Amazon.com is in the news all the time with its continued expansion of markets and fulfillment centers, its focus on innovation and long term R&D, and, recently, some very non-intuitive acquisitions. It’s easy to get swept up in their story. But when a company...
As the Internet of Things (IoT) gains momentum, people are starting to speculate about how it will be monetized and where payments will fit in this world of the future. Some think what’s needed is already what their company does best. How fortunate for them! Others...
As I was slogging through the many payments-related articles and blog posts reminiscing about 2015 events and making predictions for what may or may not be ahead in 2016, I thought of a conversation I had with Scott Loftesness around 20 years ago, sometime in 1995...
One of the fun things we do at Glenbrook is help clients think through product concepts in financial services, commerce, and payments. An intriguing area that I’ve been thinking about and watching closely over the years is voice-activated purchasing. My interest in...
The recent entry of Amazon.com into the small merchant mobile POS card acceptance market may signal the last phase of increasing hostility in the US merchant acquiring segment of the card payments business. Prior to the launch of Square in 2010, the merchant...
A couple of weeks ago, eBay held an Analyst Day where eBay senior management shared their thinking about the future of the changing commerce landscape - and how they're thinking about taking the "e" out of eCommerce. (Click here for the PDF of the presentation.)...
You are a bona fide payments professional if that headline makes senses to you. For everyone else, here's an explanation. Kombini Payments Before we take a look at PayNearMe, let’s first explore how Kombini payments work. Kombini (variously spelled Konbini,...
Where are you? What did you buy? How much did you pay? Did you get a deal? This might sound like your teenager on their phone, but it's what a new company called Blippy hopes to answer with a new Web 2.0 service. Here's the basic premise. What if you could...
Amazon.com fancies itself, with some justification, as a trialblazer in eCommerce. We spoke with Amazon recently to get a better sense of PayPhrase and how it might be used by today's consumers. Amazon PayPhrase is a new checkout concept that is designed to provide...
