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 Kavita Jiandani Merchants Payments Views

Merchant Payment Operations: Partner Performance

Continuing on our theme of Assessing a Merchant’s Payments Operations, in this post let’s focus on the critical aspect of Partner Performance. The goal here is to gauge if the merchant’s payment providers are good partners. Having the right set of payments processing partners is a critical factor that can take a merchant’s payments operations […]

Drew Edmond Glenbrook Merchants Payments Views

Merchant Payments Operations: Reporting and Analytics

In Kavita Jiandani’s post Assessing a Merchant’s Payments Operations, she introduced Glenbrook’s methodology for our in-depth assessment of a merchant’s payments operations. In her introductory piece, Kavita highlights the major Key Assessment Areas we evaluate during each engagement. In this Payments Views entry, I continue with a focus on one of the Key Assessment Areas: […]

Glenbrook Regulation Sam Levitt

The Truth About Surcharging

Glenbrook’s Cici Northup and Sam Levitt co-authored this Payments Views post. You have likely observed an increase in the number of articles about surcharging. These articles show that the practice is on the rise and often tout significant benefits for merchants: “Fortunately for businesses operating in the U.S., surcharging is becoming more widely accepted” “Credit […]

Glenbrook Kavita Jiandani Payments Views

Assessing a Merchant's Payments Operations

I am often asked if Glenbrook Partners is a payments education company, and if I teach. My answer to both is yes. Our education programs are designed to give attendees a stronger payments foundation on which to build and refine their corporate strategies, product development efforts, and operational functions. We’re also very much a payments […]

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 […]

Glenbrook

The Apple Card May Not be Revolutionary—But It Offers a Thoughtful Bundle of Features and a Glimpse into the Post-Card Era

Apple’s March 25th keynote event announced forthcoming offerings to further build out Apple’s Services line—video media streaming, print media subscriptions, gaming, and more. Most interesting to us at Glenbrook (surprise!) was Apple’s co-branded credit card launched in partnership with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard. The Apple Card, to be released in the summer, integrates consumer controls, […]

Payments Views

Challenging the Challenger Banks

Fintech startups have begun a phenomenon some call the “unbundling of financial services” through standalone products such as unsecured consumer loans, credit cards, checking and savings accounts, or personal financial management tools. A cohort of entities known as “challenger banks” or “neo-banks” have also entered the market in an attempt to take on digital banking […]

Subscription Management

To Subscribe or Not to Subscribe

After yet another data breach, I was recently told by a subscription-based publisher that my payment credentials held on file may be compromised. I took the necessary precautionary measures (e.g. retire previous payment credentials, establish new ones, etc.). During this process, I also decided to do a quick personal audit to answer the question: Where […]

Regulation

Madness in Marijuana Payments - Part 2

Since my April 2018 post, there’s been a lot of activity in the “land of weed.” Multiple countries and U.S. states have moved toward legalization. Major non-cannabis industries are investing heavily in cannabis related products and cannabis-based companies. With U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions out, his strict stance against marijuana perhaps no longer holding, many are […]

Glenbrook Payments Views

5 Payments Challenges Facing Nonprofits

Tax Day has come and gone, and Americans have filed our returns and many of us even took the time to itemize our charitable contributions. According to the IRS, these contributions totaled over $390B in 2016 – a new record year of giving. While the rise in giving is welcome news, nonprofits also have to […]

Card Payments Card Technology iPhone Merchants Mobile Payments PayPal Russ Jones

Brands Blur as Digital Payments Flourish

Remember the good old days? You carried a Visa card and you could use it anywhere Visa was accepted. Visa logo on the front of the card; Visa acceptance mark on the merchant’s window. To the cardholder, it was a Visa transaction; to the merchant it was a Visa transaction. No confusion. PayPal broke that […]

Amazon Amazon Payments B2B Big Data Card Payments ECommerce Ecommerce Payments Merchants Prepaid Russ Jones

Is Amazon Best-in-Class for Online Payments?

Amazon.com is in the news all the time with its continued expansion of markets and fulfillment centers, its focus on innovation and long term R&D, and, recently, some very non-intuitive acquisitions. It’s easy to get swept up in their story. But when a company gets as big and powerful as Amazon has become, it’s helpful […]

Card Acceptance Card Issuers Card Networks Card Payments Card Technology Contactless EMV George Peabody Mobile Payments NFC

EMV's First Phase in the US at an End; the Wait for Phase 2 Begins

Despite our industry’s preoccupation with mobile payments, here at Glenbrook we’ve been keeping a sharp eye on the state of the U.S. EMV® migration. Let’s call the U.S. approach, based on contact EMV only with no PINs on our credit cards, EMV Phase 1. That’s where we are today. While EMV technology has been settled […]

Carol Coye Benson Ecommerce Payments Fast Payments Financial Inclusion Government Payments Innovation Interoperability Micropayments Mobile Banking & Payments Mobile Money Mobile Wallets Women Professionals

Two Remarkable Women - And the Mobile Payments Systems They Have Built

I had the good fortune last week to be part of the Glenbrook team attending the FinTechStage Inclusion Forum in Jakarta. Happily, among the attendees were two women I have known for several years: Maha Bahou of the Central Bank of Jordan and Carolina Trivelli of Pagos Digitales Peruanos. Peru and Jordan are two of […]