Biometrics Consumers Economic Outlook

Payments Post #4: Glenbrook's May Roundup

Welcome to the May installment of Payments Post, where we’re highlighting the news that got Glenbrook talking. The common thread that emerged in May was the American consumer. We observed a burst of news highlighting technology reshaping how American consumers make purchases and verify their identity. At the same time, other articles underscored how American […]

Fast Payments

Payments Post #3: Glenbrook's April Roundup

Welcome back to Payments Post. Last month’s edition was all about banks; this month’s is about “paying by bank”. Or to be a bit more semantically precise, account-to-account (A2A) payments. We were particularly interested in Visa’s Visa+ initiative, iDEAL’s apparent pan-European future, and Plaid’s upcoming payouts product. Regular contributor Justin Pituch digs in this week […]

Fast Payments

Ready for U.S. Faster Payments 2.0?

Today’s U.S. faster payments market is not the one we envisioned. In market for five-plus years now, RTP® and Zelle® laid the foundation of faster payments in the country but, as with most new payment systems, challenges inhibit adoption. Volumes in both networks have grown but are not at the levels expected for a country […]

Tags: Real-time Payments

Fast Payments

Where are fast payments systems headed in the U.S.?

We are in the early stages of fast payments here in the U.S. Zelle and RTP are live and the FedNow Service is about to launch. In the near-term, I expect fast payments ecosystem stakeholders will stay hyper focused on simple yet critical enablers of connectivity and volume. For example, connectivity will depend on financial […]

Tags: Real-time Payments

Banking

Payments Post #2: Glenbrook's March Roundup

Surprise! We spent a lot of the past month thinking about banks. March confronted us with stumbling blocks for fintechs and their sponsor banks, a bank-led battle for the checkout page, and a clearer view of the path forward for U.S. fast payments. Let’s dive into it in this second edition of Payments Post, our […]

Fast Payments

Opportunities in U.S. Fast Payments

At Glenbrook, we believe that efficient and inclusive financial services are vital to economic growth. In support of this mission, we have worked on fast payments initiatives in 55 countries or regions to date. For example, we have developed principles for inclusive instant payments systems, contributed to the implementations of these systems, supported stakeholder convening […]

Tags: Real-time Payments

Banking Merchant Acquirers Risk & Fraud

Examining Risk and Resiliency in Banking Relationships (..and no, we’re not just talking about bank failures)

On Monday a few weeks back, a member of a client’s executive team gave me a call: “We really need to speed up the project to find another bank sponsor.” That was followed by a call from another client later that day: “We’ve been thinking about what it would take to form a relationship with […]

Tags: Chris Uriarte Fintech Risk Management

Fast Payments Risk & Fraud

Stakeholders Respond to Fraudsters’ Affinity for Instant Payments

A joint post by Joanna Wisniecka and Bethany May Rise in instant payments systems incites rise in fraud Instant payments systems (IPS) are proliferating globally, conferring benefits to economies and ultimately, end users. These systems are making digital payments faster, easily accessible, and in some countries, more affordable than other existing payments methods. As IPS […]

Tags: Real-time Payments Risk Management

Risk & Fraud

Taking Your Payments Risk Management Game to the Next Level

If you search our website, you will find some prior posts about Payments Risk Management.  When we launched our Risk Management Advanced Workshop back in 2019, I wrote about how people don’t like talking about risk – Why Talk About Risk in Payments – and why we need to anyway. Then we published a series […]

Tags: Risk Management

Glenbrook

Only Fools Rush In: A Thoughtful Approach to Embedding Financial Services

It is an undeniable trend that an increasing number of businesses are embedding financial services into their products. Those that have embarked on this journey often experience multiple benefits if the new services solve an existing problem for their customer base, but it requires taking a thoughtful and informed approach to avoid negative downstream complications.  […]

PaymentsPost

Payments Post #1: Glenbrook’s February Roundup

There are a lot of headlines in the payments world. Payments News is Glenbrook’s curated news feed of the headlines that matter most every day, but we’ll readily acknowledge that it can be a lot to digest. That’s why we’re introducing Payments Post, a month-end roundup of the news items that got us talking as […]

Tags: fis

BNPL

Will We See Ongoing Success of Buy Now Pay Later?

Buy now pay later (BNPL) has become a global phenomenon. The global BNPL market size was valued at USD 15.91 billion in 2020 with growth to 90.51 billion by 2029 (source 1). If BNPL isn’t in your market today, it will likely be soon.  Look at any major country and you can see or read […]

BNPL Open Banking Security

2023: A Big Year for Regulation in the US?

As we dive into the new year, we at Glenbrook reflect on the key themes and learnings within payments from 2022 and assess what we believe will emerge as key trends in 2023. My colleague Chris Uriarte recently shared his 8 Payments and Fintech trends for 2023 on LinkedIn, where he discussed fraud and embedded […]

Glenbrook Merchant Payments

Closing out 2022 by Looking Inward to Improve Our Remote Commerce Experience

At Glenbrook, we live to help organizations solve payments problems. As we’re upgrading our website, we knew it was time to fix a few of our own. Below I share how we apply our expertise and methodology to solve a merchant’s (us!) payments problems.  The Context Glenbrook Partners is a payments strategy consulting firm. Headquartered […]

Payments Views

Decoupled Debit: How Fintechs Profited from Durbin

This Payments Views post was jointly authored by Neel Saunshi and Andrew Liang If you have followed the Durbin Amendment since its 2011 implementation, you have seen stakeholders adapt in different ways. Consumers saw their debit rewards programs disappear. Large financial institutions (banks and credit unions) added fees and shifted marketing to their credit card […]