Survey: The New Normal for Management Consultants

The COVID-19 pandemic threw the entire world into chaos, forcing some businesses to make deep cuts to staffing and other expenses. Suffice it to say, outside contractors felt the pain as well, including management consultants. These companies and their employees were also impacted by stay-at-home orders and the subsequent shift to remote working, the closing […]

COVID-19’s Impact on Personal Auto and Workers’ Comp

The property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry entered the COVID-19 pandemic from a position of strength, and it remains strong and resilient. However, the rapid economic slowdown will temper P&C growth, especially in industries that are more sensitive to the national economy. The Adaptable Insurer Insurers have adapted remarkably well to the pandemic. They rapidly […]

2020 Has Been Hijacked by COVID-19:  How Are Banking and Payments Changing as a Result?

With shelter-in-place and social distancing mandates presiding in most parts of the country, we’ve seen devastating decreases in consumer spending at most businesses (with the understandable exceptions of groceries and liquor stores) and dramatic shifts in consumer behaviors and preferences, away from in-person purchases and toward order ahead, delivery, and cashless payments. Businesses are finding […]

Designing Payments for Real People

“47% of Americans have less than $400 available in case of emergency,” says Erik Moga, Program Director at IDEO, a global design and innovation company. How can fintech platforms design payment and financial technology to help consumers meet the basic needs of daily life? Moga argues that by designing simpler, more streamlined payment solutions—like secured […]

Will Credit Cards Survive?

What competitive forces are shaping the credit card industry today? What do the rise of Facebook, Google, and Amazon mean for the legacy providers? Darryl Brown, Former President, Americas, at American Express, lays out what steps established providers need to take to stay competitive. Step one: be everywhere your customers want you to be—online, offline, […]

Innovations from China and India

To find the most cutting-edge payment innovations, look to China and India, says Deborah Baxley, partner at PayGility Advisors. Just in the last decade, China has leapfrogged from an all-cash economy to being “nearly cashless” in urban areas, where Chinese consumers have widely adopted mobile apps like WeChat and Alipay. India has seen an equally […]

The Disappearance of Payments

Payments are disappearing, argues David True, Partner at PayGility Advisors. They have become so technologically easy to process, by so many parties, that the real competition now is in the add-on services that many payments companies provide, like accounting software or analytics. True explains the history of how payments became commoditized and offers predictions for […]

Taking Bitcoin Mainstream

“I think in our lifetime we will see citizens of a nation opt-in to their own digital currency,” says Adam White, Managing Director at Coinbase. Digital currencies enable equality of opportunity by empowering consumers to “be their own bank” with nothing more than a smartphone. White offers his thoughts on what could lead to more […]

Mobile Payments 2.0

We can thank artificial intelligence and authentication technology for the explosive growth of mobile payments, argues Kameliya Vladimirova, former Head of Mobile Payments Strategy at Visa. Both help to define what she calls “Mobile Payments 2.0,” the next generation of payments. In Mobile Payments 2.0, a smarter aggregation of user data across platforms, from speech-recognition […]

Why Payment Channels Matter

Payment processing platforms can’t be one-size-fits-all. They need to be designed to fit the underlying businesses they serve, says Ken Hertzler, former Head of Product Marketing and Programs at Vantiv. You don’t pay for a meal the same way you pay a doctor’s bill. And with the rise of alternative methods for making payments – […]

Blockchain and the Value of Trust

On the blockchain, you don’t have to trust an intermediary – your transactions are guaranteed through the laws of mathematics. “One plus one will always equal two, no matter which computer calculates it,” says Michael Perklin, Chief Information Security Officer at ShapeShift. This built-in, digitized trust is changing more than how we transfer money. When […]