Debit Wins…Why?

Last week, Visa reported its second fiscal quarter financial results – and included a mention that Visa’s US debit card purchase volume in the fourth calendar quarter of 2008 slightly exceeded that of its US credit card purchase volume ($206 billion vs....

Failures of Branding

At Glenbrook, we’re pretty interested in what makes mass consumer adoption of new payments capabilities happen – or not. We’ve been talking lately about “brand as action” – the notion that consumers (and merchants) need a way to express how they are going to pay or be...

The Problem with B2B Payments

It’s springtime, and annual payments statistics are starting to bloom. A good time, perhaps, to consider the state of business-to-business (B2B) payments. NACHA recently released figures showing that ACH CTX transactions grew by 15% in the fourth quarter,...

Card Network Earnings Are In – It’s Now Safe to Exhale!

By Bryan Derman It seems like it’s been a month now that we at Glenbrook – and people all around the payments business – have been holding our collective breath waiting to see what level of purchase volumes would be reported by MasterCard and Visa for Q4 2008. Well,...