If you’ve been following along, you know that I’m just back from a week in Europe.
Before heading over, I took the extra precaution of calling a couple of my card issuers to let them know I was going to be traveling – in the hopes that my primary debit and credit cards would continue to function over there! (They did!)
But, in thinking about this a bit more, why couldn’t I just inform them about my location in real-time from my iPhone? Why should I have to call them, wasting both my time and theirs – to provide that update – which, frankly, may or may not be helpful to them – or me.
Envision the alternative scenario – my flight lands in Frankfurt. I power up the iPhone and click on my pseudo-FourSquare app that informs the card issuers I care about where I am – using the geolocation information in the phone (suitably “fuzzed up a bit” to provide a bit of personal privacy protection). They update their risk management systems to include this new location awareness metadata – and my cards will work hassle free.
Extending this mobile app a bit more, perhaps it also informs me of other useful things – such as remembering when my cards are due to expire and helping me manage and update subscription relationships, etc.
Scott is a founder of Glenbrook with more than 30 years of experience in information technology. He is a co-author of the book “Payments Systems in the U.S.” and a co-inventor of US Patent 6,332,126 and US Patent 7,840,459. At Glenbrook, Scott focused his work on payments innovation, mobile payments, and social media / Web 2.0 in banking and financial services.
Previously, Scott was group executive vice president at First Data Merchant Services and at Visa International, where he led the development of Visa’s global payment systems strategies. Scott began his career as a systems engineer with IBM, where he held a series of technical management and product planning positions over seventeen years. Scott formally retired from Glenbrook in October 2016, but remains important to the firm as both a friend and advisor.