Innovation Merchant Acquirers Scott Loftesness Square Visa

Yep, It's Hip to Be Square!

Some 17 months ago, I wrote a post here titled “It’s Hip to Be Square” following the launch of Jack Dorsey‘s then new company. At the time I wrote: Square seems to be aiming at democratizing merchant card acceptance for physical face-to-face card transactions – a heretofore arcane marketplace that required folks like you and […]

B2B B2B Payments Carol Coye Benson Commercial Payments Treasury & Cash Management

“Working the Connections” A Look at SunGard’s PayNetExchange

Glenbrook Partners Erin McCune and Carol Coye Benson are on a mission to discover if the long-awaited  “tipping point” in B2B payments, signaling a world in which electronic payments are the norm, has finally arrived.  In pursuit of this, we’ll be interviewing solution providers over the coming months – let us know if you’d like to talk […]

Card Acceptance Card Payments Card Technology Innovation Mobile Payments Mobile Technology Point of Sale (POS) Scott Loftesness

Bergeron's Rules for Mobile Payments

In a VeriFone press release today titled “VeriFone Says Merchant Buy-In Key to Success of Mobile Commerce“, VeriFone CEO Doug Bergeron outlined six “rules” that he said “industry participants need to adhere to in order to ensure success of mobile commerce.” Bergeron’s rules are a good start at what the payments industry needs to consider […]

Card Networks Credit Cards Debit Cards Interchange Point of Sale (POS) Regulatory Environment Russ Jones

POS Steering in the Age of Durbin

Point of sale (POS) steering isn’t really part of the payments industry dialogue right now as various stakeholders praise, argue, and criticize the proposed Federal Reserve rules on debit card interchange and network routing. But, I think it could be a big part of how things could unfold in the near future. Let’s start with […]

Card Fraud Card Payments Card Technology Chip Cards EMV

The Case for EMV Chip Cards in the US?

In one of my prior lives, I made the phone call that triggered what eventually became the industry standard for chip card deployment now known as EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa). That call was made almost 20 years ago. At the time, I was at Visa where we were spending a lot of energy on the development of […]

Apple Card Acceptance Card Payments Card Technology Google Checkout Innovation Mobile Payments Mobile Technology Point of Sale (POS) Scott Loftesness

A Bubble in Mobile Payments?

I’m sure you’ve seen it – there’s been so much “buzz” in the press over the last few weeks about mobile payments. Yet, in our partners’ meeting at Glenbrook earlier this week, I told my colleagues that if I knew of a way to short “mobile payments”, I’d be all over it. Follow along as […]

Card Acceptance Card Payments iPhone Merchant Acquirers Mobile Payments Square

Innovations in Card Acceptance

What Drives Innovation? More often than not, the successful innovations that surprise us come from disrupters who focus in a laser-like way on unserved market opportunities. In doing so, they are able to successfully fly below the radar of the incumbents (to use Christensen’s familiar terminology). The incumbents, after all, have a laser-like focus on […]

Banking Banking Industry Card Issuers Card Networks Card Payments Debit Cards Federal Reserve Financial Regulators Interchange Regulatory Environment

Thinking Through Moves and Countermoves on the Durbin Chessboard

After months of speculation and hand-wringing, last Friday we finally got a relatively complete reading on how the Federal Reserve will likely implement the prescribed regulation of debit interchange and debit network competition. My partner, Carol Benson, has also shared a summary of how various payment domains and players might be affected in the near […]

Card Issuers ECommerce Ecommerce Payments Mobile Payments Mobile Technology

The Commerce Context

Last week my partner Russ Jones and I were exploring some of new ideas in the mobile payments space when we came across the notion of the “Commerce Context” – defined as when you and I, as consumers, are in an environment (a context) that’s enabled for commerce. The last fifteen years of the eCommerce […]

Bryan Derman Conferences & Meetings Finance Finovate Innovation Technology

FinovateFall 2010: Day 2 / Session 2

Glenbrook’s Bryan Derman is live blogging from FinovateFall 2010. This is one of several posts; you can find an index to his coverage here. Seeking Alpha: Site has 3.5 MM unique monthly visitors — investors, bankers, high net worth individuals — accessing the filtered content on investments Now adding investment tools to the content — the […]

Bryan Derman Conferences & Meetings Finance Finovate Innovation Technology

FinovateFall 2010: Day 1 / Session 3

Glenbrook’s Bryan Derman is live blogging from FinovateFall 2010. This is one of several posts; you can find an index to his coverage here. Betterment: Dashboard for investment geared to simple review of portfolio value, overall return and asset allocation Money is automatically invested in simple set of ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds) based on the […]

Amazon Bill Payment & Presentment Cash Payments ECommerce Ecommerce Payments Erin McCune Mobile Banking & Payments

PayNearMe Refreshes Kombini Payments For The US

You are a bona fide payments professional if that headline makes senses to you. For everyone else, here’s an explanation. Kombini Payments Before we take a look at PayNearMe, let’s first explore how Kombini payments work. Kombini (variously spelled Konbini, Kombini, or Combini) or convenience store payments are an important element of the Japanese payment […]

Carol Coye Benson Contactless Credit Card Issuers ISOs Mobile Banking & Payments Point of Sale (POS) Research Round Up Technology

Survey Results: U.S. Market Contactless Terminal Penetration

Last week we asked readers to help us capture a snapshot of U.S. market contactless/RFID terminalization. We were pleased to get 43 brave souls to respond. Here are the (admittedly anything but scientific) results:

Card Payments Innovation Merchant Acquirers

The Card Payments Ecosystem - and Fragmentation

In a post titled “Great since day one“, Marco Arment blogs about what makes the iPhone different – in essence he writes that Apple makes products that are great today. Android isn’t. Reading his post brought to mind the fragmented nature of the card payments ecosystem that we live in – and how it’s so […]

Banking Banking Industry Bryan Derman Card Payments Debit Cards Financial Regulators Interchange Regulatory Environment

Getting Real About Durbin

I’ve been amazed by what I’ve been reading of late from the “analyst” firms commenting on the Durbin Amendment. A lot of what I’ve seen makes me wonder whether these folks should turn in their analyst licenses and simply register as paid lobbyists for their big bank clientele. (The Durbin amendment, for those not in […]