Glenbrook is opening a special session of our popular Glenbrook Payments Boot Camp this summer on Tuesday and Wednesday, August 6th and 7th. This is the Glenbrook workshop that has welcomed over 6,000 attendees in the past five years. It provides an intensive, two-day “deep dive” into payments systems in the U.S. – and a unique cross-payments system view.

We'll also be doing a reprise of our very successful workshop on Data in Payments on Thursday, August 8th (half day). In this workshop, we take a close look at what payments data exists, how it is transported and used – and what might happen in the future.

Both sessions will be led by Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson, Russ Jones, and Scott Loftesness. The workshops will be held in beautiful Half Moon Bay, California - right on the Pacific Ocean, but only 21 miles from San Francisco airport! Discounts are available for multiple attendees and some Glenbrook clients. Register now to reserve your seat - and let us know if you have any questions.

We're looking forward to seeing you later this summer in Half Moon Bay for one of these two Summer Camp sessions.

On Twitter:

We're hosting a payments meetup at @gumroad with talks by @airbnb and @square —come by! gumroad.com/meetup

— Sahil Lavingia (@shl) May 17, 2013

On the web:

• The future of Bitcoin: 3 predictions from experts - GigaOm - "Casares explained how some people in his country are using “old Android phones” to acquire and exchange Bitcoins at a time when the government is clamping down on the trade in U.S. dollars."
• Inside Mastercard’s Social Command Center - Digiday - "For Mastercard, diffusing social in the organization, ironically, meant centralizing it."
• High-Profile VCs Caught up in Bitcoin Mania - PEhub - "As big as the bitcoin opportunity is, it is equally rife with risk."
• Black-hat bitcoin’s days are numbered - Quartz - "Bitcoin has a lot of problems as a currency—its tendency for spasms of crazy volatility, most notably—but fewer as a payments system."
• Bitcoin’s consumerization continues with Perk, a rewards platform and Web browser for normal people - PandoDaily - "Now the only problem is figuring out how to get bitcoin into the hands of the masses."
• Google in Payments: Why Yesterday was BIG News - FinVentures (Tom Noyes) - "Osama and the Google team have done great work getting this out to market. Congrats."
• T-Mobile’s Twitter Account Explains Why Carrier Won’t Support Google Wallet - TmoNews - “We’re supporting ISIS, the wireless payment standard for mobile devices.”
• Square launches faster card swipe machine - Taking Charge - "Sure, we could make payments work better, but why should we when everyone really seems to like plastic?"
• Moving Upstream, PayPal and Square Make a Play for the Local Merchant’s POS - Street Fight - "The gist of PayPal’s and Square’s long-term aspirations is fairly clear: create a two-sided network with a consumer-facing mobile wallet on one end and a merchant processing network on the other, creating a system that gives them control over the entire payment stack."

On the wires:

• International Payment Networks Facing Emerging Threat from Domestic Competition and m-POS - "…the real threat comes when the successful m-POS solution providers follow the PayPal model and enable their own digital wallets and P2P transactions which could completely cut the international networks out of the equation.”
• What is the Killer App for Mobile NFC? It May Not Be Payments, Executives Agree at the 2013 NFC Solutions Summit - "When asked the question "Is NFC dead?" compared to alternate technologies such as cloud payments, Glenbrook Partners Consultant Allen Weinberg stressed that all these technologies are still in the early days and it is too soon to make judgments on what mobile commerce technologies will be the winners and losers. "At the end of the day, we don't have a widespread, commercialized anything yet," he said."
• sweetgreen rewards App an Immediate Success - "Representing the first white-label app from LevelUp, sweetgreen rewards has been an immediate success, allowing guests to earn dollars that can be redeemed at any of sweetgreen's 17 locations and offers various perks that can be unlocked over time…"

Glenbrook's Erin McCune is attending the Finovate Spring 2013 conference being held today and tomorrow in San Francisco. She's live blogging from the conference on PaymentsViews.com and also actively tweeting her comments on Twitter.

