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The Fed announced this morning that 99% of checks are now clearing electronically between banks. During a period of unremitting bank-bashing, let’s take a moment to applaud a real home run by the bankers. The radical transformation of the check infrastructure, accomplished over the last six years, is due to some very smart law-making (the [...]
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Green Dot’s IPO plans revealed that they are becoming a bank holding company. This is completely fascinating to me – and gives, I think, a peek at what may come for retail banking in the future.
At Glenbrook we’ve been talking, thinking, and writing for some time about two related issues. One is the [...]
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When it comes to mobile payments in the U.S. market, there’s a lot of talk and action around P2P and remote purchasing (bill to carrier models, etc.). But the biggest potential is our huge POS (point of sale) market. This market today is arguably the best-served payments market in the world, with extensive merchant terminalization [...]
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A few weeks ago, Glenbrook issued a challenge to Payments Views readers: “What Are the Best Ways for Banks to Replace Lost Overdraft Fee Income?“ Given how significant the financial hit will be (JPMorgan Chase estimates a 2010 impact of $500 million after-tax), we thought we’d at least get some good ideas. [...]
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For the last several months, Glenbrook’s Carol Coye Benson has been interviewing a number of companies involved in mobile payments in the U.S. and Canada. The companies included are Billing Revolution, Blaze Mobile, Bling Nation, Boku, CashEdge, First Data Corp., mFoundry, mPayy, Obopay, Payfone, Zong, and Zoompass.
To make it easy to access all of [...]
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Bank income from debit card overdraft fees is variously estimated as $25 billion to $38 billion annually. The recently announced Federal Reserve Bank regulations requiring opt-in procedures will result in a gigantic hit to retail bank P&Ls, as we wrote about recently. JPMorgan Chase, for example, in a recent investor presentation, estimated [...]
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I think it’s fair to say that the success of remote deposit capture (which allows the recipient of a check to scan and deposit it electronically) took the payments industry somewhat by surprise. The early take on this offering seemed to be “hey, why not just change to electronic payments”?
The answer, of course, was that [...]
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The Fed’s announcement on Thursday of a new rule prohibiting overdraft fees on debit card and ATM transactions without consumer opt-in is an economic earthquake for retail banks.
The Center for Responsible Lending has estimated that banks make $23.7 billion in overdraft fees annually; the New York Times said this morning that Fed officials had put [...]
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One of the good things about having a really odd company name is that people do remember it. We mostly heard skeptical laughs when Bling Nation first emerged from stealth. But lately we’ve been getting more questions…. I spoke recently to co-CEO and founder Wences Casares.
Wences and co-CEO Meyer Malka have an interesting background, having [...]
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Erin McCune and I attended the Association for Finance Professionals conference in San Francisco on Monday and Tuesday. With 4,000 plus “practitioners” and vendors there, and a robust Payments Track, there was a lot of food for thought. A standout session was “Same Day ACH” with Rich Oliver of the Fed (and the [...]
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Last week, Starbucks announced a raft of new mobile capabilities, with iPhone apps to enable consumers to use their phone as their card in a variety of ways, including seeing a balance and reloading. For the payments industry, however, the announced test of a usable-for-purchase prepaid card on the phone, using 2d bar code technology, [...]
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At Glenbrook, we’re fascinated by the topics of mobile payments (in general); the potential for new ACH applications; and the continued growth of eCommerce. So it was great to talk to Conrad Sheehan, CEO of mobile payment startup mPayy – who has moved his company right into the center of all three topics.
To start with, [...]
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The Glenbrook team is devouring advance copies of “Priceless: The Case that Brought Down the Visa/MasterCard Bank Cartel” by Lloyd Constantine.
All I can say is “wow”! This is juicy reading that I’m sure all payments professionals will want to add to their book bag!
From the advance material on the book:
Priceless offers readers an insider’s telling [...]
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While the list of start-ups focused on mobile payments for digital content, eCommerce physical goods and/or person-to-person transfers continues to grow, another part of the industry is biding its time, with an eye on what may be a much larger prize.
What’s at stake are point-of-sale, in-person payments – what Glenbrook estimates to be roughly $4 [...]
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Among other recent interviews on mobile payments, we took a look last month at two companies (Boku and Zong) that are focusing on bill-to-carrier models for digital content purchases in the online gaming arena. Fascinating, but surely (for my demographic, at any rate) a niche market – after all, how many times have you spent [...]
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Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp
Mar 10-11, 2010, Santa Clara, CA
May 19-20, 2010, Santa Clara, CA
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