Remember the good old days? You carried a Visa card and you could use it anywhere Visa was accepted. Visa logo on the front of the card; Visa acceptance mark on the merchant’s window. To the cardholder, it was a Visa transaction; to the merchant it was a Visa...
As the U.S. payments industry is preparing to enter another exciting phase as immediate funds transfer options come online, I’m thinking back to my interaction in the Fall of 2013 with the inquisitive team at Planet Money. Perplexed about why it took so long for...
Glenbrook’s Allen Weinberg wrote a few weeks ago about his view of the Grand Challenges in payments…. a daunting list, and one I agree with. But I want to extend his discussion on one of his challenges: “Realigned value chain economics in a push payment world”,...
As I was slogging through the many payments-related articles and blog posts reminiscing about 2015 events and making predictions for what may or may not be ahead in 2016, I thought of a conversation I had with Scott Loftesness around 20 years ago, sometime in 1995...
We are just a month away from the October EMV liability shift and the transition is, to no one's surprise, mostly incomplete. EMV credit card issuance is expected to be at just 50% by the end of this year. Point of sale hardware upgrades at major retailers may be...
Recorded about a month ago by VC firm Matrix Partners, Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness and Dana Stalder of Matrix Partners discuss the evolution of mobile payments, the business model failure of Softcard, and other topics including: The 8+ year journey to ApplePay...
The recent entry of Amazon.com into the small merchant mobile POS card acceptance market may signal the last phase of increasing hostility in the US merchant acquiring segment of the card payments business. Prior to the launch of Square in 2010, the merchant...
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,...
Our clients are starting to ask us who we think is going to win the mobile wallet war in 2014. Questions like: What’s happening with the Isis rollout? What’s the next likely step in the evolution of the Google Wallet? Is PayPal’s In-Store initiative getting any...
Just before the 4th of July holiday, Felix Salmon, finance blogger at Reuters, wrote an insightful piece, sharply critical of mobile payments and the long anticipated ability of our clever smartphones and wireless communications to improve upon a simple plastic...
