Banking Industry

Demystifying India’s Digital Payment Infrastructure

By Shiv Vadivelalagan on March 23 2017

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 […]

Apple

Payments 2017 – One Month In

By George Peabody on January 31 2017

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 […]

B2B

Two Paths for Faster

By Carol Coye Benson on October 17 2016

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 […]

Banking

Millennials and Money – Are they Maligned or Misunderstood?

By Beth Horowitz Steel on October 4 2016

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 […]

Banking

Five Answers – Sort of – to the Big Questions on Blockchain and Bitcoin

By Carol Coye Benson on May 4 2016

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 […]

Banking

Five Big Questions on Bitcoin and Blockchain

By Carol Coye Benson on April 28 2016

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 […]

Banking Industry

Faster Payments Survey – Your Immediate Reply Requested

By Elizabeth McQuerry on April 18 2016

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 […]

ACH

Scheming and Processing – Faster

By Bryan Derman on March 8 2016

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 […]

Banking Industry

Election cycles and payments systems development

By Elizabeth McQuerry on February 1 2016

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 […]

Accounting

Really Big Questions in Payments

By Carol Coye Benson on January 19 2016

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 […]