Pay By Touch

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

D2B: Pay By Touch Has it Down to the "T"

Here is a brief insight, (okay, maybe not so brief) into Pay By Touch's Healthcare Solutions division. This industry has, by far the highest penetration of biometrics thus far, and holds a lot of promise for PBT. But it is a technical subject, so I'll attempt to lighten it up with analogies and such.

Before I start, I thought it might be valuable to give an overview of the industry as a whole before I delve into why Pay By Touch has an inherent advantage in this industry based on both their biometric platform and transactional capabilities. First, let's give a backgrounder on the industry as a whole:

In this industry, healthcare providers find themselves in a highly competitive and regulated environment. Managed care payers often demand deep discounts on fees from healthcare providers as a condition of directing their insureds to the healthcare providers’ respective practices or hospitals. Additionally, the federally funded Medicare and Medicaid programs are continually looking for ways to cut costs via reduced reimbursements to healthcare providers.

These pressures to reduce or discount charges, coupled with forces that are driving up operating expenses (such as the need to adopt new technologies to stay competitive), the increasingly high cost of pharmaceuticals and costs incidental to the chronic nursing shortage, create a pressing need for healthcare providers to collect every dollar owed.

In response, virtually all healthcare providers actively look for ways to improve the cost effectiveness of their non-patient care operations, including receivables operations. Receivables is an arena that Pay By Touch has focused on. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Can PBT be the Wizard of .OZ?

One way to achieve greater cost effectiveness in receivables management is to partner with companies that specialize in billing and collections. Pay By Touch invested in sophisticated technology and employs highly trained personnel, allowing them to function as an extension of the healthcare providers’ accounts management department. This partnership allows the healthcare provider to remain financially viable while staying focused on their core competencies and ultimate mission of providing quality patient care. PBT can do the rest.

Let's get "Hip" as to why PBT identified and entered this payments/solution niche to begin with : We'll start with "HIPPA"

  • HIPPA is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, instituted in 1996. • Under HIPAA, healthcare billing or collection companies - if engaged in certain medical billing activities - may meet the definitional requirements for “healthcare clearinghouses” and as such are “covered entities” under HIPAA. If classified as “healthcare clearinghouses,” these companies would not only be regulated by the FTC but would also be subject to the regulatory jurisdiction of the Department of Health and Human Services and would need to assure their own direct compliance with HIPAA. Pay By Touch is in full compliance.
  • As “business associates” of healthcare organizations, healthcare billing and collection companies are bound to use and disclose consumers’ health information in the same manner as healthcare providers would, consistent with HIPAA’s Privacy Rule – and to assure the integrity, confidentiality and availability of that information consistent with HIPAA’s security regulations. Once again, Pay By Touch is in full compliance as a business associate of healthcare organizations.

Now it's "me time"...that sarcastic moment that keep me amused doing this blog:
I recently visited a new physician for an annual check–up and found myself amused by the HIPAA privacy compliance process.

I was given a one-page document informing me of my rights and my healthcare providers obligations regarding the privacy of my medical records.

This appeared to be nothing more than a bureau-speak version of the one line agreement that had always been included at the bottom of any medical personal information form requesting approval for the transfer of medical records between past and future practitioners and insurance companies.

All the HIPAA privacy mania seemed rather overblown as I watched the receptionist photocopy my insurance card then enter some basic personal data into the easily accessible PC on her desk.

Paper copies of the insurance card along with the rest of my medical history would then be
retained in one of the open filing cabinets surrounding her in the reception area. Wow. Thank heavens for HIPAA.

Now I really feel like my healthcare records are safe and secure!


Sarcasm aside, day-to-day operations for most healthcare practitioners have not really changed as HIPAA has gone live. Although that one-page form I signed will now have to be faxed to my previous healthcare provider before they can forward my medical records.

Most small physician practices- that have at most closed local networks - will be similarly unaffected. The true complexity and challenge of HIPAA comes into play with larger provider and payer organizations where data is stored and accessed across larger private and public electronic networks.

Subsequently, it has been these larger organizations where Pay By Touch has focused their efforts to secure access to facilities and patient records one organization at a time. This approach is representative of how Pay By Touch views their opportunities within all verticals; point solutions that bridge physical and logical security within a single facility. In the healthcare arena, HIPAA has been the leverage point that has opened the doors for this opportunity.

And while this open door is a genuine opportunity and patient privacy is certainly not a trivial issue, in many ways HIPAA is a distraction from the broader business opportunity at hand. The larger opportunity lies with consideration of overall healthcare market dynamics and how biometrics fit into more comprehensive healthcare IT trends. Two of the most significant and seemingly incongruent drivers are patient safety and cost reduction. The business of healthcare is providing safe, reliable, affordable patient care (in the private sector add profitable). IT projects that address healthcare’s primary business concerns will be more quickly and enthusiastically accepted and adopted. Technology based solutions that also increase convenience for caregivers, patients and payer organizations may even be met with outright enthusiasm.

This is the healthcare power play for biometrics. Rather than focus on linking physical and logical security, focus on linking patient safety and cost reduction through increased operational efficiency and convenience.


D2B? Indubitably!

