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, […]

George Peabody Mobile Payments Mobile Wallets PayPal Square

Mobile Payments Are Taking Off—On a Long Runway

Just before the 4th of July holiday, Felix Salmon, finance blogger at Reuters, wrote an insightful piece, sharply critical of mobile payments and the long anticipated ability of our clever smartphones and wireless communications to improve upon a simple plastic payment card. It’s hard to argue with much of his critique. Salmon’s piece set off […]

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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 […]

Brazil Elizabeth McQuerry Global Payments Mobile Payments Regulatory Environment

The Bill from Ipanema: A Foundation for Brazilian Mobile Payments

I’m just back from a trip to Brazil and while I was there, the government introduced long-awaited legislation on mobile payments.  This is an important task as Brazil now has 265 million mobile subscribers  – more than 1 per inhabitant. Needless to say, the machinations of politics kicked off immediately and there will undoubtedly be […]

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 […]

Change Management Consulting Erin McCune Management Payables Receivables

Sharp Turn Ahead: Is your organization facing a payments inflection point?

Glenbrook is kicking off a new payments organization optimization project for a biller client. Each time we do one of these projects, our client – with some embarrassment – admits that they think they are the only ones facing payments challenges. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, the smooth-running, optimized payments organization […]

Glenbrook Jacqueline Chilton Management Payments Professionals Research Round Up

Annual Glenbrook Payments Survey: Tell Us About YOUR Payments Organization

By Jacqueline Chilton We are conducting our third annual payments organization survey to learn how companies’ internal structures are evolving to manage the ever-increasing complexity of payments. We are eager to learn how your company manages payments, and how your payments organization is changing – whether you are a biller, eCommerce merchant, or retailer; whether you sell to consumers […]

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 […]

Big Data Dennis Moser ECommerce Innovation Technology

Machine Learning: A Road to Smarter Payments

I recently had the time and opportunity to bone up on machine learning.  The opportunity that presented itself was a 10-week on-line course taught by a well known Stanford Computer Science professor, Andrew Ng.  The course, offered by coursera.org included lectures, quizzes, and programming exercises. It was great. And it really got me thinking about […]

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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

Elizabeth McQuerry Mobile Banking & Payments Mobile Technology Point of Sale (POS) QR Codes

From Sweden with Love: Mobile Payments and QR Codes

As a social scientist by training, I’m fascinated with how ideas gain (or fail to gain) traction. In payments, there seems to a set of essential elements that are required for a new option to reach the level of traction. In no particular order, these elements include ease of use, ubiquity, security, and attractiveness. How […]

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 […]

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 […]

Banking Industry Financial Regulators Regulatory Environment

So You Want to Start a Payments Company?

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. In 2006, Broox wrote a very popular article that we shared on PaymentsNews.com. He’s just updated that article to reflect some changes – and we’re delighted to be able to share […]

Apple Mobile Commerce Mobile Payments Mobile Technology Mobile Wallets Scott Loftesness

My Take: Apple's New Passbook

This morning, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple introduced a slew of new Mac hardware, new Mac Mountain Lion software and, perhaps most importantly for us in the world of mobile and mobile payments, iOS6 – the next generation of mobile software for Apple’s iPhone and iPad families. Oh, by the way, […]