The Federal Reserve’s recent announcement that it would not build a new payment rail for processing faster payments created some disappointment for many who are unsatisfied with our country’s current payments system capabilities. In a welcome move, The...
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....
Ecuador’s Central Bank has embarked on an ambitious course to launch an affordable and widely available mobile payment scheme. In fact, it will be the national wallet. With some uncertainty, it appears that Ecuador’s initiative may be the second central bank...
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,...
Time is a vacuum at Sibos. It’s a great time to catch up with old friends and meet new colleagues. The exhibition floor is overwhelming, even now after banks have scaled back their presence at events like these. There is a plethora of panels on a broad range of...
As the summer holiday period close, I find myself in a back to school mode even though I haven’t been enrolled for nearly twenty years. Europe is especially on my mind as we prepare for the Glenbrook Payments in Europe workshop next month. What are the big payments...
As the leaders of the BRICS group of nations gather this week in Brazil (now that the World Cup crowds are gone), I’ve asked myself if that meeting has any important implications for payments. The BRICS moniker is often applied to a group of countries that share...
Walmart’s announcement that it would offer store-to-store money transfers has a number of interesting aspects worth pondering. At a high level, this seems like a no brainer. People need to send money to other people and lots of folks find themselves in Walmart’s...
Recently I shared my views about the developments underway in the mobile and payments space in Latin America. In that story, I address how individual countries are taking big strides toward reshaping their national payments landscape. Another remarkable, and...
As we move into 2014 – yet (again) the year when many say mobile payments are destined to gain traction – let’s look at some key developments in the space. No, I’m not talking about the newest pilot participant in ISIS or whether Apple will be the new sheriff in...
