Glenbrook launched this Payments Views blog back in February as a place to debate and discuss the Payments News of the day. We’re thrilled with your participation in the comments and pleased with the steadily climbing traffic. Looking back over the past year, seven popular topics and recurring themes stand out:
PayPal
The two most popular posts on Payments Views in 2009 are about PayPal. The #1 post is a summary of the PayPal discussion during the eBay Analyst Day back in April. A close second, is Russ Jones’ post describing PayPal’s Adaptive Payments Platform in July.
Mobile
Payment professionals can’t get enough of mobile banking and payments. Carol Coye Benson’s series of interviews with mobile payment providers in the US and Canada was wildly popular. She featured Billing Revolution, Blaze Mobile, Bling Nation, Boku, CashEdge, First Data Corp., mFoundry, mPayy, Obopay, Payfone, Zong, and Zoompass. You can download a compilation of all of the posts in PDF format here.
Google Checkout
Two posts back in March about Google Checkout remained popular throughout the year. Scott Loftesness’ commentary on Google Checkout’s new pricing (to match PayPal’s) and Russ Jones description of Google Checkout’s subscription capabilities.
NACHA & ACH
We’ve been closely following developments at NACHA throughout Janet Estep’s first year as CEO. Carol Coye Benson’s interview with Estep and my post on The Future of ACH have received heavy traffic. In addition, our coverage of the 2009 NACHA Payments conference and Council meetings were popular.
B2B Payments
It is no surprise that Carol Coye Benson’s discussion about The Problem With of B2B Payments had enduring appeal; business payments have long challenged the payments industry but there are signs of progress and renewed investment and interest. The “B2B Payments” category is the most popular category topic on Payments Views. In addition to our blog posts, the research that Carol and I co-authored on Card Acceptance for B2B Payments has been downloaded frequently.
Revolution Money
Allen Weinberg’s interview with Jason Hogg, CEO of Revolution Money was a big hit. Bryan Derman’s discussion of Revolution in conjunction with Hogg and Steve Case’s appearance at the NACHA Payments conference, This Revolution Will be Televised, also garnered a lot of attention. All the interest in Revolution culminated in November when American Express announced that they would be purchasing Revolution Money. Scott Loftesness wrote about American Express’ acquisition of Revolution in a post titled A Revolution in Payments; that post had the most active comment dialogue on Payments Views this year, so I encourage you to read the comments, too.
Cards
Jacqueline Chilton asks if this is The End of Cards As We Knew Them (subtitled “How my trip to the U.K. left me with a chip on my shoulder!”) and apparently she’s not the only one with a chip on her shoulder. The comment dialogue and email traffic that her post attracted warranted a revisit of the topic in a second post on Chip-and-PIN. Meanwhile, Carol Coye Benson debated whether Debit Cards Aren’t a Product attracting another active comment dialogue.
In addition, you may be interested in the most popular posts and content on our sister blog, Payments News. Yesterday’s post by Payments News editor Scott Loftesness features the most popular posts and content for 2009.
Your Payments Views comments and contribution to the debate are most appreciated and we look forward to continuing the conversation next year. We’ve got exciting plans for more robust content and features for Payments Views.
In the meantime, we wish all you payments professionals out there Happy New Year. May 2010 bring you health, prosperity, and plenty of engaging work!
Erin McCune
Editor
