I'm headed to New York next week for the CoinDesk Consensus conference..."Making Blockchain Real". I'm going because I'm trying to get my head around some big questions. I normally have a sense, even with new things, of the path forward. Not in this case! Here are...
Imagine a country where less than 10% of the adult population has a bank account and only about half of those account holders have a debit card. Credit cards are virtually non-existent. There are only a couple dozen banks in the whole country. Cash truly is king....
I’m just back from Boston and the marathon known as Sibos 2014. In a post earlier this week, I shared a couple of observations from the show floor and the conference sessions. Now that the conference has closed, I’m thinking about the themes that spoke to me. And,...
Last week I was in Amsterdam for the second annual conference hosted by the The Bitcoin Foundation. As a strategist and advocate for ever-better payment solutions, I was very curious to learn how the Bitcoin protocol and its emerging enablers can address some of...
I was fortunate enough to spend a day yesterday at Bill Maurer’s IMTFI (Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion) conference at UC Irvine. Bill is an anthropologist, and his institute funds fascinating small projects in developing countries that...
I’ve nearly recovered from the payments overload that was Money2020 last week in Las Vegas – it was initially exhilarating, then incredibly exhausting, but I had a fantastic time. Here’s my admittedly subjective take based on having attended only two sessions (one...
I am in London this morning, where I had an opportunity to present a vision for the future of business payments at Experian's Payments Strategy Conference 2013. Acknowledging that it is always dangerous to make predictions, this is what I envision for the future of...
Are you a payments geek? You might be interested to hear what your peers think about immediate funds transfer (IFT). The recent 2013 NACHA Payments Conference was full of interesting conversations and panels and the hottest topic was (IFT). I counted no fewer than...
Merchants and terminals were a key focus at two major payments conferences this week: NACHA and CARTES. The issue of EMV in the U.S. and the high cost for merchants to replace their terminals was raised repeatedly. Estimates for the cost of replacement in the...
Young Atlanta-area businesses with big ideas and the venture capitalists that seek those big ideas gathered in Atlanta in October 17 and 18 to showcase the start-ups and share experiences from alumni. My focus in attending the conference was to see which of the...
