benefits of Payments Interoperability
Interoperability benefits the entire payment ecosystem, including customers, merchants, end-users, and businesses. In addition to enhancing user experience and helping mitigate security risks, it delivers the advantages below.
- Payment flexibility: The ability to accept all forms of payments is a game-changer. Universal payment acceptance helps customer retention and increases customer reach. Though there are several digital payment systems and digital offerings from payment system providers, customers are not required to sign into multiple systems and complete their KYC many times. Interoperability brings issuers and acquirers together to undertake, clear, and settle payment transactions across payment systems, ensuring universal payments and consumer retention.
- Faster payment system: Electronic transactions are the key to reconciling and collecting payments, unlike cash-based systems. Advanced technology and fast internet connectivity make it easier to increase the speed of transactions.
- Secure payment and POS integration: Integration pushes the transaction directly to the payment terminal and eliminates manual entries, thereby enhancing security.
- Low operational costs: Integrated payment platforms reduce operating costs and seamlessly communicate with multiple devices across different financial service providers. It helps save money on adding new payment terminals.
Addressing Challenges — Getting it Right
Getting interoperability right through open API- based platforms is a start toward harnessing and expanding the payments ecosystem. Interoperability can be tricky when dealing with legacy systems. Technical challenges usually comprise systems that use different technical standards, communication protocols, and related software and hardware infrastructure. Another common challenge relates to data and semantics. Payment systems may use different languages and need to be translated. Inadequate translation leads to corrupted or lost data.
It is crucial to address the regulatory, technical, and business challenges of interoperability to make cross-border payments affordable, faster, transparent, and inclusive. Strategic partnerships with fintech firms, banks, exchange houses, and Money Transfer Operators (MTOs) with a focus on regulatory compliance and technology innovation will pave the way to overcome challenges and enable frictionless international transactions.
Need of the Hour for Today’s Generation
Payments interoperability is the linchpin of today’s digitized economy. When done right, it can lead to greater convenience, speed, reliability, security, and seamlessness. It is the need of the hour today, as it enables people from all walks of life to benefit from the convenience that the cashless economy offers. It can increase service offerings, reduce costs, empower the end-user and help improve payment systems. Thus, interoperability is a strong facilitator for financial inclusion.
By leveraging API-based cross-border payment platforms with simple integrations across domestic switches, bank accounts, mobile wallets/e-wallets, MTO transfers, and forex card solutions, we can enable financial inclusion and seamless payments across APAC and MENA regions. With India to start with and then extended globally.
Along these lines, M2P is proud to partner with LivQuik for UPI services on exiting PPI offerings like cards, wallets, gift certificates, and other products. Thereby enabling interoperable payments on the LivQuik platform.
Want to know more about building interoperable payment systems?
Write to us at [email protected].
Subscribe to our newsletter and get the latest fintech news, views, and insights, directly to your inbox.
Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter for insightful fintech tales curated for curious minds like you.
Why Payments Interoperability is a Must for Today’s Generation? was originally published in M2P Fintech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Two Start-ups Set to Take over the Metaverse with Their Outlandish Garments
Young Designers Set Sights on Metaverse Fashion
When we are subsumed into the metaverse, our digital selves will need digital wardrobes. After all, what avatar would be seen dead in some standard-issue shirt and pants? This isn’t Sim City anymore.
Digital fashion is allowing designers to create garments free from supply chain concerns, gravity, and even basic physiology. Flaming boots, gravity-defying dresses that float like octopus limbs, capes the color of galaxies, these are some of the garments that could be for sale on your local metaverse high street.
“This year we’ll have a Decentraland platform set up so users can go in and dress in the digital wearables we’ll create for them,” said Joanna Lim, founder of metaverse fashion, Made In Real Life (MIRL). “They can take our original designs like clothes, helmets, etc. and ‘wear’ it on social media like Instagram and TikTok.”
