Over on Payments Views, Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness takes a look back at payments in 2011.

At Glenbrook, we thrive on thinking about how payments are evolving and how these changes will affect us in the years ahead. In this look back at the important payments themes of 2011, we share a summary of some of our best thinking over the course of 2011 from our PaymentsViews.com web site.

Glenbrook's Bryan Derman is attending the second day of the Finovate Fall 2010 conference today in New York City, and is live blogging throughout the day over on PaymentsViews.com.

Over on our sister blog, PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Erin McCune takes a look at the new PayNearMe payment method in a post entitled, "PayNearMe Refreshes Kombini Payments For The US". In explaining the real-time nature of the cash payment, she notes that online merchants are notified of customer payment before the buyer even leaves the 7-Eleven store.

Over on our sister PaymentsViews.com blog, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson is asking for community input regarding the perception of deployment of contactless POS readers at merchants in the US market. If you can spare a minute, please take Carol's quick survey - and optionally sign up to receive a copy of the results!

Over on our sister PaymentsViews.com blog, Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness takes a look at mobile boarding passes and wonders if we've reached a tipping point with potential implications for payments.

Clearly, we’re on the cusp of a serious migration to mobile boarding passes in the US. Travelers will soon be very comfortable displaying their boarding pass to a scanner at the gate – and avoiding the hassles of printing and carrying paper. When will this new way of communicating data simply from the mobile handset jump the rails into new verticals? Are you betting, along with Starbucks and mFoundry – and others, that it’s coming? Seems that the airlines have placed they’re bets!

Over on our sister PaymentsViews.com blog, Glenbrook's Russ Jones takes a look at "Pay with a Tweet" - the name of a new payment concept developed by an interactive advertising agency called Innovative Thunder.

A seller registers a URL with Pay with a Tweet that points to some digital content they want to sell, and attaches a tweet to the URL. When a potential buyer comes along, they just click on the “Pay with a Tweet” button which tweets the seller’s message from the buyer and then provides the buyer with access to the underlying digital goods.

I think there's a "sleeper" in this interchange legislation - see my post "The End of Interchange?" over on our PaymentsViews.com blog.

What do you think?

In a post on PaymentsViews.com titled "Getting Real About Durbin", Glenbrook's Bryan Derman writes about the Durbin amendment that could affect debit card interchange fees if it remains in the final consumer financial reform legislation currently being negotiated in conference committee in Washington.

In a post on PaymentsViews.com titled "Tidbits and Sound Bites from the 2010 Chicago Fed Payments Conference", Glenbrook's Bryan Derman reviews last week's conference. Bryan moderated a panel on Transformative Technology.

Be sure to read Bryan's summary notes from this important annual payments conference!

Want to learn more? - share your thoughts with Bryan directly!

In a post titled "Memo to Bankers: A Customer is Someone Who Pays You" over on PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson comments on the passage late this week of the Durbin amendment - and its implications (if the amendment survives) for retail bankers.

Carol writes:

I think the underlying problem that banks are dealing with is that too much of their retail customer revenue is hidden – that is, their customers don’t know they are paying it. It seems to me that you really don’t have a customer unless the customer is making a conscious decision to pay you. ... (click to continue reading)

Over on PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Scott Loftesness takes a look at Klarna - an ecommerce payments provider based in Sweden that's attracted a major investment from Sequoia Capital and partner Michael Moritz.

• iPhone mag-stripe readers and related services
• A myriad of PCI-centric vendors and offerings
• Small eCommerce gateways

Click to read his just filed Field Report for more details!

Yes, you! I'm asking you a question! Who are you?

See my PaymentsViews.com post: "Are You an Incumbent – or an Innovator?"

In a post titled "Glenbrook’s Model for Social Payments (A Work in Progress)", Glenbrook's Russ Jones writes on PaymentsViews.com about social payments - what they are and what they aren't!

I’ve concluded that for something to be a social payment, it’s got to be social. It’s got to involve multiple parties paying at once. Or multiple parties being paid at once. Or one party buying and another party paying. On and on."

Plan to join Russ and Glenbrook's Erin McCune for a session titled “Web 2.0 and the Emergence of Social Payments” at the upcoming NACHA Payments 2010 conference in Seattle. Glenbrook will also be exploring this topic in an upcoming webinar - Social Payments – Scenario Analysis - that will be held May 5th, 2010. Registration is now open.

Allen's looking to learn more about this trend - if you are aware of companies offering these capabilities to ecommerce merchants, please drop Allen an email.

In an article titled "Mobile Payment Themes from CTIA" on PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton writes about last week's CTIA conference in Las Vegas and the discussions about Money over Mobile that took place. Stay tuned to PaymentsViews.com this week for more articles about mobile payments from Jacqueline. Need help understanding mobile payments? - contact Jacqueline directly.

