Karen Webster

Karen Webster
Is “The Uber Experience” Really The Future of Payments?
August 11, 2014

One of my colleagues recently shared an anecdote about something she observed while in a hotel lobby in San Francisco. A group of young people had gathered, ready to head out for the evening. They were debating how to get to their destination. After a...

Karen Webster
How To Get Consumers Hooked on Mobile Payments
August 04, 2014

Getting consumers hooked on something new is every innovator’s dream. There’s only one big problem: Consumers don’t break old habits easily. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins...

Commentary
Can Visa Checkout Ignite?
July 28, 2014

Visa Checkout launched last week as part of Visa’s efforts to be the biggest digital payments player on the planet just like it is in the physical world. Can it solve the massive chicken and egg problem that has stalled everyone else? Maybe, says MPD...

Commentary
Is Yelp + Amazon The Mobile Commerce Game Changer?
July 21, 2014

Facebook and Twitter made news last week when each introduced payment options. But MPD CEO Karen Webster says that the real player to watch is Yelp. She was prompted to think about an Amazon/Yelp combo after doing a deep dive on OpenTable in preparation for...

Commentary
Does The US Really Trail The Rest Of The World In Payments Innovation?
July 14, 2014

Financial Times columnist John Gapper got a check for a dollar in the mail which prompted him to write a piece that more or less portrayed the US as being total Luddites in the payments innovation department. Well, in a true case of payments patriotism...

Commentary
Can A Show About Nothing Teach One (Almost) Everything They Need To Know About Payments?
July 07, 2014

Sometimes it rains on the fourth of July and the only thing to do is binge watch Seinfeld. However, in the hands of MPD CEO Karen Webster, the show famously about nothing is so much more than something to do in lieu of fireworks. This...

Commentary
Is Amazon Fire A Threat to Payments?
June 30, 2014

Jeff Bezos sent people invited to the launch of the Fire phone a children’s book about a man who painted his house purple so he could distinguish it from all of the other white houses on his street. The analog he was making was that...

Commentary
To Disrupt or Not To Disrupt: Is That Really The Question?
June 23, 2014

It is hard to imagine Harvard professors as anything but the sorts of people inclined to shop at J. Crew and with excellent manners. So naturally it comes as some surprise when one Harvard professor accuses another of popularizing a signature theory that she believes...

Commentary
Are the Best Days over for Digital Wallets?
June 18, 2014

The slow path to digital wallets ignition has caused some in the business to say that they’re all but dead and more or less the payments equivalent of the Edsel. Fact or just a case of underestimating the slog that is ignition in payments? MPD...