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• Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2018 (Revised January 2020)

  Apple Pay and Mobile Payments in Australia (A)

  Feng Zhu, Susan Athey and David Lane

  In summer 2016, four of Australia’s top five banks petitioned regulators for permission to bargain collectively with Apple over the terms under which they would support its digital wallet, Apple Pay. They argued that doing so would force concessions from Apple that would improve market competitiveness, consumer choice, price transparency, and transaction security for all mobile payments in Australia. The banks stood to benefit as well. If they succeeded in their primary aim of opening the contactless payment functionality of Apple’s devices to their own digital wallets—something Apple had thus far refused in any market it had entered—the banks could retain customer relationships that Apple Pay threatened to usurp and limit Apple’s free-riding on the contactless payment infrastructure the banks had just spent several years building.

  Keywords: payment methods; mobile payment; digital platforms; Apple; Banks and Banking; Cooperation; Problems and Challenges; Policy; Banking Industry; Australia;

  Citation:

  Zhu, Feng, Susan Athey, and David Lane. "Apple Pay and Mobile Payments in Australia (A)." Harvard Business School Case 619-010, September 2018. (Revised January 2020.)  View Details

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• Supplement | HBS Case Collection | September 2018 (Revised January 2020)

  Apple Pay and Mobile Payments in Australia (B)

  Feng Zhu, Susan Athey and David Lane

  Supplements the (A) case.

  Keywords: payment methods; mobile payment; digital platforms; Apple; Banks and Banking; Cooperation; Problems and Challenges; Policy; Banking Industry; Australia;

  Citation:

  Zhu, Feng, Susan Athey, and David Lane. "Apple Pay and Mobile Payments in Australia (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 619-011, September 2018. (Revised January 2020.)  View Details

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• Teaching Note | HBS Case Collection | September 2016 (Revised January 2020)

  Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model

  Feng Zhu

  Fasten, a new ridesharing start-up in Boston, entered the scene in September 2015 hoping its unique vision of transparency for both driver and passenger and strategy to keep riders' fares low and charge drivers a flat $0.99 fee per ride, as opposed to the 20%–30% commission charged by its competition, would help differentiate it and gain the necessary traction in an ostensibly concentrated market between Uber and Lyft. Despite both Uber's and Lyft's valuations skyrocketing to $50 billion and $5.5 billion respectively, heavy investment in top-notch Silicon Valley software developers and technological innovations such as autonomous vehicles, aggressive marketing strategies, and cutthroat poaching practices—all of which forced number three competitor Sidecar out by January 2016—Fasten's leadership felt confident that their 17 years of experience in Russia's car services industry positioned them well to truly understand their customers and ultimately expand to other major cities. But with limited budgets to acquire talented and expensive platform developers, Fasten needed to ensure its core IT services could compete and that its word-of-mouth approach to attract the essential network of drivers and passengers could get it the vital foothold it would need to grow.

  Keywords: Information Technology; Transportation; Business Startups; Business Model; Transportation Industry; Boston;

  Citation:

  Zhu, Feng. "Fasten: Challenging Uber and Lyft with a New Business Model." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 617-019, September 2016. (Revised January 2020.)  View Details

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