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 […]

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Plaid - A Modern API for Card Data

Our work in payment data cuts across many areas. Who has what data? How is it best monetized? How can it be put to use for better decision making? How can it be augmented and enhanced. It’s in this last area of “enhancements” that we’ve become fascinated with a new startup company called Plaid. They […]

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EMV, Data Breaches, HCE and the Pace of Change in Payments

One of the pleasures of joining Glenbrook has been getting to know what and how the other Glebrookers think about what’s happening in the payments industry.  We talk a lot at Glenbrook. Over iChat, email, mobile phones, Skype, Google Hangout with voice and video, through Google Docs, and whenever we meet up for client work […]

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Is the Target Breach the Chernobyl of Payments?

Chernobyl is certainly at the top of the list of man-made disasters.  In light of recent events, I’ve been thinking that the Target breach has become the Chernobyl of the payments world. As a group, we Americans never thought that much about payment security – we really didn’t have to.  We are protected by federal […]

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Dispatch from the Smart Card Alliance Payments Conference

For those companies and individuals most committed to building the EMV and NFC ecosystems, the place to be February 3rd through 7th was Salt Lake City where the Smart Card Alliance hosted both an EMV Migration Forum meeting and its annual Payments Summit.  Over 525 people attended, representing the chip industry, payment processors, card brands, […]

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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 […]

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The Biggest Mobile Payments Story You’ve Never Heard

As we move into 2014 – yet (again) the year when many say mobile payments are destined to gain traction – let’s look at some key developments in the space. No, I’m not talking about the newest pilot participant in ISIS or whether Apple will be the new sheriff in town. Instead, let’s look to […]

Authentication Card Fraud George Peabody Point of Sale (POS) Security Technology

The Age of Context and Security

The news from Target, increasing the number of cards compromised to 70 million and the expansion of data loss to mailing and email addresses, phone numbers, and names, affirms that we’re in a security crisis.  As my colleague Scott Loftesness puts it, card data is, from a brand and business perspective, the new radioactive material.  […]

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Payments Regulation in the United States is Hampering Innovation (Really?)

A great friend of Glenbrook’s is Broox Peterson, formerly Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel at Visa International and currently in private practice. Earlier we posted his article So You Want to Start a Payments Company? which has helped many entrepreneurs and investors understand the considerations involved in payments-related businesses. In this new article, […]

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

Merchants Mobile Payments Mobile Technology Mobile Wallets PayPal Russ Jones

The Mobile Wallet Wars of 2014

Our clients are starting to ask us who we think is going to win the mobile wallet war in 2014. Questions like: What’s happening with the Isis rollout? What’s the next likely step in the evolution of the Google Wallet? Is PayPal’s In-Store initiative getting any consumer adoption? All of these questions are predicated on […]

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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 […]

Micropayments Russ Jones

Aggregation and Aggravation - Micropayments 2013

Micropayments is a problem that has never been solved in the payments industry. While there are various merchant-specific solutions for selling low-cost goods, the broader opportunity –– to pervasively enable micropayments –– continues to intrigue the payments industry. Why do micropayments endure as such a challenge in payments? The problem has been the same for […]

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Bitcoin George Peabody

Bitcoin’s Growth Not Without Pains

At a mostly excellent Inside Bitcoins conference last week in NYC, the major features and flaws of the Bitcoin experiment were on full display. Starting with the keynote of BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem to some excellent panels featuring thoughtful and experienced participants, the conference offered ample evidence of the potential for Bitcoin and other math-based […]

Bitcoin George Peabody Merchants

Bitcoin, Merchant Risk, and the Need for Speed

Bitcoin’s volatility continues to swing with the mood of investors, speculators, and the economic travails of countries like Argentina where Bitcoin usage is up sharply as concerns over the peso rise. The btc currency has swung between $70 and $100 since its astonishing mid-April high of $230. In other words, if you’re a bitcoin holder, […]