Over on PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's George Peabody examines the recent attacks on two prepaid card processors which led to $45 million of cash being withdrawn from ATMs around the world over a very short period of time.

Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness will speaking on Monday, May 6, at Experian's Vision 2013 Conference in Carlsbad, California.

Scott will be helping to moderate a panel titled "Wallet Wars — Payments beyond 2013" that will be discussing the impact of mobile on payment business models and profitability for financial institutions, wireless providers and emerging players.

Speakers include Cherian Abraham (Experian), Pete Donat (First Data), Paul Moreton (Capital One), Ken Moy (MasterCard) and Chris Gardner (Paydiant).

On May 9th in Palo Alto, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson and Russ Jones will be teaching our Innovation in Payments - Big Data and Faster Payments workshop.

This workshop will cover the following topics:

• Bitcoin
  
• Big Data in Payments
  
• Immediate Funds Transfer
  

Registration for this innovation workshop is closing in the next few days - so it's now your last chance to register. Registration is $995: Glenbrook payments workshop alumni use code GBALPE for a 20% discount. Register here.

Glenbrook's Payments Boot Camp next week in Palo Alto is already fully sold out - but registration is open for courses in October in both New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Over on our Payments Views, Glenbrook's George Peabody shares his observations about the confluence of EMV chip card migration, mobile devices and authentication in the US market.

While EMV injects dynamic data into the payment message (as well as clear text PANs), it is an otherwise mostly static, single purpose platform. Compare that to the mobile device, which combines static data (SIM serial number, etc.) with recognizable configuration profiles for device fingerprinting, context-specific dynamic data such as location plus application-specific PIN or biometric entry. And that all happens before the payment transaction takes place.

The Cartes Americas 2013 Secure Connections Conference is underway this week in Las Vegas. Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton is attending - be sure to reach out to her if you're there - follow her on Twitter @jaxcan.

Lots of tweets are coming today on Twitter from the conference - you can follow along by searching for the hashtag #cartesusa and by following @_cartes.

Glenbrook's Erin McCune writes on PaymentsViews.com:

Glenbrook is kicking off a new payments organization optimization project for a biller client. Each time we do one of these projects, our client – with some embarrassment – admits that they think they are the only ones facing payments challenges. Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, the smooth-running, optimized payments organization is the exception: even the most established, big-brand companies have payments challenges.

NACHA's Payments 2013 Conference is underway this week in San Diego. Glenbrook's Erin McCune, Elizabeth McQuerry and George Peabody are attending - be sure to reach out to them if you're also attending Payments 2013!

Lots of tweets are coming today on Twitter from Payments 2013 attendees - you can follow along by searching for the hashtag #payments2013 and by following @NACHA_Payments.

Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton is conducting the third annual Glenbrook payments organization survey to learn how companies’ internal organizational structures are evolving to manage the ever-increasing complexity of payments:

We are eager to learn how your company manages payments, and how your payments organization is changing – whether you are a biller, eCommerce merchant, or retailer; whether you sell to consumers or businesses (or both).

And we’re also interested in learning how the payments function is managed within payment providers of all kinds. We want to understand the inter-relationship between finance and the payments function, and also how the balance between payments and risk management varies from company to company.

Two of the hottest topics in global payments today - "big data" and "faster money" - are the focus of Glenbrook's upcoming May 9th workshop on Innovation in Payments. The full agenda for this day focused on innovation has just been published.

This workshop will be taught by Glenbrook's Russ Jones and Carol Coye Benson and will be held on May 9th, 2013 in Palo Alto, California. Registration is now open.

Note: This workshop is not for beginners! Attendance is restricted to alumni of Glenbrook’s Payments Boot Camps and Private Workshops, or to those who feel they have enough industry experience to be qualified!

Immediacy is the new mantra for payments. Everyone’s talking about the best way to move payments faster. We’d like to know what you really mean when you say faster payments – or – immediate funds transfer. The focus here is on retail payments that today tend to settle on a differed basis.

