Business evolution—whether it’s automotive, bioscience, or in the payments industry—proceeds along a predictable path of incremental improvements and optimization. Until it doesn’t and a step function takes effect. Last year was sleepy compared to what we can expect during the next eleven months. 2016 was characterized by the more familiar path, through themes set in […]
Money20/20 Wrap-up
We’ve seen a lot of innovation in payment initiation over the last few years. Apple Pay, Android Pay, Walmart Pay and their like have filled Payments News headline stories. But this year, at Money20/20, consumer-facing innovation downshifted to a lower gear. And that’s a good thing. Getting Down to Work “Mobile” news cooled because the […]
Inside the Visa / PayPal Partnership
After a great deal of speculation, Visa and PayPal (or is it PayPal and Visa?) have announced a partnership where the two companies will “collaborate to accelerate the adoption of digital payments.” The announcement, which was actually more detailed than most partnership announcements, speaks of putting the two companies “on a new path” for the […]
Coachella Takes Payment Cards – Mostly
I spent the weekend in Indio, California at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival (often referred to as the “Modern Day Woodstock” for you Boomers). Over the few weeks leading up to the event, Square and Apple advertised quite a bit about how every single vendor on the festival grounds would have a new contactless […]
What’s Next for US Payments
We’ve spent so much time the past several years obsessing about how mobile proximity payments would be deployed in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world. Now we know. This week, Apple Pay celebrates the first anniversary of its launch, and a new generation of payment-enabled iPhones will be announced. Later this month, […]
EMV – Necessary, Insufficient, and our Lasting PR Risk
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 in place but the long tail of SMB […]
The Ten Most Annoying Things About Apple Watch
Message delay from phone to watch – I can hear my phone signaling a message has arrived but it takes a while to show up on my watch You have to remember to turn both watch and iPhone back on after being in airplane mode, even if set to “mirror phone” Only black watch faces? […]
Disruption and Innovation at the Point of Sale
Surprising disruptions and unanticipated consequences abound in payments. Sometimes, it’s just a rule change that makes all the difference. In 2001, the NACHA rule enabling ad hoc web debits was put in place, primarily at the behest of banks who wanted to make it easier for their cardholders to pay their credit card bills. Great […]
Mobile Payments – What Entrepreneurs Need to Know
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 Technologies here to stay: NFC, tokenization, and biometrics What it all means for the Networks […]
Mobile Payment Unintended Consequences (or How I Locked Myself Out of the House, Again)
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 […]