There is a growing curiosity about India’s payments systems. These systems, and their role in the “India stack”, have been the subject of many articles speculating their importance in shaping India’s future. Despite this attention, there is still considerable confusion about what these initiatives are, and how they interact with each other. This led me […]
Payments 2017 – One Month In
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 […]
Two Paths for Faster
The always-interesting Federal Reserve Bank Chicago Payments Symposium just closed, and predictably, a lot of the discussion (and argument!) was around “faster” – the evolving progress of the United States towards improvements in our payments systems. I was particularly interested in hearing other people’s views on the outlook for this in our country. I came […]
Millennials and Money – Are they Maligned or Misunderstood?
Contrary to popular belief, the millennial generation is not lazy, entitled or narcissistic. They are a robust group of entrepreneurial, socially astute and media savvy consumers. They make discerning decisions about their money and are thoughtful about the companies they trust. Last week I chaired a conference titled: Millennials and Money. We discussed similarities and […]
Five Answers – Sort of – to the Big Questions on Blockchain and Bitcoin
I’m back from two days at Consensus 2016 in NYC, and reporting as promised into my investigation of the Five Big Questions. 1. Bitcoin technology: will the problems (versions, processing time, scalability) be resolved? Yes. My belief that we are all writing this off too soon in favor of “all things blockchain” was reinforced. Glenn […]
Five Big Questions on Bitcoin and Blockchain
I’m headed to New York next week for the CoinDesk Consensus conference…”Making Blockchain Real”. I’m going because I’m trying to get my head around some big questions. I normally have a sense, even with new things, of the path forward. Not in this case! Here are the questions I’m thinking about: Bitcoin technology: will the […]
Faster Payments Survey – Your Immediate Reply Requested
It’s been just over two years since we first reached out and asked for your views on the question of faster payments. There have been a number of interesting developments in that period – the launch of FAST in Singapore, the announcement of the New Payments Platform in Australia, development of an instant payment scheme […]
Scheming and Processing – Faster
Last week’s news that MasterCard was exploring an investment or outright acquisition of VocaLink really lit up the “News” channel on our Slack system at Glenbrook. For those unfamiliar, VocaLink is a company currently owned by 17 large U.K. financial institutions, which operates the U.K.’s main ATM network (Link), its ACH-equivalent system (Bacs), and most […]
Election cycles and payments systems development
It’s election time here in the United States and potentially big changes are ahead. Elections define the beginning and end of political eras. Walter Dean Burnham, the distinguished professor of American Politics, elaborated a theory of party change and realignment.[1] Burnham’s theory noted that critical issues bubble up from time to time and their impact […]
Really Big Questions in Payments
Glenbrook’s Allen Weinberg wrote a few weeks ago about his view of the Grand Challenges in payments…. a daunting list, and one I agree with. But I want to extend his discussion on one of his challenges: “Realigned value chain economics in a push payment world”, and add two more: “What is the proper role […]