There are three distinct reasons a healthcare provider may choose to partner with a billing and collection company. For the sake of playing with letters, and setting me up to play with words, "Let's call them the DEST", an acronym for Documentation, Economies of Scale and Technology.

Documentation:

A billing and collection company may be able to document more cost effectively the progress made handling unresolved patient accounts, interactions with payers, and determinations of uncollectability through regular reports and similar materials.

Economies of
S
cale


A billing and collection company may have a broad base of experience working with various third-party payers on behalf of multiple healthcare providers, allowing the agency to keep current with any unique procedures such payers may have for submitting or resolving claims. This allows healthcare providers to focus on patient care functions.

Technology

A billing and collection company may have more robust billing, insurance follow up, patient accounting, patient history or other information systems. For example, billing and collection companies handling medical billing may perform clearinghouse functions or may have more up to date electronic systems for processing transactions in accordance with HIPAA or other applicable standards for electronic transactions. Billing and collection companies may also have different available resources, allowing them to generate large volumes of correspondence, report limited credit information, analyze credit information, verify insurance information, and interact electronically with third-party payers.

DEST 2B BEST?

With that said, let's look specifically at what Pay By Touch brings to the table and why (here comes my play with words) I believe they are DEST'ined 2B the BEST product in this vertical.

Consider that Pay By Touch is in a position to "enhance the compliance" of HIPPA's Privacy Rule by replacing existing Documentation (paper and files) with a patented and more secure Biometric Access Technology.

There would be layers of security;
  • the receptionist would have access to low level documentation (better than that open filing cabinet or easily accessible PC)
  • whereby a nurse, would have biometric access to certain medium level documentation,
  • a doctor would have access to a higher level of documentation,
  • with full documentation available only to those with higher and approved level of clearance.
Thus if I change the D in documentation to a B for biometrics, the acronym morphs from the DEST (with PBT's pro-grammatical enhancements), into the BEST.

Now were even more HIPPA. To be clear, Pay By Touch is NOT the only biometric Technology company in the healthcare industry. There are quite a few players actually. So does that mean that others can also eventually morph from DEST into the BEST you say? In theory, yes. Biometrics make the process better, and Pay By Touch doesn't own patents on Biometric Identification outside of Payments, so there will be competition. But this is good, the more competition, the merrier. The more players there are in an industry, the more the marketplace gets inspired.

I understand processing and I understand competition. I've been involved in both a while. (competition longer) Truth is, without competition, one tends to rest on their laurels or just get by. So I say, bring on the competition, and, as always, may the best of the best win.

Competition breeds success, as it conspires to bring out the motivation in the players. When the best players play the game, the game itself improves and becomes better. Suddenly there becomes an increase in the draw or interest of those, who were previously, non-participators/non-players.

When people realize how the game works, how it is fundamentally played, (i.e. that biometrics are an exponentially better alternative than open file cabinets, or easily accessible PC's) then the better the industry or sector's understanding of the the benefits of participating in the game itself...the more they will want to come out to the park. I seem to remember something about "Build it and they will come"

At it's core level, that's what branding is, that's what marketing is. (Yes, I was joking before when I said "Branding is for Cows.") Surely I understand there's another breed (besides cows) of branding/marketing strategies. For instance: I understand that people may not like blowing their nose, but if you gotta do it, you gotta do it, and when they do, they use Kleenex. It's not "tissues" it is Kleenex. This is what Kimberly-Clark understood decades ago. (by the way, aren't you glad I didn't use Charmin in this example?)

HIPPA is not unlike having to blow your nose. It's a requirement now. They gotta do it, so they're gonna do it....and that's why it's gonna happen. How do we take an unpleasant experience, and make it easy. Make the Sneeze a Breeze.

Healthcare’s shortcomings with regard to IT adoption are well documented. Talk to just about any authority on the subject and they’ll tell you that the industry:

• Is still overly reliant on paper documents...
• Has far too many archaic legacy systems in charge of running applications...
• Doesn’t do enough to push recalcitrant physicians toward automation...

While these assertions may be true, healthcare also holds a distinction no other industry can boast – it is the largest user of fingerprint scanning technology for identification and authentication purposes.

Another words, because of the existence of competition, more people are aware of the game and thus, the benefits it provides, therefore non-participants have become players. At least that’s the finding of Robert Seliger, CEO of Andover, Mass. -based Sentillion. “The most extensive use of biometrics is by healthcare,” he said. “We have as many as 15,000 users for one customer and have 45,000 to 50,000 caregivers using fingerprint technology on a regular basis. You won’t see that anywhere else.”

While the financial, military and security sectors are also heavy users of biometrics, Seliger contends that healthcare is at the top with regard to fingerprint scanning systems. So does Charles DeWitt, vice president of vertical markets for Chelmsford, Mass. -based Kronos. “It’s one of the highest, if not the highest,” he said. “We have approximately 4,000 healthcare customers and it represents 30 percent of our revenues.”

So what is it about biometrics that is driving such an impressive adoption rate? Gregg Malkary, managing director and founder of Menlo Park, Calif. -based Spyglass Consulting Group, says it’s a combination of factors. “Healthcare organizations are focused on patient safety, privacy and cost reduction,” he said. “HIPAA compliance, security issues, JCHAO auditing requirements and the push toward electronic medical records are all motivating factors. What’s more, greater penetration in other markets, such as national security, border patrol, financial payments and transportation is driving the price points down, making it more affordable for healthcare.”

