by Elizabeth McQuerry | Jun 3, 2015
This week, I began an important new assignment. I am now the CEO of the International Payments Framework Association (IPFA). If you haven’t yet heard of it, the IPFA provides rules, standards, operating procedures, and guidelines to improve cross-border payments. It’s...
by Elizabeth McQuerry | Feb 26, 2015
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. Now...
by Elizabeth McQuerry | Oct 16, 2014
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 effort...
by Elizabeth McQuerry | Oct 3, 2014
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,...
by Elizabeth McQuerry | Jul 17, 2014
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 the...