Other projects like DRESSX have a huge catalog of digital clothes at reasonable prices. You buy the item and send in a photo of yourself so the clothing can be grafted onto your picture. Surely this is the beta version of what will become garments that will be worn by our 3D avatars in virtual worlds. Digital designer Diane Wallinger “is absolutely sure that garments can generate emotions, even if they are not worn physically.”
While the designs at DRESSX are too outlandish to be sewn up and sent to your doorstep. Brands like Adidas and Gucci have paired physical clothing with digital versions that people own as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Last year, both brands released NFTs that could be redeemed for physical items.
“Adidas and Gucci are the premium brands for metaverse wearables that are top-tier audience would be interested in,” said Vaibhav Sethm CEO of metaverse fashion project Bitliberte. “Who wouldn’t love showing their new Adidas sneakers or Gucci bad in the fast-paced Metaverse world? Imagine walking through a mall in the Metaverse, buying digital wearables, and receiving on-chain proof of ownership and a unique physical deliverable.”
For metaverse fashion innovators like Seth, solving some of the fashion industry’s problems is part of the deal. Textile waste is very hard to recycle leading to 85% of all textiles thrown away in the U.S. — roughly 13 million tonnes in 2017 — being either dumped into landfills or burned, according to the BBC.
Metaverse fashion solves this by reimagining the buying process. Instead of fashion brands renting warehouses and expensive shops and filling them with inventories that create tons of surplus each year, they could create metaverse shops where people can try on clothes using virtual reality. If the buyer likes the latest jacket, it is manufactured to order and sent via post — removing the need for shops and wasteful inventories.
“Eventually, if people shop online, they will get used to augmented reality tech and try on a 3D model of the article so they don’t need a physical wearable to change into in the fitting room,” said Lim. “This will help create a more sustainable industry because only the clothes that are worn and fit will be produced.”
And it’s not just the wasteful nature of the current fashion industry the web3 cohort are trying to solve. The idea of “FashionFi” (a portmanteau of ‘fashion’ and ‘finance’) takes digital clothing one step further by addressing the finance and management side of the industry. For example, Bitliberte is creating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) to run a string of fashion outlets in India.
“We are helping consumers to bridge the gap between physical clothes and virtual ownership on the blockchain,” said Seth. “We are creating a DAO-based ecosystem of NFTs, fashion products, metaverse assets, metaverse outlets, and physical outlets.”
Over in Singapore, MIRL is focusing on developing an incubator program where holders of their crypto token will have the right to vote on which designer’s project they want to fund. “We are empowering emerging designers,” said Lim. “Helping them to launch a fashion collection — not just NFTs — but the physical process as well.”
Metaverse mania has birthed a number of projects that have become multi-billion-dollar companies, and FashionFi could be the next big trend. When designers are backed by large crypto companies, who knows what delicious designs they will create? Now blockchain technology is offering solutions to the long-standing problems of waste and supply chain mismanagement, it looks like the fashion industry is getting the makeover it needs.
Buy metaverse NFTs now at Bybit’s NFT Marketplace!
Two Start-ups Set to Take over the Metaverse with Their Outlandish Garments was originally published in Entrepreneur’s Handbook on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
Can’t Afford a House? The Canadian Military Just Told Its Service Members To Ask Habitat for Humanity
We don’t need charity, we need housing justice
Interest Rates Are Rising Fast. Good.
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Eco-friendly Energy Solutions For Powering Your Home
On average, Americans spend the majority of energy and electricity in the privacy of their own homes. Home is where we do our eating, cooking, living, breathing: it is the place most highly associated with using gas and energy to power our lives. Fortunately, recent innovations in tech have enabled new solutions for energy efficiency in the […]
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The Rewards of Self Sufficiency
Self-sufficiency is the state of requiring little or no outside support to survive. The term self-sufficiency normally refers to sustainable living, which is a lifestyle in which nothing is consumed other than what is produced by the self-sufficient family or individual. There is a movement towards self-sufficiency in North America, with many families taking steps […]
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