So, ironically, (not) in a vertical that Pay By Touch "doesn't own," (unlike the biometric payments industry, after having bought out their only rival) ...competition, has naturally, created further inroads. Now that the path has been beaten down, Pay By Touch realizes that it is, in fact, one of the paths of least resistance. So let us visit how Pay By Touch Healthcare Solutions becomes a product that is hard to resist...

Gezhundeit!

Can Pay By Touch become to the HIPPA Act what Kleenex was to the nose. Who knows...but this much I can state unequivocally: People Sneeze...

In order to offer the BEST platform, Pay By Touch would have had to improve on economies of scale. Wonderfully, and to their "credit" they have already done so. Once the healthcare industry begins to understand the intricacies of the game better, they naturally will clearly see who the best players in the game are. What makes one player better than another is being "able to do it all". Make contact, hit for power, have a strong arm, speed, fielding, etc. They are the ones that get the biggest contracts in sports, and business and sports have a lot in common. So what would make Pay By Touch Alfonso Soriano? Or A-Rod?

T-Time

What features about Pay By Touch Healthcare Solutions STAND OUT from the other biometric healthcare platforms? What do they bring to the ballpark that empowers them to be the power hitter...the "all-around player, an all-star? I do believe that they've got it down to the letter..in fact, I can further identify it...down to the "T"

Pay By Touch is the "ONLY company" in this vertical who has "in house" capability to process Transactions.

This forte, is a "walk off home-run" capability. It is a very important faculty of the skills that provide PBT with MVP or "Fonzie Soriano" status in this game. They can process either HSA (Health Savings Accounts) or FSA (Flexible Spending Account) debit and check transactions, in-house, as well as a myriad of other types of payments.

Moreover, they are the only company that will
EVER have the ability and wherewithal to hit the "game-ending" homer because they have already "tied in" both a biometric health care solution along with "their proprietary" biometric payment solution. Better yet, both are also completely integrated and turn-key. So, essentially, PBT is the only provider of a system whereby everything can be biometric from start to finish, with one swing of the bat... they can run past first and continue on, straight to home" (Who Cares Who's On First, when PBT can be home- free)


Of course, for any transaction that, for whatever reason, is required to be done the old fashioned way, (i.e. using cards) Pay By Touch, processes over $18 BILLION dollars annually for over 140,000 businesses nationwide. (i.e. a prominent player.)

I've been in the processing
game a long-time and believe me when I say that being able to "Process" the Transactions, as opposed to needing to outsource it to a third party provider, results in a hugely competitive advantage! It's their HIPPA Hurricane Holler!

Remember the post titled "Pay By Touch, Much More Than a Biometric Payments Company?." Well, I "purposefully" focused on the fact that they are one of 11 True Processors. I didn't mention it at the time but they are also set up to be a Healthcare Solutions Processor to boot. The fact that PBT focused on acquiring payments companies like Intercept, Cardsystems, Paynet's portfolio, etc. was done with a purpose in mind. It has now evolved into a vastly distinct exception providing "very compelling eminence" over like companies in this vertical. There is no requirement for a Third Party Processor. PBT can...and does...it all. There are no requirements "to integrate systems-into-systems" It's already done. PBT is truly a one-stop shop!

The end result is Better "Economies of Scale
."


In their words, from the Pay By Touch Healthcare Solutions Brochure: (as always, click the pictures to enlarge)

"The Pay By Touch healthcare solution is the only platform to offer an integrated, end-to-end solution that enables easy, friendly and cost-effective POS collections".


The Pay By Touch™ integrated end-to-end healthcare solution links all of the necessary applications to determine, collect and process patient payments. Our solution enables you to determine the amount due for service and collect from the patient at pre-registration or at the point-of-service (POS) — so you have less to bill later.

Pay By Touch offers a complete set of payment processing services in one integrated and flexible platform.

The platform accepts all forms of payment, enables special payment programs, executes payments on any standard hardware platform and enables biometric authentication for patients and their payment types.

Thus, Pay By Touch has it down to the "T" and that...in my viewpoint is what provides them with the BEST marketing advantage over any other competitor in this industry. At the end of the day, we can "Show Them the Money"

It's their HIPPA Hurricane Holler-er-er-er-er, while the others are So-So.


Now that I have attempted to provide at least "some insight" into the Pay By Touch Healthcare Solution, prepare to become impressed by Clicking Here or on the picture on the right to watch their Healthcare Demo. It's technical, but, technically speaking, it's powerful.

Anyway, I found the demo to be quite interesting...as I do this vertical market. There's obviously more involved than what I covered today, so I'll do follow-ups on the benefits to consumers, providers, healthcare plans, employers and Pharmacies in future consecutive posts.

If anybody has some insights, comments, criticisms, questions, etc. I'd love to hear them...feel free to contact me via e-mail.

