Cross-border Payments Financial Inclusion Global Payments

Decoding a cross-border business payment to Rwanda: detailing the journey, the costs, and our observations

By Elizabeth McQuerry, Cici Northup, & Victor Malu   Introduction Glenbrook is based in the U.S., but we work on projects around the world; our global practice often supports clients in emerging markets. From time to time, for more formal proposal processes, we are asked to provide a corresponding bid security. For anyone not familiar […]

Financial Inclusion Identity Merchants Technology

Could Amazon’s Just Walk Out Technology Address the Scourge of ‘Shoplifting’?

I read with some sadness last week about Target’s decision to close nine of its stores in the New York, Portland (OR), San Francisco/Oakland, and Seattle markets due to what it called not “shoplifting”, but “theft and organized retail crime”. The closures will be abrupt (effective October 21) and the company cited both the financial […]

Cross-border Payments Global Payments PaymentsPost

Payments Post #7: Glenbrook's September Roundup - Sibos, India, and a Connected Future

This month, Payments Post is going global. We’ll jump to Canada as we explore themes from Sibos and then to India to take a look at a leader in next-generation national payment schemes. We’re joined by Cici Northup, Associate Partner in our Global practice, alongside our usual curator Justin Pituch. Sibos highlights global payment aspirations […]

Tags: Fintech

Financial Inclusion Government Payments

Making Digital Access Work in eGovernment Payments: Principles of Pro-Poor Design

Time to Read: 7 minutes Highlights: Design for low-income citizens is essential for successful eGovernment services Glenbrook has identified pro-poor implementation success factors: channel selection, payment methods, fee structure, and education Goal centered design brings the considerable benefits of eGovernment to all citizens Expanding eGovernment Services to the Poor eGovernment, which includes both online service […]

Financial Inclusion

The True Cost of Being Underbanked

Highlights It’s expensive to be a low income American, driven in part by the high cost of financial services available to such consumers. In this post, we break down where cost comes from, and how fintechs are changing the way working class Americans are able to access affordable financial products. Fintechs have an opportunity to […]

Financial Inclusion

Raising Women’s Financial Inclusion in South Asia

Zak Kazzaz co-authored this post. Time to Read: 7 minutes Highlights: There is a set of high payoff steps necessary to increase financial inclusion of women in South Asia and other markets Collaboration across the stakeholder ecosystem accelerates female participation in financial services Glenbrook’s framework is an approach to evaluation and roadmapping     As […]

Financial Inclusion

Where is Financial Inclusion in the U.S. Today?

At Glenbrook, international financial inclusion work has long been a major focus area. Given the challenges racial equity concerns raises for the U.S., Glenbrook as a firm has returned our focus to financial inclusion here at home. To begin that examination, we look at the state of financial inclusion in the US and what are […]

Cash Payments CDBC Justin Pituch

Will Digital Cash Be the New King of Payments?

  First of a series on Central Bank Digital Currencies Central banks around the world are in the process of developing digital cash, commonly known as central bank digital currency, or CBDC. At Glenbrook, we’re kicking off a series of Payments Views posts that explain CBDC and its implications for various aspects of the payments […]

Glenbrook Nicole Pinto Payments Views

COVID-19 and the Income Domain

The Income Domain consists of payments to individuals for salary, benefits, rebates, and expense reimbursements. In the U.S., these payments are made primarily via direct deposit through NACHA’s ACH system, and to a lesser extent, paper checks and payroll cards. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread business shutdown, and as a result, caused mass […]

Carol Coye Benson Glenbrook Payments Views

Celebrate and Congratulate Carol Benson

Carol Benson, one of my fellow founders of Glenbrook Partners, is retiring at the end of June, following our other founder, Scott Loftesness, who retired four years ago. It seems like only a few years ago (certainly less than 20) that the entire company fit in one car with room for my dog sharing the […]

Glenbrook Payments Views

Point of Sale Domain - The Pain at the POS

The POS Domain is Synonymous with the Retail Industry The POS Commerce domain is the land of brick and mortar retail, representing the majority of retail activity. Despite the steady double digit annual growth of the Remote Commerce domain, the POS Commerce domain was responsible for  some 84% of retail sales in 2019. That said, […]

Glenbrook Global Payments Zak Kazzaz

Regulatory Analysis of KYC for Covid-19 in Emerging Markets

Download a PDF version of this document here. Read our introductory discussion here. Regulatory Background The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) sets global standards for combating money laundering (ML) and the financing of terrorism (TF) and proliferation. While its recommendations are not binding, they are broadly accepted by regulators as guidelines for national rules.  FATF […]

Global Payments Regulation Zak Kazzaz

UPDATED: Balancing KYC Regulation and COVID-19 Relief in Emerging Markets

Download the PDF of our Regulatory Analysis of KYC for Covid-19 in Emerging Markets or read the web version. Among today’s most pressing questions for emerging market governments is how to get assistance funds into the hands of those who need it given the COVID-19 crisis. This need is especially acute in emerging markets that lack […]

Glenbrook

Prepaid Power and Financial Inclusion at Fintech South

Georgia is a nexus of global payment processing and merchant acquiring activity. Some two-thirds of all U.S. purchase volume is processed there. That’s a lot of debit and credit card transactions. But what are those same companies doing to improve payments for the underbanked? That combination of payments technology and financial inclusion concerns was the […]

Bitcoin Carol Coye Benson Glenbrook Payments Views

A Dollar by Any Other Name: Thoughts on Digital Fiat Currency

What are central banks – and governments – going to do about cryptocurrencies? I was in New York last week to better understand what central bankers are thinking about – and doing – with respect to “Digital Fiat Currency”. The workshop was part of an ITU Focus Group Program on “Standardizing Digital Fiat Currency and […]