Cici Northup

Lowering the Cost of Remittance – the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

By Cici Northup on October 11 2017

There was an estimated $55b billion in cross-border remittances in 2015. But how much of that, per transaction, arrived in the wallet of the intended recipient? Unfortunately, not as much as many of us would hope. The cost of remittances is quite high with the average cost worldwide nearing 8% in 2015. And in some […]

Cici Northup

Poor, Wanting and Without: The Payments Gap

By Cici Northup on July 26 2017

Over the past several years, I have focused my time and energy on projects aimed at increasing financial inclusion in developing countries to help alleviate poverty. I feel fortunate to work in this arena; I find it both rewarding and interesting. Recently, as part of a project, I interviewed a number of people working on […]

Amazon

Is Amazon Best-in-Class for Online Payments?

By Russ Jones on July 19 2017

Amazon.com is in the news all the time with its continued expansion of markets and fulfillment centers, its focus on innovation and long term R&D, and, recently, some very non-intuitive acquisitions. It’s easy to get swept up in their story. But when a company gets as big and powerful as Amazon has become, it’s helpful […]

Card Acceptance

EMV’s First Phase in the US at an End; the Wait for Phase 2 Begins

By George Peabody on May 23 2017

Despite our industry’s preoccupation with mobile payments, here at Glenbrook we’ve been keeping a sharp eye on the state of the U.S. EMV® migration. Let’s call the U.S. approach, based on contact EMV only with no PINs on our credit cards, EMV Phase 1. That’s where we are today. While EMV technology has been settled […]

Carol Coye Benson

Two Remarkable Women – And the Mobile Payments Systems They Have Built

By Carol Coye Benson on March 30 2017

I had the good fortune last week to be part of the Glenbrook team attending the FinTechStage Inclusion Forum in Jakarta. Happily, among the attendees were two women I have known for several years: Maha Bahou of the Central Bank of Jordan and Carolina Trivelli of Pagos Digitales Peruanos. Peru and Jordan are two of […]

Financial Regulators

Demonetization Roulette: India’s unusual approach to creating a cashless economy

By Shiv Vadivelalagan on March 28 2017

On November 8, 2016, India cancelled 86% of its currency in circulation with a four-hour notice and the move pushed India into a severe currency shortage. In a country where 98% of all consumer payments are in cash, this prolonged currency shortage carries risks: economic destabilization in the short term and irrevocable damages to the […]

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 […]

Card Fraud

MRC Las Vegas 2017:  It’s Not Just About Transaction Risk

By Chris Uriarte on March 20 2017

• in
• Chris Uriarte
• machine learning

This past week, over 1400 payments professionals convened in Las Vegas for the annual Merchant Risk Council (MRC) conference, an event that I’ve had the pleasure of attending for over a decade.  While merchant fraud detection and risk management continue to be the core theme of the conference, traditional payment service providers had a strong […]

ACH

Payments in Real Time

By Elizabeth McQuerry on February 6 2017

As the U.S. payments industry is preparing to enter another exciting phase as immediate funds transfer options come online, I’m thinking back to my interaction in the Fall of 2013 with the inquisitive team at Planet Money. Perplexed about why it took so long for the monies from their Kickstarter fundraising campaign to make the […]

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 […]