We’ll share the survey results at the “Faster Payments: Models & Retail Payments Innovation” panel at the upcoming NACHA Payments Conference and, of course, here on PaymentsNews. The survey should only take five minutes. If you haven't already done so, click here to take the survey. Thanks!

Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson has a post on Payments Views about the ongoing importance of cash and cash-like payments systems. Carol argues in "Don't Trash-Talk Cash" that it is important to distinguish between the cash payment instrument, coins and bills, and the cash payment system.

Immediacy is the new mantra for payments. Everyone’s talking about the best way to move payments faster. We’d like to know what you really mean when you say faster payments – or – immediate funds transfer. The focus here is on retail payments that today tend to settle on a differed basis.

We’ll share the survey results at the “Faster Payments: Models & Retail Payments Innovation” panel at the upcoming NACHA Payments Conference and, of course, here on PaymentsNews. The survey should only take five minutes. Click here to take the survey. Thanks!

Glenbrook's Allen Weinberg will be the keynote speaker and host the ETA's Investment Community Forum (ICF) on Tuesday, April 30, immediately preceding the ETA Annual show in New Orleans. The ICF is geared towards anyone investing or guiding investors in the payments space but is equally valuable to existing payments participants.

Allen will also be on a panel awarding a Gates Foundation grant to a startup seeking to focus on the un- and underbanked populations, either in the US or abroad. If you know of any companies that might be interested in throwing their hats in the ring, please contact Allen directly.

Glenbrook announced that George Peabody has joined the firm. As a respected thought leader in payment innovation, he strengthens Glenbrook's strategy practice with in-depth understanding of emerging and mobile commerce, as well as security and authentication technologies.

"For the first time in a generation, many of our clients are fundamentally rethinking the point of sale infrastructure, and they are doing so with an eye toward how payments can be used to grow their business," said Bryan Derman, a managing partner with Glenbrook. "George's expertise and perspective on the role of mobile technologies, data security, and identity in payments will be invaluable to our clients."

Contact information is on the Glenbrook website. George will remain based in the Boston area.

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Russ Jones blogs about the how the card industry is starting to subdivide at the point of sale into two submarkets, one being the “smart” transaction market and the other being the “basic” transaction market. He explores how this trend is exemplified through solutions from Google, Isis, PayPal, and Visa. The full article is here.

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Dennis Moser has posted his thoughts on how what's happening in machine learning and how it might be applied to payments.

With the plunging cost of computing and the growing need to manage and interpret “big data”, it seems to me that machine learning should be an important ingredient in payments company IT plans. Of course, there are many large companies in the payment space that already employ machine learning – but for other smaller companies and newer entrants, machine learning may represent an untapped opportunity. Recent developments in machine learning may also be relevant for the big players.

Full post is located here.

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson has recently posted her thoughts on the disruptive nature of the new real-time, credit-push systems that are starting to emerge around the world.

Of the various use cases, the largest opportunity is undoubtedly B2B payments. But the most intriguing use case is point of sale purchases – imagine a consumer with a mobile device, pushing a payment to a merchant – no authorization required!

Full post is here - "Faster, Better, and Cheaper (Like it or Not)".

Glenbrook's Elizabeth McQuerry will be attending the International Money Transfer Conference (IMTC) – West on April 4-5 in Los Angeles where she will lead a Payment System Seminar pre-session on April 3 and speak during the conference about “Payments Innovations: What Role for Money Transfer Companies?” on April 4. The IMTC is the place to keep up on the money transfer industry developments and best practices.

If you attend, let Elizabeth know, she’d love to meet you.

Glenbrook’s 2013 Spring Payments Boot Camps in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area are now open for registration. Payments Boot Camps are being offered April 16-17 in New York City and May 7-8 in Palo Alto, CA.

