Glenbrook Payments Views Russ Jones

Payment Rails and Other Tales

In Glenbrook’s Payments Boot Camp™, we are always talking about payments systems – how they work, how they evolved, who uses them, who provides them, who profits from them, and how they are changing. So I was a little surprised when one of the participants approached me recently at break and asked if we would […]

Cici Northup Cross-border Payments Global Payments Mobile Money

Lowering the Cost of Remittance - the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

There was an estimated $55b billion in cross-border remittances in 2015. But how much of that, per transaction, arrived in the wallet of the intended recipient? Unfortunately, not as much as many of us would hope. The cost of remittances is quite high with the average cost worldwide nearing 8% in 2015. And in some […]

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Demystifying India’s Digital Payment Infrastructure

There is a growing curiosity about India’s payments systems. These systems, and their role in the “India stack”, have been the subject of many articles speculating their importance in shaping India’s future. Despite this attention, there is still considerable confusion about what these initiatives are, and how they interact with each other. This led me […]

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Payments in Real Time

As the U.S. payments industry is preparing to enter another exciting phase as immediate funds transfer options come online, I’m thinking back to my interaction in the Fall of 2013 with the inquisitive team at Planet Money. Perplexed about why it took so long for the monies from their Kickstarter fundraising campaign to make the […]

Card Fraud Chris Uriarte ECommerce Ecommerce Payments

Guaranteed Fraud Prevention Solutions:  Maybe Some Things in Life Are Guaranteed?

I’ve had the pleasure of working in the e-commerce fraud prevention space since the late nineties and, just as e-commerce has significantly evolved over the better part of two decades, the way merchants battle fraud has changed substantially.  Fraudsters have kept merchants on their toes and the industry has responded. We now have a host […]

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What Blocks the Blockchain

Given the high rate of press releases and articles on fintech applications of blockchain technology – and the growing number of financial institutions expressing interest in its potential – I’ve been considering this high signal to noise ratio. A few thoughts: Hype cycle inflection point We are, hopefully, cresting the top of the blockchain hype […]

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It’s About the Blockchain

We’ve been working with bitcoin at Glenbrook for a few years now, teaching about it in our boot camps, and holding one-day workshops on math-based currencies and blockchain technology. I have one conclusion. The focus of the evolution of digital money is shifting. Where that evolution will take us is still unknown. To borrow a […]

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My Half Life in Payments

Earlier this year, I was invited to keynote a conference in Sydney – something I always enjoy doing.  The conference sponsor wanted me to talk about disruptions, about how successful innovations in payments come into the world, and to provide a look inside Silicon Valley’s innovation culture.  I took the opportunity to do all of […]

Apple Card Fraud Card Payments Card Technology Chip Cards Credit Card Issuers EMV George Peabody Mobile Banking & Payments Mobile Payments PayPal Security

EMV - Necessary, Insufficient, and our Lasting PR Risk

We are just a month away from the October EMV liability shift and the transition is, to no one’s surprise, mostly incomplete. EMV credit card issuance is expected to be at just 50% by the end of this year. Point of sale hardware upgrades at major retailers may be in place but the long tail of SMB […]