John B. Frank

Blogger John B. Frank at 9/26/2007 05:45:00 AM

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Personalized Future of Loyalty

Here's an interesting article published in "The Wise Marketer" and written by Dr. Jesse Quatse, the Research Director at Pay By Touch. It makes some "remarkable" points, most notably, that redemption rates exceed 40%!

In 2006, the average redemption rate for the Sunday Newspaper Free Standing Inserts was reported to be less than 1% at 0.065%, and declining 30% from the previous year.

Based on these numbers, PBT's SmartShop looks destined to completely reinvent the loyalty industry

Here's the article:


By Jesse Quatse (Research Director, Pay By Touch)
Published by The Wise Marketer in September 2007.


Jesse Quatse of Pay By Touch updates us (thewisemarketer.com) on the 'statistical inference' technology behind SmartShop, and how grocers are benefiting from the new kiosk marketing system...

In August 2005, a Wise Marketer feature article summarized the technology of One-to-One Marketing and introduced an entirely new approach referred to as "Statistical Inference." Now, two years later, the new technology has completed productization, passed a 6-month beta-site testing, and is 6 months into initial commercial use at several well known grocery superstores.

The results are remarkable. The retailer's redemption rates are much higher than anticipated and the CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) industry is taking notice. This article briefly reports on the impressive results and casts light on the technological future of everybody's retail superstore.

Originally named "LoyaltySuite," the product is now known as "SmartShop," and is provided through a service by the advanced retail technology company, Pay By Touch. The purpose of the product is to target personalized promotions and discount offers to the individual customers of bricks and mortar retail stores, as contrasted with the targeting of personalized recommendations by eCommerce retailers such as Amazon.com, Netflix, eBay, and others.

The so called "recommender systems" of eCommerce do not work well on the greater part of the bricks and mortar retail market because of fundamental differences in the purchased items themselves. As explained in the previous article, "Several of the differences between e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar retailing can be exploited technologically to the significant benefit of the retailer or CPG."[1]

The question is, What are we waiting for? The overwhelming ratio of market sizes (2006: by some estimates, $634B for bricks and mortar groceries alone vs. $130B for all of eCommerce together) suggests that the demand is already there, waiting for the right technology to come along. The initial technological approaches to bricks and mortar retail, principally CRM and "rule-based" targeting, have not met with wide scale success. They can impose a burdensome task on the user who must individually judge which offer should go to what kind of a person. People are notoriously different from each other and not so easy to lump into the hundreds of precisely defined categories that are necessary in order to target offers with a high degree of accuracy.

The innovation of the SmartShop technology is in the automation of the process. It is based upon the purchasing habits and patterns of the individual customer rather than upon the human judgment of the retailer. The predictive task is shifted from the human user to the product mathematics.

Launching the Technology

As of the date of this article, four major grocery superstores are in various stages of pilot trials for SmartShop, five more chains are starting, and full chain roll-outs to several thousand stores sites are anticipated through the next year.

Shoppers report that the offers are all interesting and relevant to their own tastes and choices. Therefore they continue to use the service in increasing numbers. The CPG offers are presented on the same print-out sheet as the store's offers, but targeted differently. Often the CPG prefers a more predictable offer distribution than do the retailers, even when the trade-off for predictability is weaker individual relevancy.

The trade-off works because the strong relevancy of the retailer's set of offers attracts the shopper to the CPG-based offers as well. Thus the CPG can target in a more conventional and controlled manor while the store-based offers target purely automatically through mathematically emulated relevance to the individual. For the technically minded reader, the math and technology were recently published by Dr. Quatse and Najmi in the proceedings of WORLDCOMP'07, the annual international conference of computer societies.[2]

Long Term Benefits

The long term benefit of personalized marketing is customer loyalty; that is to say, the lifetime revenue value of the customer. The term, "loyalty," has been defined by a plethora of books and articles, some of which object to the term because "customer loyalty" is not the same as "family loyalty" or "baseball fan loyalty." Ignoring the other uses of the word, for many retailers "customer loyalty" simply means keeping the customers they have and increasing the spending of each. Since the grocery retailer cannot induce the household to eat more, the only way to extract higher revenues from existing customers is to increase the number of visits to the retailer's store at the expense of visits to competing stores. Personalized marketing can entice the customer to stop at store A over store B for the sake of even one interesting discount offer, all else being equal. Presumably, while at store A, the customer then purchases the rest of the basket that would have been purchased at store B. The long term benefit is in attracting a larger portion of the household budget through more frequent visits.

The personalized offers impart two loyalty reinforcements: one obvious and the other subtle. The obvious reinforcement is the cash reward to high value shoppers in a visible, personal, way: through discounts on items of interest to them. More subtly, the personal relationship itself has its own powerful long term effect on the shopper, even without the cash reward. The dawning significance of Personalized Marketing is recognized by the Eisenberg brothers in their recent book, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?.[3] Loosely translating the title, the brothers are trying to avoid waiting for the benefits of a marketing program that is doomed from the start. It can't work because it isn't relevant to the customers. They observe that "When someone acknowledges us as individuals and personalizes our experience based upon our unique characteristics, we feel understood and valued." They conclude that, "Personalization casts a powerful spell. Marketers understand this." The long term benefits to the retailer and the CPG are clear. Loyalty is enhanced by personalized offers.

