Chernobyl is certainly at the top of the list of man-made disasters. In light of recent events, I’ve been thinking that the Target breach has become the Chernobyl of the payments world. As a group, we Americans never thought that much about payment security – we...
For those companies and individuals most committed to building the EMV and NFC ecosystems, the place to be February 3rd through 7th was Salt Lake City where the Smart Card Alliance hosted both an EMV Migration Forum meeting and its annual Payments Summit. Over 525...
The news from Target, increasing the number of cards compromised to 70 million and the expansion of data loss to mailing and email addresses, phone numbers, and names, affirms that we’re in a security crisis. As my colleague Scott Loftesness puts it, card data is,...
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...
When I was a baby consultant some twenty years ago, I remember standing in Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park (remember book stores?) thumbing through a paperback book called "The Rules of Marketing". Rule #7 that said all successful markets will subdivide into...
As a social scientist by training, I’m fascinated with how ideas gain (or fail to gain) traction. In payments, there seems to a set of essential elements that are required for a new option to reach the level of traction. In no particular order, these elements...
Over three years ago I wrote a cheeky headline about “PayPal World Domination” (covering the 2009 eBay Analyst day) and that post has remained one of the top 10 Payments Views pages ever since – evidence of the enduring curiosity, anxiety, respect, and skepticism...
As anticipated, and widely leaked, PayPal today announced PayPal Here, its mobile payments acceptance solution, at a private event in San Francisco. At a high-level it matches – and in some cases, exceeds – the features offered by Square and the other mobile POS...
Who knows what in payments? Sounds like a question begging for a snappy one-liner comeback. But this is a question we hear more and more from our clients. Particularly those that see the increasingly close relationship between payments and marketing -- and want to...
I went by the San Carlos Home Depot on the way to the Glenbrook office this morning and used PayPal's "Empty Hands" to pay for my purchase. The whole thing worked and I left the store with a Home Depot receipt that listed my payment method as "PayPal" instead of...
