Last week I was in Victoria, British Columbia doing one of our Glenbrook Payments Assessments. In anticipation of my trip to the North American Land of Chip andPIN, I had both a Visa and an Amex card reissued in the chip format. Neither of my issuers supported PINs on...
ApplePay, NFC, QR (Oh My!) and the New POS
First There is a Mountain, Then There is No Mountain, Then There is... I’ve been thinking about what the future of the point of sale environment will look like from a consumer perspective. Of course, 10 years ago, we all knew what it was going to look like: consumers...
Who’s a Better Fraud Investigator — You or Your Bank?
Last month, I invited everyone to participate in a survey about card fraud detection. It asked a simple question: "Who's better at card fraud detection? You or your bank?" The results are in and, well, it looks like it’s more or less a tie: cardholders initially...
MCX – Now I Get It!
In various venues — our Payments Bootcamp, our private client sessions or our merchant group meetings — we have talked a lot about MCX, the Merchant Customer Exchange initiative, created by a number of the largest US retailers to establish a merchant-centric wallet...
Who’s the Better Fraud Investigator Survey — What about Merchants?
Our Card Fraud survey is still open — we’re trying to answer the question of who first detects card fraud: cardholders or their banks? The survey can be found here. I’ve received a couple of comments suggesting I left out an important fraud detector in the survey:...
Who’s a Better Fraud Investigator — You or Your Bank?
We often get interesting questions about payments, and the latest one stumped us: "How many credit and debit fraudulent uses are first detected by the bank? By the customer?" We don't know the answer to that one or of any good source for this data so we thought...
It’s Not About Payments
I just attended NACHA’s Council for Electronic Billing and Payments and I've come away with an even firmer opinion that this payments business I’m in isn't about payments. It’s about data. A retail payment transaction has the potential to throw off a lot of valuable...
What’s Your GPA?
As a biller or merchant, you are vitally concerned about your payments “back office”, that set of core functions involved with accepting consumer payments. Whether you are in Treasury or Technology, if you are concerned with payments, you are asking yourself, every...
Merchants and Billers: Leverage = Options x Time!
Every three years or so, merchants and billers have an opportunity to reconsider their card processing agreements with their acquirers. This is an opportunity to negotiate lower rates — especially if business is booming – and also the time that a merchant or biller...
Payments Brews: Crowdfunding the Brewery
Meet Brad and Bruce Budge, co-owners of Budge Brothers Brewing, a craft beer start-up here in Spokane, Washington. They make great beer and are challenged to expand their facilities to support increasing demand for their product. As 20-somethings, they aren't...