Bill Payment & Presentment

The eGovernment – ePayment Conundrum

By Erin McCune on September 28 2015

The interdependence of eGovernment and government ePayments is yet another classic payment chicken and egg challenge. As we work with governments to build their electronic payment strategies we sometimes need to temper their expectations given this all-too-familiar challenge. There have to be enough digitally delivered government services to warrant digital payment infrastructure, but you also […]

Bill Payment & Presentment

The Global Struggle of Government Payments

By Erin McCune on September 2 2015

Over the last year, I’ve been focused on government payments – a compelling mashup of traditional bill pay and multi-channel retail requirements against an intriguing backdrop of policy, economic, and political interactions. Although many countries have made solid progress implementing eGovernment initiatives (UN E-Government Survey 2014), the level and sophistication of ePayments implementation lags the […]

Bill Payment & Presentment

Sympathy for the Biller – the Unsung Masters of Payments Complexity

By Erin McCune on June 2 2015

At Glenbrook we take pride in, and place great importance on, our historical focus on end users: consumers, enterprises and small businesses that make and receive payments. Recently, we’ve been working with and thinking about billers – the unsung masters of payments complexity. Consider the table below. What other players in the industry accept as […]

Apple

Mobile Payment Unintended Consequences (or How I Locked Myself Out of the House, Again)

By Erin McCune on January 15 2015

I am writing this post sitting on the front steps of our house in San Francisco. I have locked myself out three times recently, more than I have in the past three decades. Is it dementia? No, I blame mobile payments. Last summer I bought a case for my iPhone that had handy little pockets […]

Bitcoin

Back from the Future: Bitcoin2014 Musings

By Erin McCune on May 20 2014

Last week I was in Amsterdam for the second annual conference hosted by the The Bitcoin Foundation. As a strategist and advocate for ever-better payment solutions, I was very curious to learn how the Bitcoin protocol and its emerging enablers can address some of the most intractable challenges facing payments. For the most part, payments […]

B2B Payments

There Is No Such Thing As An International Wire

By Erin McCune on May 15 2014

As globalization increases, businesses of all sizes buy goods and services from overseas suppliers and turn to new customers in overseas markets to drive growth. As a result, the demand for cross-border transactions steadily increases. The vast majority of these transactions takes place through correspondent banking relationships and collectively described as “international wires.” The reality […]

B2B Payments

Money2020: Impressions & Observations

By Erin McCune on October 14 2013

I’ve nearly recovered from the payments overload that was Money2020 last week in Las Vegas – it was initially exhilarating, then incredibly exhausting, but I had a fantastic time. Here’s my admittedly subjective take based on having attended only two sessions (one of which I moderated) and stood in the back for only part of […]

Card Technology

How many payments professionals does it take to hire a bike? Three! (A story of Chip & PIN)

By Erin McCune on June 12 2013

Bicycles are my preferred form of transportation so I was eager to explore London using the Barclay’s-sponsored bike share program. Unfortunately, you need a Chip & PIN card to rent a bike using the automated stands and all I have are U.S. issued mag stripe cards. I was foiled: After I tweeted about my disappointment […]

B2B

The Future of B2B Payments – And Suggestions on How We Might Get There

By Erin McCune on June 11 2013

I am in London this morning, where I had an opportunity to present a vision for the future of business payments at Experian‘s Payments Strategy Conference 2013. Acknowledging that it is always dangerous to make predictions, this is what I envision for the future of B2B payments: Interoperability — I expect the future of business […]

B2B Payments

Is AribaPay a Game Changer for B2B Payments? Maybe. For now we have more questions than answers.

By Erin McCune on May 24 2013

Recently Ariba/SAP and Discover announced that they intend to “transform” commercial payments. AribaPay is either the most significant B2B payments news in decades or just one more courageous entrant into the discouraging battlefield of B2B payments networks. We’re optimistic, and encouraged to see two strong players enter the fray.  We hope they will tackle head-on […]