Author: Rakesh Agrawal

Rakesh Agrawal is a 0-1 product leader. Ex-Amazon, Ex-Microsoft, as well as a number of startups. He tweets at @rakeshsfnyc

Google’s Glass Guidelines Provide Clues to Future Bank Apps

Rakesh Agrawal

I talk to American Banker about how Google Glass could be used in payments.

For banks, certain Glass apps have obivous appeal, says Rakesh Agrawal, principal analyst at product strategy consulting company reDesign Mobile. Two possibilities: fraud prevention and detection and real-time transaction alerts.

Agrawal says the app submission process could be a boon for banks. “I would consider that to be a good thing,” he says. “You don’t want phishers. If they [Google executives] weren’t checking submissions, it would be possible for someone to submit a bogus Bank of America app just to get people’s passwords.”

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Facebook experiments with free Wi-Fi, for a price

Rakesh Agrawal

I talk to APM’s Marketplace about Facebook and free WiFi

Facebook says its experimenting with a few local businesses to “offer a quick and easy way to access free Wi-Fi after checking in on Facebook.”

Rocky Agrawal, a consultant at reDesign mobile, suspects there’s more to this than good will.

“It’s a good way for Facebook to know where you’re at, they can deliver all sorts of new offers,” Agrawal says.

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Amex’s Twitter Deal Helps Validate Social Payments

Rakesh Agrawal

I talk to American Banker about Amex’s new integration allowing you to buy products through Twitter.

 “Amex definitely legitimizes it,” says Rakesh Agrawal, a consultant on mobile payments and marketing. “They are a major player that has tens of millions of cardholders, and they are willing to spend on marketing.”

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Impatience at point-of-sale

Rakesh Agrawal

I was in Washington state last week with my friend Amy and her 2-year-old daughter, Sophie. We went to the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park so that Sophie could see her favorite animal (bears) in person for the first time.

At the end of the visit, we stopped in the gift shop and I found an adorable shirt for her. (With a bear, of course.)

I handed the shirt to the clerk and my credit card to Sophie to hand over.

The clerk was having trouble with the scanner. She tried repeatedly to get it to ring up. In that time, Sophie twice picked up my credit card and moved it closer to the clerk.

Although Sophie doesn’t understand retail technology, she does know when something is taking too long.

The experience also made me wonder whether kids will use cash as much as we did, when they are growing up accustomed to seeing their parents (and their parents’ friends) paying for so many things with plastic.

Even the exposure that many of us first had to money — cash that our parents gave us to pay for school lunches — has been replaced in many U.S. schools by prepaid systems.