eBay’s announcement yesterday of its acquisition of Zong is just another interesting example of this e-commerce giant’s grand ambition to change the face of retail as merchants and consumers know it and experience it today. Here’s what I mean. Retail Nirvana as envisioned by eBay...
There was a lot of great stuff that came out of the Payments Innovation Institute at Harvard last week but two anecdotes that have absolutely nothing to do with payments specifically, I think, provide some of the more thought provoking insights around the pitfalls and...
I have always been up for a challenge. I read just last week a quote from someone from Forrester who basically said that anyone who believes Facebook is the commerce frontier is basically smoking something. (Well, what he said was that they had about as...
– Ask the Industry: Will Google Wallet ignite mobile payments? Share your thoughts here. Google’s announcement today of its NFC-mobile payments scheme is, with a few exceptions, a real textbook case study in what you need to do if you want to ignite a...
Introduction This section of the Lydian Journal examines the world of social commerce, or as some have described it, the fourth retail channel. Four distinct elements define this commerce opportunity for merchants: (i) the explosive growth of social networks, in particular, Facebook, (ii) the...
Global financial inclusion surveys show that there are billions of low-income individuals who want a safe place to save, and evidence suggests that they are willing to pay for it. Many low-income individuals are currently able to store small values with licensed financial service providers....
Editor’s Note In the world today, few topics are more talked about and less understood than “cyber security.” Almost daily, it seems, we hear of another threat to the computer systems that support and control the world’s critical infrastructure. Attacks on government and industry...
Introduction Private ordering, rather than government intervention, has been the primary force behind the development of data security measures in the payment card industry. [1] Government intervention often occurs in response to security breakdowns, which draw attention to weaknesses in the private ordering regime....
A History of Your Stuffed Wallet For centuries, people walked the planet with small pouches crammed with coins and other forms of money, never worrying about their ability to pay for an item at their local merchant (unless, of course, they had no money)....