Short Term Indicators

Yet, if the product effectiveness is to be evaluated, some form of immediate feedback is essential. Not many can wait to see if the "cat will bark." There are two immediate indicators of the long term effectiveness: redemption rate and lift. The redemption rate is a direct measure of how relevant the offers are to the customer. Redemption is defined as the percentage of print-outs for which any discount has been used by the shopper. (A specific definition of "redemption rate" is needed for personalized electronic marketing because the situation is unlike any other.) The automatic nature of the process requires a customer identification by loyalty card or finger touch recognition, followed by a print-out of the personalized recommendations for that identified customer. That process is called "activation" and all else is handled automatically at checkout. This definition is hard to compare to paper based discounts but the numbers are still enlightening. In 2006, the average redemption rate for the Sunday Newspaper Free Standing Inserts was reported to be 0.065%, and declining 30% from the previous year.

The SmartShop average redemption rates for all superstores is currently above 40% every week and rising.

One surprising conclusion is that the redemption average is so high even though the discounts are not particularly high (averaging around 70¢ - 80¢) and the items offered are not exceptionally popular (by intent). The most important conclusion is that the consumer does indeed appreciate personalization at the extreme level where each image is truly relevant to the individual recipient. The key word is "relevance."

The lift is a measure of how much retail revenue boost is obtained through Personalized Marketing.

Lift can be measured by sales figures, for example by directly comparing sales of a product with and without an offer redemption. However, measuring lift in that way has its problems. The markdown cost of increasing the revenue is obscured and the effect of a redemption on the total basket value is not clear. Lift can be more revealing when measured in terms of increased number of visits. The long term benefit of increasing visits is evident regardless of other purchasing factors. Chris Cubba, Analytics Manager at Pay By Touch, is monitoring the combined lift at three superstores of a more recent commercial client.

He reports that shoppers who activated SmartShop offers visited the store 12.3% more often than those who did not. One interesting conclusion is that personalization in and of itself increases visits. Customers who choose to stop at the SmartShop kiosk appear to visit the store 12.3% more often then those who don't. They won't stop at the kiosk unless they expect the print-out to be personally relevant. So lift too is dependent upon the key word, "relevance."

Customer Individuality

Lift and redemption are not the whole story. Neither require personalization. Lift on everything is easy to obtain by simply dropping the prices of everything by 20% or more. It's called Wal-Mart. Redemption can be maximized just as easily by always offering the top selling items at discounted prices. That too is called Wal-Mart.

Personalized Marketing requires individually preselected discounts on only the relatively few items that are personally important to the individual buyer. As Jim Stengel, Procter & Gamble's global marketing officer, described customers in Fortune magazine, "They want to be understood, they want to be respected, they want to be listened to."[4] Personalized Marketing is part of that understanding and respect, the part that can distinguish one customer from another.

That distinction cannot be made by simply recommending whatever each individual purchases most often. Most of the frequently purchased items of any one individual are similar to those of any other. They correspond to the "hits" in movies, music, groceries, or in any retail industry, because the most popular products make up the bulk of the sales. (Grocery examples are bananas, milk, and chicken.) The so called "80/20 rule," or "Pareto Distribution," pops up everywhere. That is to say, about 20% of the items usually make up about 80% of the sales. The 20% form the "head" of the demand curve. Personalization cannot be based upon the head of the curve alone because hits are hits for the reason that they are in fact purchased by most customers. So hits tend to lump customers together in a common preference. By contrast, the items which are not purchased in common must show the individual differences between the customers. Our individuality resides in the tail of the demand curve, not the head.

Relevance of the Long Tail

In his significant book The Long Tail, Chris Anderson points out that the rules of marketing have been radically and permanently changed. For example, he points out that Wal-Mart can sell no more than 60,000 different CD tracks profitably, but Rhapsody can sell 900,000 CD tracks, all of which are profitable.[5] His point is that when given the opportunity, we each make our own different choices in the long tail. Personalization requires that the technology "flatten" the demand curve so that uncommon purchases are given greater weight than the common ones. That is done in SmartShop by ranking offers according to how much more the individual customer purchases the item, compared to the average purchasing. To receive an offer for bananas, for example, the customer must consume many more bananas than the average customer of the store. In those terms, the long tail is the basis of Personalized, One-to-One, Marketing in general, not just SmartShop in particular.

The Personalized Future

The question is not "Why Personalized Marketing," but "When." In the flood of information engulfing us all today, Personalized Marketing technology acts as a filter. The technological goal is to remove the irrelevant information from that flow and to admit only what is relevant to each of us individually. The filter is imperfect, but improving quickly. Without them, we are shouting our message at the noisy crowd. We are waiting for our cat to bark. (Ed. Note: Woof!)

  1. Jesse Quatse. "The technology of one-to-one marketing." The Wise Marketer, August 2005.
  2. Jesse Quatse and Amir Najmi. "Empirical Bayesian Targeting." Proceedings of the 2007 International Congress on Machine Learning; Models, Technologies & Applications, WORLDCOMP'07 June 2007, pp 153-159.
  3. Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?. Nelson Publishers, 2006.
  4. Geoff Colvin. "Selling P&G." Fortune Sept 17, 2007, pp 163-169.
  5. Chris Anderson, The Long Tail, Hyperion, NY, 2006, p22.
Blogger John B. Frank at 9/25/2007 08:28:00 AM

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

John Morris Takes over Helm at Pay By Touch

Eula Adams fills vacancy left by John Morris as Chief Operating Officer...


