Banking Industry Elizabeth McQuerry Fast Payments Global Payments Globalization Innovation

Glenbrook's Elizabeth McQuerry is IPFA CEO

This week, I began an important new assignment. I am now the CEO of the International Payments Framework Association (IPFA). If you haven’t yet heard of it, the IPFA provides rules, standards, operating procedures, and guidelines to improve cross-border payments. It’s now five years old and moving into the next, exciting, and supercharged phase of payments […]

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Now What? Immediate Funds Transfer in the U.S.

The Federal Reserve’s recent announcement that it would not build a new payment rail for processing faster payments created some disappointment for many who are unsatisfied with our country’s current payments system capabilities. In a welcome move, The Clearinghouse (TCH) has announced its intention to fill this void and build new real-time “rails”. There are, […]

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Considering Bitcoin as a Payment Network

Wikipedia says, “Bitcoin is a software-based online payment system.” But what sort of payment system is it? We get this question all the time when we talk about Bitcoin in our workshops. At Glenbrook we like to start each Payments Boot Camp talking about payments systems fundamentals and the common attributes that can be used […]

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Report from Sibos 2014

Time is a vacuum at Sibos. It’s a great time to catch up with old friends and meet new colleagues.  The exhibition floor is overwhelming, even now after banks have scaled back their presence at events like these.  There is a plethora of panels on a broad range of topics to choose from. It’s a […]

Big Data Dennis Moser Merchants Point of Sale (POS) Security

Dennis Moser on Merchant Payments Complexity

Dennis Moser is Glenbrook’s payments systems expert.  He’s worked on building the engines that make payment networks run, especially the critical component of the POS and payment acceptance infrastructure.  He’s also been neck deep in payment data management systems, both as a designer and as a data mining practitioner. Dennis and I have worked together […]

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 […]

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 […]

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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 […]

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ATM Cash-outs, Security, and the Coming Authentication Battles

The arrest of eight in New York who participated in a global $45 million ATM cash-out attack revealed, once again, some hard truths about the cyber security posture of financial systems and the enterprises that operate essential payment infrastructure. First, the organization and sophistication of the attackers continues to improve.  These are global organizations peopled […]

Tags: fraud

Conferences & Meetings EMV George Peabody Mobile Technology Point of Sale (POS) Security Technology

EMV, Authentication and Bank Disintermediation in the U.S. Market: What’s a Bank To Do?

Merchants and terminals were a key focus at two major payments conferences this week:  NACHA and CARTES.  The issue of EMV in the U.S. and the high cost for merchants to replace their terminals was raised repeatedly. Estimates for the cost of replacement in the U.S. market vary widely: we’ve heard numbers from $2 billion […]

Card Networks Card Payments Contactless Google Wallet Loyalty Marketing & Offers Mobile Wallets Point of Sale (POS) Russ Jones Visa

The Rise of the Smart Transaction

When I was a baby consultant some twenty years ago, I remember standing in Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park (remember book stores?) thumbing through a paperback book called “The Rules of Marketing”. Rule #7 that said all successful markets will subdivide into submarkets as they grow over time. One of the examples cited was how […]

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

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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 […]

ACH Banking Industry Carol Coye Benson Fast Payments Financial Regulators NACHA

Bankers to NACHA: 1978 Is Modern Enough for Us!

The NACHA membership has reportedly turned down the concept of “Same Day ACH“. This was a request for comment, put out about a year ago by NACHA staff, to — get ready for this — not move the ACH to same day, but simply allow originating banks the option of submitting a same day batch […]

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Live Blogging Finovate Spring 2012 San Francisco

Good morning! Gearing up for the two-day typing marathon that is Finovate. We’re at a huge venue this year (same as last year, apparently – someone else from Glenbrook was here then), a cavernous exhibition hall that has plenty of room for the 1200+ attendees; I can remember when there were 250 attendees. Congrats to […]