Surprising disruptions and unanticipated consequences abound in payments. Sometimes, it’s just a rule change that makes all the difference. In 2001, the NACHA rule enabling ad hoc web debits was put in place, primarily at the behest of banks who wanted to make it...
My partner, Bryan Derman, and I just returned from a week in South Korea and a deep immersion in the local card market. As consultants serving clients across the globe—including payments -related companies in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia—we are repeatedly...
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...
I had the opportunity to attend the launch event of Green Dot’s new GoBank yesterday (1/15/13) in San Francisco and came away quite intrigued. Sure, there are a plethora of financial services targeting the unbanked and underbanked, but what I found most interesting...
Over three years ago I wrote a cheeky headline about “PayPal World Domination” (covering the 2009 eBay Analyst day) and that post has remained one of the top 10 Payments Views pages ever since – evidence of the enduring curiosity, anxiety, respect, and skepticism that...
Former Sen. Chris Dodd, ex-Chair of Senate Banking Committee, probably needs no introduction to anyone in payments. In his keynote address to the annual meeting of the ETA this morning, he commented on the Durbin Amendment: Excluded interchange from original bill...
As you may have seen on PaymentsNews, MasterCard announced the acquisition of DataCash, a pan-European (and a bit beyond) gateway, this morning for $520 million. Before I jump in, you might want to take a look at the earlier opinion piece I posted regarding Visa’s $2...
I'm currently working on a speech on innovation in payments/financial services and would love your input. What recent innovations have personally affected you in the past few years?No signature at Starbucks?Envelope-free ATMs?Using your credit card to enter and exit...
A number of us self-proclaimed “payments geeks” awoke this morning to learn of Visa Inc’s intention to purchase CyberSource for approximately $2 billion. Over the course of the day, Glenbrook’s been getting a flood of emails generally asking, “What’s the REAL reason...
Another year has flown by and here I am at the 2010 ETA Annual Meeting. I love to walk through the exhibit hall and see “what’s hot,” what’s changed, and what never changes at this ISO conference. So here goes… Before I arrived I tried to predict what the hot areas...
