Okay, how much time do I have?
Evidence of meeting #22 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was debit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #22 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was debit.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
My question is for Mr. Maduri at BlackBerry.
As parliamentarians if we lose our phones we have a great IT department here and they can send what they term a kill pill to our phones to ensure that none of the data gets into the wrong hands. So for a consumer who loses their smartphone, their BlackBerry, that's equipped with a mobile wallet, is there something similar that they can trigger to erase or wipe personal information from their smartphones? If so, is there a cost to this for consumers?
3:55 p.m.
Senior Director, Product Management, Mobile Payments, BlackBerry
There's no cost to the consumer and there is.... In fact, that's a service that we're launching through EnStream. So for EnStream, which is a joint venture consisting of Bell, Rogers, and Telus, we actually operate that platform. That will allow you to number one, have your card provisioned securely whether it's an Interac debit card or a credit card over the air into any device, not just a BlackBerry, and thereafter manage the entire life cycle including the example you just gave.
So that's an example of us actually taking what we're really good at, managing devices, but managing payment credentials on a device securely. The only thing that's different, but not really if you follow our company lately, is that we've taken that from just being a BlackBerry device to any type of device. It's no different from BBM going to other types of devices and our enterprise server being able to manage any other type of device. So the answer is yes, and Canada is our first deployment.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you, Mr. Thibeault.
EnStream did present, Mr. Maduri, to the committee earlier on the study.
We'll go to Mr. Saxton for your five-minute round please.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you, Chair, and thanks to our witnesses for being here today.
My first question is for Ms. ter Haar at Flow Inc.
I liked what you had to say in your opening statement but I still don't fully understand what Flow Inc. does. Can you give us an example of a transaction to help us understand it?
3:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Flow Inc.
Yes. I'll also be giving a demo after the official meeting so that you can actually see how it works and what happens.
It really sits at the intersection of mobile payments, a marketplace, and a loyalty and rewards system. If you're looking for a washing machine, you would search “washing machine”—you would just say that—and you would see all the different merchants who have different types of offers presented that are matched with a loyalty reward. You could purchase a washing machine at Lowe's and earn 300 Flow reward dollars, which you could then spend, dollar for dollar, at any other Flow merchant.
You could pay with that application right then and there for the washing machine and have it delivered to your house, or pick it up in-store. You would be notified as to whether the washing machine was ready, or you could even just scan the bar code at the store and make the mobile payment there.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
So would we go, then, to a Flow website in order to search for those washing machines?
4 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Flow Inc.
You would download the Flow app. It's a mobile application on your smart phone.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Is it sort of like Expedia, but for goods rather than for travel services?
4 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Flow Inc.
Yes; it's a combination. You can conceive of it as a combination between PayPal, eBay, and Google, all mixed into one.
4 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Flow Inc.
It has a marketplace, payment, and search functionality.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
I look forward to your presentation. Thank you.
This next question is for Blackberry.
We're all familiar with BBM; but BBM money, how will that work?
4 p.m.
Senior Director, Product Management, Mobile Payments, BlackBerry
The way it works is that essentially—we're not involved in the financial transaction directly, so we don't want to get into a regulated industry—we're leveraging that channel as a method to initiate the transfer. Indonesia is where we launched it first. I think last week one of our presidents mentioned that we'll be expanding that globally.
Let's say you're in a conversation with your child at university, you ask how it's going, and they say, “I'm okay, but I ran out of money.” Instead of having to log out, go to your banking application, and send them a message, you could actually do it from the messaging application. The idea is that if you use BBM—and now that it works on iPhone, Android, and Windows, it's not limited—your child could be on an iPhone, you could be on an Android device, and you could be speaking back and forth.
So if your child says, “Hey, Mom, can you send me some money?”, you could click on the menu and see an option. Instead of sending a picture or sending an emoticon, you could actually send money. It would reach into your account—in the case of Indonesia, it's PermataBank—get the amount of funds, enter a pin code, and then send it to your child. They would get a confirmation that they'd received the money, and they could reply back, “Thank you”.
The idea is that we're trying to keep this concept of keeping the flowing going—no pun there—instead of your perhaps saying you'll do something, leaving the conversation, and then, chances are, forgetting to do it. We're trying to do it “in-band”, as we call it, rather than “out of band”.
So we're going to take that concept.... I can't really comment on it, but it's doing well enough that we want to expand it. We're seeing people use that person to person, friend to friend—i.e.,“Let's split the bill”—and also consumer to business. As a small-business person, you might want to pay your bill that way. Or maybe you went to a yoga instructor and they don't accept cheques or cash; you could actually BBM them money.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
It sounds to me like it's an e-transfer, similar to Interac.
4 p.m.
Senior Director, Product Management, Mobile Payments, BlackBerry
Yes. In fact we're working with a number of financial institutions that are using email or using Facebook, and now they're going to deploy it on the same service, as an option, on BBM. We could work with Interac and you could do an e-transfer, but instead of email, through BBM.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Okay, got it.
Finally, to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, more and more people are using their smartphones for financial transactions. What can we do as a government to help ensure the security of these users?
4 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
Thank you.
I think in large part the framework is already in place. These devices are really just replicating the contactless functionality of the credit cards. In many ways they're actually more secure than the cards. So in large part, the framework that's already there is strong enough.
From a wireless standpoint, the wireless community has no insight into what's going on. It's just a flow-through kind of relationship.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
It's similar in risk to a physical plastic credit card. That's what you're saying.
4 p.m.
Director, Regulatory Affairs, Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association
Yes, and actually in a number of cases reduced risk, because you can require.... Instead of just putting the card near the terminal, the person might have to actually enter in a code on their phone. Similarly, you send the credential remotely to the phone. The card doesn't sit in someone's mailbox for a couple of days, that kind of thing.
4 p.m.
Conservative