Bitcoin Conferences & Meetings Cross-border Payments Erin McCune Global Payments Math-based Currencies Micropayments Technology

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 most intractable challenges facing payments. For the most part, payments […]

B2B Payments Banking Cross-border Payments Erin McCune Foreign Exchange Global Payments

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 transactions takes place through correspondent banking relationships and collectively described as “international wires.” The reality […]

Bitcoin George Peabody Innovation Math-based Currencies Technology

Glenbrook Launches Insight Workshop Bitcoin: Basics and Beyond

Any reader of Payments Views knows that most of us at Glenbrook are impressed by the potential of math-based currencies (MBCs). And all of us agree that participants in the payments industry (in the broadest sense) need to understand Bitcoin and its crypto-currency relatives. Having seen so many Internet technologies grow from concept to first […]

ACH B2B Payments Banking Industry Carol Coye Benson Checking Accounts Fast Payments NACHA P2P PayPal

Same Day ACH – A Step (or Lurch) Ahead

NACHA recently announced plans for a phased introduction of same-day settlement for ACH.  I spoke with NACHA President and CEO Jan Estep this morning about the initiative. First of all, I congratulate Jan – and the ACH community – for picking up the fallen banner, for as we know, a previous version of this was […]

Banking Carol Coye Benson Fast Payments Uncategorized

A Deposit By Any Other Name?

What’s the difference between card acceptance and a deposit? In both cases, money is being delivered into a merchant’s bank account – in fact, a purist would point out that a deposit actually is the last stage of card acceptance for a merchant. But consider instead a different kind of deposit – something that is […]

Bitcoin Financial Regulators George Peabody Innovation Math-based Currencies

Bitcoin in 2014

Last year was, of course, the break out year for Bitcoin.  Incubating in geek-nurtured obscurity during its first few years, 2013 saw the international media, global investors, entrepreneurs, and even a few just plain citizens jump onto the math-based currency (fewer managed to actually purchase some bitcoin). The currency has since ballooned in value.  It […]

Card Payments Carol Coye Benson Payments Views

The State of Payments: 2014

What a year it has been! Twelve months ago, there were still people in our industry who didn’t know what Bitcoin was. There were still people who believed that EMV would roll out in the U.S. just like it did in the U.K. There were still people who thought that the developing world would build […]

Tags: state of payments

B2B Payments Bitcoin Conferences & Meetings Cross-border Payments Erin McCune Federal Reserve Globalization Marketing & Offers Math-based Currencies Mobile Wallets Technology

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 which I moderated) and stood in the back for only part of […]

B2B B2B Payments Commercial Payments Conferences & Meetings Erin McCune Payables Receivables

The Future of B2B Payments – And Suggestions on How We Might Get There

I am in London this morning, where I had an opportunity to present a vision for the future of business payments at Experian‘s Payments Strategy Conference 2013. Acknowledging that it is always dangerous to make predictions, this is what I envision for the future of B2B payments: Interoperability — I expect the future of business […]

B2B Payments Erin McCune Payables Treasury & Cash Management

Is AribaPay a Game Changer for B2B Payments? Maybe. For now we have more questions than answers.

Recently Ariba/SAP and Discover announced that they intend to “transform” commercial payments. AribaPay is either the most significant B2B payments news in decades or just one more courageous entrant into the discouraging battlefield of B2B payments networks. We’re optimistic, and encouraged to see two strong players enter the fray.  We hope they will tackle head-on […]

B2B Payments Banking Industry Card Issuers Card Networks Carol Coye Benson Innovation Mobile Payments

Think Big: What Could Change Our Industry

Here are some thoughts on big actions that industry incumbents could take to strengthen their positions and the U.S. payments industry. What do these ideas have in common? First of all, they are infrastructural or market-wide. Secondly, they all ask one or more incumbent constituencies to bite the bullet – and accept some reduction of […]

B2B Payments Commercial Payments Erin McCune Payables Start Ups

Dreams of Glory: Business Payments and Network Fantasies

At Glenbrook we talk about “network fantasies” a lot.  These are hopes that payments innovators, and incumbents, have about the so-called “network effect” in payments.  Many a payments start-up has sat in our conference room and predicted the flood of transactions that will come their way due to the network effect. The payments industry features […]

Carol Coye Benson Disruptive Innovation Fast Payments Financial Regulators Global Payments

Faster, Better, Cheaper - Like it or Not

A new wave of payment capabilities is hitting shores around the world. This wave is made up of better, faster, and cheaper “credit-push” systems.  That means that transactions enter the payments systems from the sender’s bank (like a wire transfer) rather than from the recipient’s bank (like a card or check).  Credit-push payments have a […]

Tags: credit-push push payments

Cross-border Payments ECommerce Elizabeth McQuerry Global Payments Web/Tech

Local Knowledge, Global Payments

Certainly one of the most daunting aspects of cross-border payments is the complexity inherent in the fact that different countries have different payment systems. Many payment systems require data specific to the local processing environment. Sort codes, IBANs (International Bank Account Number), SWIFT codes, and ISO country codes are prime examples of data not typically […]

Banking Bill Payment & Presentment Card Technology Carol Coye Benson Cross-border Payments Innovation Mobile Banking & Payments Mobile Commerce Mobile Wallets P2P Prepaid Technology What's New

The State of Payments – U.S. Market 2012

It’s hard to believe that the end of 2012 is in sight – and it’s almost equally hard to believe that three years ago, a few of us at Glenbrook were thinking, “gee – all the exciting stuff in payments has already happened”. Yet we don’t think we’ve ever seen so much action in the […]