| Cards: Opportunities Abound In Crowded Payments Field
In the course of a decade, card-based payments have doubled in volume to account for 28 percent of all consumer payments. It's nearly half of the payments pie when excluding the amount spent on auto loans, mortgages and other debt vehicles unsuitable for cards. Credit or debit card use at the point of sale represents 56 percent of all purchases, interchange now accounts for 19 percent of issuers' revenues, and the number of card-accepting merchants now tops 6.1 million. It's obvious that consumers are comfortable swiping cards for groceries, utility bills, morning coffee and hamburgers. But as Celent notes in a new report on payment trends, cards are not close to conquering cash and checks: cards' growth market is $4.5 trillion. Much of that growth is going to be fueled by evolving trends in consumer behavior, added merchant choices and technology, as bank issuers seek innovative ways of building and retaining card customers whose average cost of acquisition is between $50 and $300.
New mobile payment service eschews cash and checks for phones
Mpayy Inc., an online and mobile payment processing company, will launch tomorrow a service that enables merchants and shoppers to conduct retail transactions using mobile phones and online payment accounts. Shoppers can use the Mpayy service with roving salespersons or on retail web sites. Merchants set up accounts on Mpayy.com to establish a mobile payment system. Mobile merchantsMpayy is not yet targeting bricks-and-mortar retailerscan access reports on sales, send funds to desired banks, manage refunds and perform other tasks through a web-enabled administrative application. Shoppers set up accounts on the Mpayy site, entering their mobile phone number, account nickname, and checking account information. To conduct a transaction with a roving merchantan Avon lady, for examplea shopper logs in to Mpayys mobile web site and enters the merchants mobile phone number or nickname, enters the amount of the purchase, and submits the information, which brings up a transaction confirmation page with a Pay button to complete the purchase.
Republic of North Ossetia
The Vladikavkaz-Rostov-on-Don railway was built. Ossetian culture in the first half of the 19th century was noted for the establishment of missionary, military, and then civilian schools that later served as the basis for the development of education.
Ossetia became part of the Terskaya Region of Russia in the mid-19th century.
After the Revolution, on January 20, 1921, it became part of the Mountain (Gorskaya) Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) as the Osetinsky and Digorsky national districts. In April 1922, the two national districts were united into Vladikavkazsky National District, which in turn was transformed into the North Ossetian Autonomous Region in July 1924 and then into the North Ossetian ASSR of the RSFSR in December 1936. On July 6, 1937, the VII Congress of Soviets of the North Ossetian ASSR adopted the Constitution of the Republic.
|
