Sections
Posts By Karen Webster
- Innovation
Innovation’s Trivial Pursuits
What passes today as innovation is really pretty trivial. That’s the view of Robert Gordon, noted macroeconomist and Stanley G. Harris...
- Payment Methods
Could Apple Be The Next Amex, Or Could Amex Be The Next Apple?
We all watched yesterday as two of the NFL’s crown jewels battled it out for a chance at Super Bowl 50. Manning...
- eCommerce
Massive Online Retail Data Error Uncovered
It’s common knowledge that Kodak’s demise came at the hands of digital. But few know the whole story of why that happened....
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23.3KAmazonIs Alexa The Savior or Slayer Of Merchants?
“Defender of man.” That’s the meaning of a girl’s name that, until recently, wasn’t all that popular or even very familiar. But...
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76.8KMobile CommerceThe Six Things That Will Define Payments In 2016
There are lots of things that will influence the actions of the players within the vast and dynamic ecosystem in 2016. But...
- Payment Methods
Five From ’15: The 2016 Payments Pacesetters
There are four more days until we say “bye-bye” to 2015 and “hello” to a whole new year. As part of that...
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19.0KKaren WebsterThe Race For Faster Payments Rails
Usain Bolt is the fastest human on earth, but cheetahs are three times faster. Does that make cheetahs better than a 6-time...
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8.8KKaren WebsterThe Rest Of The Payments 2015 By The Letter: S Through Z
A was for Apple Pay, B was for bitcoin and C was for cross-border. OK, maybe you saw those ones coming, but...
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9.6KKaren WebsterPayments 2015 By The Letter: L Through R
Narrowing an entire year of payments activity into a 26-item list may sound like quite the feat. And with one for every...
- Payment Methods
The A, B, Cs Of Payments 2015
Well, here we are – just a few short weeks before 2015 is one for the history books. What a year it’s...
- Karen Webster
Payments Disruption By Any Other Name
HBS Professor Clay Christensen published an article last week that said Uber isn’t a disruptive innovation - even though 100 out of...
- Karen Webster
Issuers To Apple Pay: Just Say No!
Odysseus was a pretty clever fellow. For those who might need a crash course in ancient Greek history, Odysseus was the mythical king...
- Karen Webster
The Great Facebook SMB Conversion Challenge
Facebook went all in on SMBs last week during its earnings call – citing a number of things that they are doing...
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14.3KKaren WebsterThrough The Mobile Payments Looking Glass
“Curiouser and Curiouser” might have first been spoken by Alice in Wonderland after she tumbled down the rabbit hole, but it seems...
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14.9KKaren WebsterMobile Payments’ Great Big Leap
There’s a perfect storm brewing in payments – one that’s intensifying because of the shift to EMV. And one that could accelerate...
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10.3KHmmmThe Dangers Of Groupthink
Was med-tech startup, Theranos, following in the footsteps of Uber and simply embarking on “permissionless” innovation? Or is its current firestorm the...
- Hmmm
Does The CFPB Really Help Consumers?
The law of unintended consequences is alive and well in Washington, D.C. and in particular, inside the agency formed to advocate for...
- Karen Webster
The Blockchain: ‘Just Like the Internet,’ Except That It’s Not
The Blockchain: “It’s just like the Internet.” And so starts every conversation by the devoted to explain why bitcoin and the blockchain...
- International
The Incredible Mobile Payments Myth
MPD CEO Karen Webster says that everything that you’ve heard over the last several years about how successful mobile payments are at...
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6.1KControversialWill Ad Blockers Drive Mobile Commerce Innovation?
- Karen Webster
Will Apple Own The Payments Customer?
It’s September 14, 2022, eight years after the first Apple Pay network and issuer deals were signed. Does Apple own the payments’...
- Karen Webster
“First, Let’s Kill All The (Payments) Innovators!”
Dick The Butcher, in Shakespeare’s "Henry VI," famously proposed “first let’s kill the lawyers” as the most appropriate way to jumpstart the...
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19.4KKaren WebsterThe Great American (Express) Spin-off?
2015 has been a tough year for American Express. Its stock price and market cap have been pummeled, Costco waved goodbye (taking...
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11.1KKaren WebsterTo See The Future Of Retail, Look At Mobile Banking
Want to see the future of retail? Take a look at retail banking today. Sounds nuts, doesn’t it? But MPD CEO Karen...
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4.7KMobile CommerceExclusive: MCX CEO On CurrentC’s Future
On Aug. 15, 2012, a group of retailers representing $1 Trillion in purchasing power announced that it was banding together to create...
- Karen Webster
How To Reinvent Retail In Three Words
Coming out of the Retail Reinvention Summit last week, one thing became very clear: there are as many ways to approach the...
- 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...
- 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...
- 7.5KControversial
Will 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...
- 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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8.1KKaren 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...
- 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...
- 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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5.2KKaren 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...
- 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,...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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...
- 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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18.8KKaren 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...
- 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,...
- 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...
- 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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5.9KKaren 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...
- Karen Webster
The 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...
- Karen Webster
Could Apple Pay Fraud Be A Sign Of Its Success?
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- Karen Webster
Do 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...