John Morris
Former President and Chief Operating Officer, Director, takes over as new CEO of Pay By Touch.

John Morris joined Pay By Touch in May, 2005 after a 23 year general management career with IBM that included positions in marketing, sales, strategy and business transformation. Since late 2001, he was instrumental in developing and managing relationships with top clients in the retail, consumer products, travel, transportation, hospitality and gaming industries as VP of the Distribution Sector, Americas.


In that capacity, he ran the $5 billion P&L consisting of the total IBM revenue stream from all the key clients in those industries. From 1996-1998 he held the same position running the $1 billion Distribution Sector for the Asia-Pacific Region as part of his 4 year stint living in Tokyo. In previous roles, Morris led global sales and marketing for the IBM zSeries mainframe product line and ran "Operation Mach 1", the project that drove common branding for all IBM servers product lines.

Morris was appointed to and served as a member of the IBM Senior Leadership Team from 1999 until his departure.



Eula Adams

Member of the Board of Directors, now COO of Pay By Touch.

Since 1991 Eula Adams has served as senior executive vice-president of First Data Corporation, the world leader in payment processing, with worldwide revenues of $8.0 billion. During his tenure at First Data, Mr. Adams was president of First Data Resources, overseeing a $2.0 billion revenue stream and the largest third party processor of Visa and MasterCard credit, debit, and retail card accounts in the world. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Storage Sales Practice at Sun Microsystems. The Global Storage Practice accounts for approximately 20% of Sun's $13 billion in revenues. Prior to First Data Resources, Mr. Adams was president of First Data Merchant Services, the leading acquirer of merchant sales tickets and processor of those transactions (primarily Visa and MasterCard).

The company processed over 8 billion transactions annually, and had over 6,000 employees. Prior to First Data Merchant Services, Mr. Adams was chief operating officer of Western Union, which had been acquired by First Data Corp. in late 1995. During this time Mr. Adams was responsible for day-to-day management of finance and accounting, HR, back office operations, and merger integration. From 1972 to 1991, Mr. Adams was a Partner in the Executive Committee of Deloitte & Touche.

Mr. Adams has served on the Board of Directors of several companies, including MasterCard International, Wells Fargo Merchant Services, and NYCE Corporation. Mr. Adams received his MBA from Harvard Business School.

John Rogers remains Founder and Chairman and will focus his efforts in raising the last round of financing along with Gus Spanos and John Townsend prior to their IPO which is tentatively scheduled for 1st or 2nd quarter of 2008. Word is, Carrefour, will be rolling out Pay By Touch as part of the financing equation. John Rogers has done an excellent job at raising capital for Pay By Touch, and was especially creative, along with Gus Spanos, is keeping dilution to a minimum by utilizing the Hedge Fund industry, versus Venture Capitalists, during their last major round of capital funding. He's worked his butt off for the last 4 years and congrats on the job he has done. I look forward to seeing what the new, more experienced leadership can do for the company.



Blogger John B. Frank at 9/12/2007 09:33:00 AM

Monday, September 10, 2007

Pay By Touch...So Much More than a Biometric Payments Company

If you've followed this blog, you have long ago realized that Pay By Touch (PBT) is "so much more" than simply a biometric payment/transaction company. It is for this reason, that I believe Pay By Touch will eventually, simply become a division of the company. PBT has cleverly acquired so many valuable assets/intellectual properties and companies, that the biometric payments aspect, albeit, a tremendously valuable asset, may be destined to become just a part of what is maturing into a "significant payment processing entity."

As such, it might be
the very reason Saatchi & Saatchi is working up a whole new name and look for "Pay By Touch."

Consider that because of their acquisitions of payment processors such as Intercept, and Cardsystems, along with Paynet's Client Portfolio, PBT is now processing over $18 billion dollars per year in credit/debit/EBT and ACH transactions, making them one of the leading payment processors in the industry. They process these transactions for about 140,000 businesses nationwide.

It is important to note that (in addition to biometrics) there are distinguishing aspects which separate Pay By Touch from other players in the payments industry. These differences are what make PBT truly stand out in the crowd.

The payment processing industry consists of basically three tiers. There are literally "hundreds" if not over 1000 of what is known as ISO's, (
Independant Sales Organizations) in the payments industry. These are different than sales forces. Each ISO usually has it's own sales force.

The next tier, consists of the 146 or so "payment processors. This includes such publicly traded companies as Heartland Payment Systems (NYSE HPY $28.08), Global Payments, Inc (NYSE GPN $38.84). and Alliance Data (NYSE ADS: $78.82) ***(for a list of publicly traded processing companies and what they are trading at click here)*** Pay By Touch is in fact listed as a "Payment Processor", however this brings me to the next tier.

The number one tier consists of 15 or less "Processors" (i.e. complete "end-to-end single source" Processors." Known as "True Processors" they are few and far between, and Pay By Touch is listed as one of them.

