We got the first real details this week on the Facebook-sponsored Libra cryptocurrency. Opinions are still taking shape around Glenbrook, but it’s fair to say that the team is deeply intrigued by the possibilities and sees it as both a novel and potentially very...
Last week’s news that MasterCard was exploring an investment or outright acquisition of VocaLink really lit up the “News” channel on our Slack system at Glenbrook. For those unfamiliar, VocaLink is a company currently owned by 17 large U.K. financial institutions,...
2015 has been an exciting, tumultuous year for payments. Our once "under the radar" industry now makes for daily headline news with stories and commentary (some breathtakingly uninformed) on new ways to pay, M&A activity, regulatory actions, competitive...
The evolution of the digital wallet has seemed to accelerate in recent months, weeks and days, led, in my mind, by some important payment product launches by the retail community. These developments combine the long-standing heft and influence of America’s largest...
We’ve spent so much time the past several years obsessing about how mobile proximity payments would be deployed in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world. Now we know. This week, Apple Pay celebrates the first anniversary of its launch, and a new generation...
Like many payments industry insiders, we have been following the recent impassioned industry dialog about the relative merits of Apple Pay and MCX’s CurrentC wallet with a combination of amusement and despair. The barbs and accusations being exchanged by the rival...
It turns out you don’t have to be unbanked to like M-Pesa I had the opportunity earlier this month to visit the mecca of mobile payments, which --with all due respect to the recent accomplishments in Cupertino -- remains Nairobi, Kenya. The “Kenyan miracle” in...
Bilateral Adoption Claims Another Victim Word came earlier this week that Square had sunset its consumer-facing app, Square Wallet. The app had pioneered one of the great parlor tricks in payments, enabling a merchant using the Square Register POS app to recognize...
I’ve spent part of my weekend contemplating the public relations hubbub that broke out late last week around Bank of America’s announcement that it would assess a $5 monthly fee on certain of its checking account holders who choose to use their debit cards for...
Glenbrook's Bryan Derman is live blogging from Finovate in New York City. This is only one of a series of posts featuring Bryan's impressions as over sixty payments technology companies perform 7 minute demos (no PowerPoint slides allowed!) over two days. The index...
