Glenbrook held a great “Innovations in Payments” workshop this week – a group which energetically debated many topics, including Bitcoin (of course), tokenization, beacons, authentication, wearables, interoperability and mobile ad spend. As I reflect on the day, it...
As is the case with many people in our industry, I’ve been giving a lot of thought recently to Bitcoin. When ever I run into something new, or puzzling, I try to find comparisons to help me understand it. And comparisons abound in Bitlandia. Many people compare...
NACHA recently announced plans for a phased introduction of same-day settlement for ACH. I spoke with NACHA President and CEO Jan Estep this morning about the initiative. First of all, I congratulate Jan – and the ACH community – for picking up the fallen banner,...
I can't help it - I'm a consultant; I love putting things into categories and into context. I always find pictures and "maps" help when things get confusing. So here's my latest attempt at making sense of what's going on with mobile payments and cards. What...
What’s the difference between card acceptance and a deposit? In both cases, money is being delivered into a merchant’s bank account – in fact, a purist would point out that a deposit actually is the last stage of card acceptance for a merchant. But consider instead...
What a year it has been! Twelve months ago, there were still people in our industry who didn’t know what Bitcoin was. There were still people who believed that EMV would roll out in the U.S. just like it did in the U.K. There were still people who thought that the...
Here are some thoughts on big actions that industry incumbents could take to strengthen their positions and the U.S. payments industry. What do these ideas have in common? First of all, they are infrastructural or market-wide. Secondly, they all ask one or more...
As I read about mobile payments, it always entertains me when relatively green journalists make references to using mobile phones rather than payment cards to make purchases. Typically, they are confusing the instrument (the phone, the plastic) and the system:...
A new wave of payment capabilities is hitting shores around the world. This wave is made up of better, faster, and cheaper “credit-push” systems. That means that transactions enter the payments systems from the sender’s bank (like a wire transfer) rather than from...
It’s hard to believe that the end of 2012 is in sight – and it’s almost equally hard to believe that three years ago, a few of us at Glenbrook were thinking, “gee – all the exciting stuff in payments has already happened”. Yet we don’t think we’ve ever seen so much...