In fact, according to the 2007 Buyers Guide, from Digital Transaction News, released in August, there are only 11 companies, including Pay By Touch Payment Solutions, which are A-listed as Processors.

The other "Processors" listed include: ATMAccess, Chase Paymentech, Discover Network, EDS (Electronic Data Systems), First Data, Fiserv, Moneris, NPC (National Payments Company) JetPay and TSYS, all of which/whom are major players in this industry.

So my point, is: To confuse Pay By Touch as simply a biometric payments company, is to ignore how powerful a player they have become in the "payments industry" period.

When you take into account that PBT literally "owns" the biometric "payments space", it becomes even more dynamic, because they will become the "only true" full scale payments provider in existence, if and when biometrics become ubiquitous, as none of the aforementioned companies can offer a biometric payment mechanism. They already have a one-up on the competition, based on the comparison chart to the right, as they are currently the only one to offer an Online PIN debit platform.

This brings me to their online commerce division which offers the industry's first software-only PIN Debit option for the Internet, through it's ATM Direct Division.

Once again, according to Digital Transactions News 2007
Buyers guide, the PIN Technology companies consist of: First Data, GratisCard, Dynamic Card Solutions, Identitrust and Pay By Touch, further enhancing their value in the processing industry.

This is not to mention that everyday, more and more computers (millions) are being shipped with biometric finger sensors, Their strategic partnership with UPEK has created their innovative "TrueMe" program, an on-demand authentication service that enables employees, customers, and partners to authenticate themselves on the Internet. It's quick, simple to use, and most importantly, it's secure.


With TrueMe, there are no usernames or passwords to remember or enter, so they can't be forgotten or stolen. Instead, when customers wish to authenticate their identity they simply swipe their finger across a TrueMe certified finger sensor which is integrated with or attached to their computer. This division is a powerful tool to Securing Banking, Corporate, and Personal Online Sessions with Multifactor Authentication

PBT covers the gamut with their check processing division, which is called PayCheck Secure™ and is being used by more and more financial institutions everyday. Consumers love it, and financial institutions are hopping on board with enthusiasm. Paycheck Secure™ is a simple and secure check cashing system that enables financial institutions to attract under-banked customers by offering a service they already need and use today.

The under-banked customer, as estimated by industry experts, will be responsible for over 50 percent of growth in the retail banking environment over the next 10 years. Paycheck Secure can help financial institutions penetrate this large emerging market by increasing under-banked customer traffic in your branches and providing them with a positive banking relationship.


Another division which also has an extremely promising and bright future, is one that I haven't covered much in this blog. It has more to do with my unfamiliarity with the Health Care Industry than anything. However, as of late, I have become more adept in my understanding of this market.

Pay By Touch's Healthcare Solutions Division is making good headway. For providers, payers and retail pharmacies, Pay By Touch Healthcare Solutions applies Pay By Touch's biometric patents and unique intellectual property to provide critical efficiencies in identity management, patient authentication and processing of healthcare transactions. With the touch of a finger, patients will be able to pay using credit, debit, health savings accounts or flexible spending accounts to pay for their healthcare products and services.

Pay By Touch can also instantly verify patient insurance membership and benefit information, and provide real-time claims adjudication. The result for the healthcare industry is more accurate data collection, streamlined payments, and reduced insurance fraud. I'll detail PBT Healthcare Solutions in an upcoming post.


Of course, let's not forget their Loyalty Division, and their recently introduced SmartShop personalized marketing program. It reinvents the loyalty/rewards industry because it understands that consumers are are loyal to brands, not necessarily the stores, and therefore, offers consumers discounts on products they already buy/want.

It has the potential to literally transform the loyalty industry. With the acquisition of such companies as 7th St. Software, Covena, Capture Resource and S&H Solutions, Pay By Touch is certainly also in an envious position to empower the loyalty/rewards industry.

Once a week,
I'll provide a detailed look at each one of the divisions that make up Pay By Touch...as each brings tremendous value to PBT in it's own derivative way.




Next Up:

Pay By Touch's SmartShop
™
Personalized Marketing Program


Blogger John B. Frank at 9/10/2007 08:57:00 AM

Pay By Touch Singapore Offerings Increase

Pay By Touch has recently made some inroads into their Singapore market with it's recent introduction at Outback Steakhouse, and coming in October, at Challenger and Watsons.

The promo on the right is being offered by Shaw's Theater in Lido.

PBT acceptance now being offered at:

• Charles & Keith
• The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf®
• EpiCentre@Orchard
• Gramophone
• Ichiban Boshi
• Mooks
• NewUrbanMale.com
• Outback Steakhouse (New!)
• Pedro
• Shaw (Lido Complex)
• Zouk
• Challenger (Oct 07) NEW
• Watsons (Oct 07) NEW

About Watsons

With a history dating back to 1828, the A.S. Watson Group has evolved into an international retail and manufacturing business with operations in 36 markets worldwide.

Today, the Group operates over 7,800 retail stores running the gamut from health & beauty, luxury perfumeries & cosmetics to food, electronics, fine wine and airport retail arms. Also an established player in the beverage industry, ASW provides a full range of beverages from bottled water, fruit juices, soft drinks and tea products to the world's finest wine labels via its international wine wholesaler and distributor.