In a post on PaymentsViews.com titled "ACH and the Future of Electronic Payments: BAI Convenes the Ultimate ACH Panel", Glenbrook's Erin McCune describes the "dream panel" that discussed ACH at the BAI Payments Connect conference in Orlando this week. The panelists were: Jan Estep (CEO NACHA), Rich Oliver (EVP Retail Product Manager, Federal Reserve), Rossana Salaris (SVP Payments Products, The Clearing House), and Stephanie Sturgis-Griffin (CEO Pariter Solutions); the moderator was Fred Brothers of eCom Advisors.

Glenbrook's Erin McCune is attending BAI's Payments Connect Conference in Orlando this week. You can follow Erin's tweets in real-time on Twitter - and read her coverage on PaymentsViews.com of yesterday's panel discussion exploring the most pressing issues in e-payments. She'll be posting more articles from the conference soon!

Over the weekend, GetDebit.com reported on Green Dot's plans to become a bank holding company through the acquisition of Bonneville Bancorp. In a post titled "A New Model for Retail Banking?" on our PaymentsViews.com website, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson reacts to the news - saying she thinks that Green Dot's move "gives, I think, a peek at what may come for retail banking in the future."

In an article titled "NFC vs. Not-NFC, or “Why Put Card Data on the Phone?” A look at Mocapay" on our sister website PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson takes a look at Mocapay who earlier this morning announced their new secure mobile payments at POS solution.

She asks: "Instead of going through huge contortions to store [payment card] data securely on the phone – and possibly paying through the nose for it – why not simply avoid putting the card data on the phone?"

In an article titled "Re-coupled Debit? The TSYS Hybrid Card" over on PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Bryan Derman takes a look at the recently announced TSYS Hybrid card.

Bryan writes: "TSYS’s product could provide a compelling version of a promising concept that has largely been a disappointment in the marketplace."

In an article titled "Localization of Payments: Lessons from Online Travel", Glenbrook's Jacqueline Chilton writes about how payments are inherently local in nature - based on speeches and a panel discussion that she led at ATPS 2009 – Airline and Travel Payments Summit - held in early December 2009.

In a post titled "Peeling the Blippy Onion", Glenbrook's Russ Jones writes on PaymentsViews.com about Blippy.

Broadcasting something to a community of friends or followers in real-time in today’s hyper connected, super integrated world is easy if you know what to broadcast. And knowing what to broadcast only requires access to real-time purchase data. Ah, there’s the rub."

Over on PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Erin McCune takes a look back at the seven popular topics and recurring themes that stand out since Payments Views was founded in February.

Are you active on Twitter? Did you know that you can follow us on Twitter too? Both PaymentsNews.com and PaymentsViews.com have Twitter feeds that you can follow to get real-time updates for our postings:

• PaymentsNews
• PaymentsViews

Follow us and get our updates as real-time tweets!

For the last several months, Glenbrook’s Carol Coye Benson has been interviewing a number of companies involved in mobile payments in the U.S. and Canada. You’ll find all of the analyses she’s written following those interviews on PaymentsViews.com. The companies included are Billing Revolution, Blaze Mobile, Bling Nation, Boku, CashEdge, First Data Corp., mFoundry, mPayy, Obopay, Payfone, Zong, and Zoompass.

To make it easy to access all of Carol’s analyses in a form that you can download, print out and take with you, we’ve created a PDF version titled “Musings about Mobile Payments 2009” that includes each of Carol’s commentaries. You can download a free copy of the PDF from PaymentsViews.com. Happy holidays from all of us at Glenbrook!

The upcoming 2010 editions of our Glenbrook Payments Boot Camps include an expanded and updated focus on emerging payments – based on Carol's on-going mobile payments research, new options for online payment for digital content, and ACH-based payments across online and physical domains.

Last week, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson posted an item on PaymentsViews.com titled "Payments Views Challenge: What Are the Best Ways for Banks to Replace Lost Overdraft Fee Income?". Today's the last day to share your ideas.

Earlier today, Square launched. For our initial thoughts, see our post titled "It's Hip to Be Square!" over on our PaymentsViews.com sister blog. What do you think about Square? Comment here or on PaymentsViews.com!

In an article titled "The Check is in the Email? Electronic Payments Orders Could Be An Opportunity for Banks" over on our sister site PaymentsViews.com, Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson takes a look at the opportunity for banks with Electronic Payment Orders.

Carol writes that "the EPO concept is a way for banks to leverage their existing investment in checking – and check imaging – and enhance the somewhat surprising success of remote deposit capture."

Over on our sister blog PaymentsViews.com, I share some of my thoughts about today's announcement of American Express acquiring Revolution Money. It's a bold move towards innovation by a company that's been slow to move in the past. Read my post and share your comments - would love to know what you think!