Despite decades of payment industry efforts, businesses have remained stubbornly dependent on checks. Back office processes (and personnel) can be remarkably change resistant despite being mired in paper, regardless of the size of the business. At Glenbrook we...
Dispatch from the 2020 U.S. Women in Payments Symposium, February 10-11, 2020
This Women in Payments event has been going on for at least 5 years and this was the first time I attended -- I regret that it took so long! Hats off to Kristy Duncan and her team for putting together a substantive event with a refreshing mix of industry insight and...
The eGovernment – ePayment Conundrum
The interdependence of eGovernment and government ePayments is yet another classic payment chicken and egg challenge. As we work with governments to build their electronic payment strategies we sometimes need to temper their expectations given this all-too-familiar...
The Global Struggle of Government Payments
Over the last year, I’ve been focused on government payments – a compelling mashup of traditional bill pay and multi-channel retail requirements against an intriguing backdrop of policy, economic, and political interactions. Although many countries have made solid...
Sympathy for the Biller – the Unsung Masters of Payments Complexity
At Glenbrook we take pride in, and place great importance on, our historical focus on end users: consumers, enterprises and small businesses that make and receive payments. Recently, we’ve been working with and thinking about billers – the unsung masters of payments...
Mobile Payment Unintended Consequences (or How I Locked Myself Out of the House, Again)
I am writing this post sitting on the front steps of our house in San Francisco. I have locked myself out three times recently, more than I have in the past three decades. Is it dementia? No, I blame mobile payments. Last summer I bought a case for my iPhone that had...
Back from the Future: Bitcoin2014 Musings
Last week I was in Amsterdam for the second annual conference hosted by the The Bitcoin Foundation. As a strategist and advocate for ever-better payment solutions, I was very curious to learn how the Bitcoin protocol and its emerging enablers can address some of the...
There Is No Such Thing As An International Wire
As globalization increases, businesses of all sizes buy goods and services from overseas suppliers and turn to new customers in overseas markets to drive growth. As a result, the demand for cross-border transactions steadily increases. The vast majority of these...
Money2020: Impressions & Observations
I’ve nearly recovered from the payments overload that was Money2020 last week in Las Vegas – it was initially exhilarating, then incredibly exhausting, but I had a fantastic time. Here’s my admittedly subjective take based on having attended only two sessions (one of...
How many payments professionals does it take to hire a bike? Three! (A story of Chip & PIN)
Bicycles are my preferred form of transportation so I was eager to explore London using the Barclay’s-sponsored bike share program. Unfortunately, you need a Chip & PIN card to rent a bike using the automated stands and all I have are U.S. issued mag stripe cards....