Payments Views

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 […]

Conferences & Meetings

Live Blogging Finovate Spring 2013 San Francisco

By Erin McCune on May 14 2013

It’s Spring in San Francisco, so it must be time for the annual Finovate conference. Once again, Eric and Jim have pulled together an impressive group of companies and all my favorite payments geeks are in attendance, eagerly awaiting the start. Up on stage for the kick off Eric tells us this is the biggest […]

B2B Payments

Dreams of Glory: Business Payments and Network Fantasies

By Erin McCune on April 9 2013

At Glenbrook we talk about “network fantasies” a lot.  These are hopes that payments innovators, and incumbents, have about the so-called “network effect” in payments.  Many a payments start-up has sat in our conference room and predicted the flood of transactions that will come their way due to the network effect. The payments industry features […]

Conferences & Meetings

Live Blogging Finovate Spring 2012 San Francisco

By Erin McCune on May 8 2012

Good morning! Gearing up for the two-day typing marathon that is Finovate. We’re at a huge venue this year (same as last year, apparently – someone else from Glenbrook was here then), a cavernous exhibition hall that has plenty of room for the 1200+ attendees; I can remember when there were 250 attendees. Congrats to […]

B2B Payments

Co-Dependence Between Banks and Their Technologists: Hampering Innovation

By Erin McCune on May 7 2012

Talking to banks and the biggest bank technology vendors at NACHA’s annual payments conference last week I couldn’t help thinking how they suffer from similar challenges. Big banks are hampered by their complex technology environment of legacy solutions with layers of more modern solutions built on top. Products and customer segments are managed in silos defined […]

Card Acceptance

PayPal Takes on Square and the Square Wannabes

By Erin McCune on March 15 2012

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 vendors. In context, this has been a big week for PayPal, […]

B2B Payments

What’s so Special About Business-to-Business (B2B) Payments?

By Erin McCune on October 14 2011

B2B payments are not a new opportunity. The payments industry is littered with ambitious business payment solutions that have faltered. Past failures are largely due to an exaggerated focus on buyers (at the expense of suppliers), grandiose network affect expectations, and an incomplete understanding of the complex financial supply chain. The broader payments industry has […]