About Challenger

Established in 1984 as a retailer of IT products, Challenger Technologies has grown from one outlet to one megastore, seven superstores and eight specialty stores (under Matrix and Pixels brand name) in Singapore. Challenger Technologies offers a diverse range of IT products and services. In 1994, we also expanded into the electronic signage business. Today, our Group counts amongst it customers well known corporate clients as well as walk-in customers.

Click here to go to the Citibank/Pay By Touch website that shows where PBT is available along with the current promotions.



Blogger John B. Frank at 9/10/2007 07:34:00 AM

Friday, September 07, 2007

PBT Payment Solutions Makes Appointments



Pay By Touch Payment Solutions appoints
Hu
ghes and Kokaram to key sales positions

Atlanta, GA--September 7, 2007--Pay By Touch Payment Solutions, Inc. is pleased to announce that it has appointed Jonathan Hughes as Director of Premier Sales and Lincoln Kokaram as Director of Sales Support for its Premier Sales Channel.

"Jonathan and Lincoln bring extensive payment systems industry experience and leadership skills to the organization," said Bill Caylor, Senior Vice President, Sales for Pay By Touch Payment Solutions. "These appointments continue to strengthen our position in the market and reaffirm Pay By Touch’s commitment to providing its clients with leading payment processing solutions and a robust service platform that includes state of the art biometric technology for the market place."

Mr. Hughes brings to Pay By Touch over 15 years of experience in the payment processing industry. Prior to joining Pay By Touch, he was Vice President of Sales and Marketing of First American Payments. Hughes has also held senior leadership positions with Retriever Payment Systems (now NPC).

Additionally, Pay By Touch Payment Solutions is pleased to announce the hiring of Lincoln Kokaram as its Director of Sales Support. Mr. Kokaram brings to Pay By Touch over 15 years of experience in the payment processing industry. Prior to joining Pay By Touch, he has held senior management positions with Wells Fargo/First Data, Heartland Payment Systems and Retriever Payment Systems (now NPC).

Both Mr. Hughes and Mr. Kokaram can be reached by calling our Atlanta office at 800.585.8906 or via email at jonathan.hughes@paybytouch.com and Lincoln.kokaram@paybytouch.com .

Source: Company press release

Blogger John B. Frank at 9/07/2007 03:17:00 PM

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Pay By Touch Car Wins Award






Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes Corporation and the Champ Car World Series teamed to give six lucky fans the chance to experience a new level of fan interaction and visual excitement during this weekend's Bavaria Beer Champ Car Grand Prix of Holland presented by Audi, Gant, Hertz, Pioneer and Jumbo.

The six fans had the chance to go 'behind-the-scenes' and participate in the Sherwin-Williams 'It's All in the Finish' Color and Design Award. The lucky winners judged the paint scheme on the field of Champ Car DP01s by evaluating which car had the best color, design, gloss and overall appearance.

"It's amazing for a fan to get picked out of the crowd and get an inside 'once in a lifetime', look at Champ Car. Judging the cars, interacting with team personnel and drivers was more than I expected," said Gerard Beesems.

Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes' 'It's All in the Finish' Color and Design Award is given to teams at selected events throughout the season. The $10 000 cash prize was given to PKV Racing for the paint scheme on the #22 Pay by Touch/MegaSpirea car (photos site) driven by Frenchman Tristan Gommendy for the Assen event.

"Adding fan interaction and visual excitement to Champ Car was one of our goals when we came on board," said Bobby Moody, Director of Motorsports for Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes. "Teams use Planet Color, our new series of optically enhanced coatings, to add energy and life to their paint schemes. We would like to congratulate PKV Racing for their excellent use of color and design."

Known for its 'fan friendliness', the Champ Car World Series prides itself on its accessibility to the fans.

"Champ Car believes in providing a great race experience for its fans," said Champ Car President and CEO Steve Johnson. "Establishing this partnership with Sherwin-Williams allows us to enhance the appearance of our cars while involving fans. It's an additional way to make races even more enjoyable for the fans, increase their involvement and build better relationships between them and their favorite drivers."

About Sherwin-Williams:

The Sherwin-Williams Company, founded in 1866, is one of the world's leading companies in the manufacture, distribution and sale of coatings and related products to professional, industrial, commercial and retail customers. Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Sherwin-Williams Company, manufactures and distributes a complete line of advanced technology paint and coating systems for automotive and fleet refinishing industries. For more information visit www.sherwin-automotive.com.

About the Champ Car World Series:

The Champ Car World Series features some of the greatest international race car drivers competing in the most diverse and exciting series in the world. Past champions Sebastien Bourdais and Paul Tracy along with Graham Rahal, Will Power, Robert Doornbus, Justin Wilson, Bruno Junqueira and Alex Tagliani are among the drivers who battle for the Vanderbilt Cup, which is awarded to the champion of the Champ Car World Series. The title is contested on temporary street circuits and permanent road courses throughout North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. For more information, visit the website at: www.champcarworldseries.com

For info on PKV Racing, whom Pay By Touch sponsors, visit: www.pkvracing.com

Blogger John B. Frank at 9/02/2007 09:39:00 AM
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