On Day One, we do a fast, comprehensive overview of the core payments systems, the perspectives of the constituents (consumers, merchants, networks, processors....) and the economic, technical and regulatory levers that make it all work. We finish Day One with a session on Global Payments, covering both local country payments systems and the critical topic of cross-border payments. On Day Two, we help you understand mobile wallets (along with all the other many emerging payments plays) in context of the overall payments industry.

This spring we are also offering a one day Special Workshop on "Innovation in Payments" on May 9th in Palo Alto, CA.

Agendas, testimonials, and logistics information is available on the Glenbrook Payments Essentials website.

Glenbrook's Bryan Derman and Carol Coye Benson have published a white paper entitled, "Mobile Remote Commerce: Addressing the Challenges". The white paper explores the unique aspects of payment fraud in remote mobile commerce, and examines how Payfone combats this new form of fraud while streamlining mobile checkout for the buyer.

The freely-available white paper can be downloaded here.

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Allen Weinberg has a post about "Green Dot's New Mobile-Optimized Bank Account". Allen went to the product launch event and came away thinking that GoBank is not only a new brand almost a new product category. "What I found most interesting was Green Dot’s focus on the 'unhappily banked' and those new to the banking system, like my two teenage sons."

Glenbrook is pleased to announce availability of a new private payments workshop on Global Payments.

Focused particularly on cross-border payments, the course is designed to help payments professionals understand this rapidly changing, and highly lucrative, sector of the industry. The Global Payments course is an addition to Glenbrook's extensive list of available private workshops.

Glenbrook's Global Payments course is available as a one-day or two-day session, and can be conducted in person at your premises and/or via a private webinar to reach your global staff groups. The agenda includes:

• Overview: Key Concepts, Regulation, Foreign Exchange
• Country Payments Systems - Commonalities and Differences, Key Country Focus
• Cross-Border Payments: Wires, ACH, Cards, Money Transfer Systems
• Cross-Border Use Cases - Supplier Payments (B2B), Cross-Border eCommerce, Global Payouts (B2C and G2C), International Remittances

Private workshop clients can choose particular countries they are interested in for the "Key Country Focus" section, as well the particular use cases they want to concentrate on.

Interested? Please take our global payments survey to give us your general feedback. And contact Glenbrook's Elizabeth McQuerry to discuss scheduling a Global Payments workshop for your company.

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Elizabeth McQuerry is just back from Venture Atlanta 2012, where she was looking for payments-related innovation.

Pindrop deploys location analytics, acoustic “finger printing” and other analytics to provide a holistic solution that uses your phone call to authenticate you. This technique, if successful, would turn the call center or help desk into a reasonably secure proposition over the weakest link that it can be today. The banking industry sorely needs solutions like these.

Her full post is here.

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Elizabeth McQuerry has posted an article entitled, "From Sweden with Love: Mobile Payments and QR Codes". Elizabeth explores the SEQR mobile payment solution from Swedish startup Seamless and compares and contrasts it with some similar systems in the U.S. market.

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Elizabeth McQuerry has posted a new article, entitled "Local Knowledge, Global Payments" that explores the challenges and options available to U.S. companies that find themselves sending large volumes of payouts to app developers, affiliates, ad network participants such as bloggers and other content providers. She profiles Tipalti, a new player in this segment, and positions it against a number of better known alternatives.

Glenbrook's Elizabeth McQuerry recently posted an article over on Payments Views entitled, "Milk and a Fridge: Cross-border Bill Payments – A Developing Market".

Bill payment across borders has the same demands as paying domestic bills – you’ve got to link the funds to the correct account, make sure the money gets there and credited on time and provide the ability to pay for late charges when it doesn’t. On top of that, add foreign exchange conversion.

Have a look.

Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson weighs in on the state of the U.S. payments industry in 2012. Carol's post thematically looks at the landscape, the key competitive battles, the key innovations, the notable failures, and the untapped opportunities. Here's a hint at what she finds -- "Chaos, fragmentation, value chain disruption, and lots of innovation". Have a look.