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Posts By Karen Webster
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Karen Webster
Payments At The Beach!
It’s the first week of August time and that can only mean one thing: It’s time to head to the beach. For...
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Karen Webster
The Emperor’s New Currency
One hundred and seventy eight years ago, Hans Christian Andersen wrote a political satire disguised as a fairy tale. That tale told...
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6.9KControversialWill CurrentC Succeed? Here’s How We’ll Know
Bloomberg ran a story late Friday announcing the imminent launch of CurrentC, the merchant-owned and operated mobile payments scheme. Oh, you missed...
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Hmmm
The A, B, Cs Of PayPal’s Next Act
Today is “day one” of PayPal as an independent player, broken apart from the eBay that ignited some 13 years ago. And...
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7.5KKaren WebsterWhat’s More Valuable – A Buy Button Or a Digital Wallet?
Mobile payments is becoming a pretty messy space. One might argue that it’s been a hot mess ever since the massive proliferation...
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Karen Webster
Want To Meet A Few Of The “Payments Revolutionaries” Who’ve Changed Payments?
Last Saturday, America celebrated the 239th anniversary of the outcome that these revolutionaries fought for: independence from the King, But the payments...
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Karen Webster
The Dangers of Listening To Consumers
In 1999, 92 percent of consumers said that they didn’t trust that their data was secure when transacting online. Sixteen years later,...
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4.6KKaren WebsterAre Card Networks Tomorrow’s Ad Platforms?
Card-linked offers have been singularly unimpressive as a category. They’ve been around for years and raised a ton of capital, but have...
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Karen Webster
What Mobile Wallets And Smartphone Cameras Now Have In Common
Apple and Google Android have just recast mobile wallets as smartphone utilities – putting them in the same category as cameras, maps,...
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Karen Webster
The Most Frequently Asked Question About Mobile Payments
“Are we there yet,” though, is shorthand for “When will all of the time and money and investments we’ve made in mobile...
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Karen Webster
Why Android Pay Isn’t Really About Payments At All
To no one’s great surprise, we added another “Pay” player to payments last week. Android Pay threw its hat into the mobile...
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Controversial
The CFPB, PrePaid Cards And Protecting Consumers To Death
So here’s a question. When is a prepaid card actually a credit card? Here’s an answer: When the CFPB says so. The...
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Karen Webster
The “Why” Behind Google Buy
Remember the piece I wrote last week about whether payments can save the Internet ad giants? Well, it appears that Google not...
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Karen Webster
Can Payments Save Internet Ad Giants?
What do LinkedIn, Twitter, Google and Yelp have in common with goldfish? Let me give you a hint. Goldfish are said to...
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Karen Webster
MCX’s Four Fatal Flaws And What Payments Innovators Can Learn From Them
MCX’s Interim CEO, Brian Mooney, starts his first day on the job today. And, this seasoned and well respected industry veteran is...
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infographics
Who Won’t Win The Mobile Wallet “Wars” And Why
Blame it on the promotional run-up to the December 2015 release of Star Wars Episode 7, but the subject of the mobile...
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17.7KKaren WebsterWhy Square’s Greatest Ambition Has Become Its Biggest Threat
“Dorsey is the only guy in the industry who’s thinking about payments in a deep way, and Square is the only payments...
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News
The Year of Payments – 2015 – One Quarter In
According to the Chinese lunar calendar, 2015 is the Year of the Sheep. Sheep, so says the Chinese astrological calendar, are gentle,...
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Karen Webster
Could Amazon Do To Groceries What It Did to Books?
Amazon’s launch of Dash might be the best look we’ve had so far into how Amazon thinks about omnichannel. And, its plans...
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Karen Webster
Is Physical Retail A Threat To Amazon?
Today is the day that it’s reported Amazon will launch version 2.0 of its local services play. Branded Amazon Home Services, this...
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5.5KKaren WebsterIs Facebook Now Payments’ Biggest Threat?
Last week’s Innovation Project 2015 was all about “Innovation at the Intersections” – a nod to the influence of the many powerful...
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4.1KKaren WebsterThe Definitive Innovation Project Cheat Sheet
Innovation Project, or “Woodstock for Payments’ geeks” kicks off in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in just about two days and in the final weekend before...
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3.6KKaren WebsterCould Apple Pay Fraud Be A Sign Of Its Success?
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5.9KKaren WebsterDo Android Pay, Google Wallet And Samsung Pay Have What It Takes To Win In Mobile Payments?
Last week, there were a couple of major announcements in the world of mobile payments that suggest that the battle for supremacy...
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4.1KKaren WebsterMobile Payments’ Red Carpet
Who’s Walking Mobile Payments’ Red Carpet? Let’s face it; you don’t have to see a single movie nominated for an Oscar...
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Karen Webster
Can Anything Save Loyalty?
There’s no good news these days if you’re in the loyalty business. It’s easy, though, to think that there is. For instance,...
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Karen Webster
PayPal’s Retail Future
Kerfuffle is one of my all-time favorite words. I used it a while back to describe the situation that happened when some...
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Karen Webster
Payments Innovation Rankings Soon To Be Unveiled
Have you ever looked up “innovation” in the dictionary? I did and here’s what I found. Innovation | the act of innovating....
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Karen Webster
The Fed’s Slow March To Maybe Faster Payments
The payments world was literally sitting on pins and needles waiting for the Fed to disclose more specifics on its 18-month study...
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Karen Webster
What Payments Innovators Can Learn From Bill Belichick
Boy, did I ever step in it last week. I was speaking to a group of payments professionals in Denver and followed...
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Acquiring
Payments Industry Pairings and Partings In 2015
Here we are – 19 days into a new year and midway in the month known apparently as “divorce month.” According to...
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Karen Webster
Will Apple Pay Bring Banks And Merchants Together?
Last week, I was given a copy of the UBS report on Apple Pay. It claims that the launch of Apple Pay...
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Karen Webster
Are You Ready For 2015’s Retail Reinvention?
What does retail today have in common with retail in 1982? Everything – and nothing all at the same time. And if...
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Karen Webster
PYMNTS Greatest Hits
I wrote about 260,000 words over the last year summarizing my take on the many developments taking place in payments and commerce....
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Karen Webster
Did You Listen To Your Payments’ Sixth Sense This Year?
Yep. It’s that time of the year – when we pause to reflect on the year that was as we prepare to...
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Karen Webster
What Payments Will Look Like In 2015
Last week I laid out the 10 things that happened in 2014 that I believe will shape the direction of payments for...
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Karen Webster
The Ten Things That Changed Payments In 2014
Ah, yes, it’s the most magical time of the year. Predicting what the next year holds for all of us in payments....
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5.7KAlternative FinancesHow Many Consumers In Apple Pay’s Bushel Basket?
Talk about poking a hornet’s nest. MPD Founder and economist, David Evans, wrote a piece on Friday about Apple Pay that got...
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3.5KFinancial InclusionWhat Do The God Particle, Yodeling and Knights Have To Do With The Future Of Payments?
“Vague but exciting.” These three words could be used to describe just about any early-stage idea when it’s first presented. I’ll bet...
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4.5KCommentaryWeird Stuff In Payments
“The path to any success is lined with disasters.” Adam Davidson wrote a pretty thought-provoking article on failure that was published in...
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3.1KKaren WebsterThe Sure Fire Merchant Interchange Fee Fix
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the internet was on fire last week, and nearly broke. Yes, there was that Kim...
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9.3KApple PayWhy Apple Pay Needs Merchants More Than Merchants Need Apple Pay
There are three things that I think we’d all agree are irrefutable outcomes of the launch of Apple Pay. Apple Pay has...
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3.1KApple Pay
CurrentC And The Big Merchant Mess
Whoever said there’s no such thing as bad PR obviously wasn’t on the receiving end of the whooping that Rite Aid, CVS...
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5.0KApple PayThe Real Reason Rite Aid Dumped Apple Pay
Ring, ring. Hi, Rite Aid. This is CurrentC (or a CurrentC rep) calling. You might not remember this since it was a...
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3.6KApple PayThe Scariest Things In Payments
The Scariest Things In Payments Friday is Halloween, a holiday in the U.S. that involves people – young and old – dressing...
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3.3KB2B PaymentsWhat’s Next In Payments?
Oh, what a five years it has been! On October 20, 2009, Warren Buffet (via a recorded video interview) helped us launch...
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3.3KKaren WebsterOf Nobel Prizes And Payments
When explaining the economic “DNA” of Market Platform Dynamics, I always describe it as having its roots in the work of a...
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4.3KIn DepthWhy POS Players Should Be Nervous
The launch of Apple Pay has kept everyone in payments pretty busy speculating about its impact to others with digital wallet/account ambitions....
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2.0KApple PayIcahn Gets Apple Pay Math Wrong
It’s way above my pay grade to weigh in on Carl Icahn’s proposal to Apple to accelerate its share buybacks. But the letter made...
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7.2KApple PayWill Apple Pay Flip Debit To Credit?
There’s no doubt that Apple Pay has a lot going for it. It’s the payment method birthed by a beloved consumer brand...
