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Posts By Karen Webster
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1.7KPayments InnovationThe Vicious Circle Of Physical Retail Meets The Virtuous Circle of Digital
If your business touches retail in any way, it might pay to follow a few important breadcrumbs. Nike posted its lowest quarterly...
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4.2KCoronavirusNew Report: How A Global Pandemic Created A Digital-First Customer In 12 Weeks
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. Then, cases in the U.S. had hit 1267 and...
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8.0KeCommerceWhy Digital’s 3.0 Shift May Take Longer Than We Think
There is an out-and-out frenzy to capitalize on the pandemic-fueled digital shift that gave consumers few options for accessing products and services...
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6.8KRegulationThe Flaw In Demonizing Big Tech
Between all the burger-flipping, and making sure your mask didn’t catch fire while you were doing it, you probably missed an important...
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8.1KPayments InnovationThe Big Jump: Pandemics And The Connected Economy’s Bigger, Faster Future
To understand when and how consumer demand will return and the impact it will have on federal and state efforts to reopen...
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10.2KCoronavirusWhy Consumers Aren’t In A Rush To Reopen The Economy
Economists, policymakers and epidemiologists have been modeling the cost/benefit of reopening the U.S. economy since governors began asking their citizens to #stayathome...
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10.5KCoronavirusWhy Reopening The US Economy Should Be About Reinventing It
Never has one letter of the alphabet been such a hot topic of conversation. That letter — V — has become the...
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17.2KCoronavirusWhen, How And Why Consumers Will Change Post-COVID-19
For weeks now, American consumers and businesses – everyone everywhere, really – have been desperate for the answers to three questions: Are...
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9.3KCoronavirusCan Main Street SMBs Cross The PPP Cash Chasm?
Friday, April 3 was the day everyone expected would bring a sigh of relief — and offer much-needed hope — to the...
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13.8KCoronavirusNew Data: Why COVID-19 Will Be The Connected Economy’s Inflection Point
March 11 marked the end of traditional business in the U.S., maybe even the rest of the world – and probably forever....
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10.2KCoronavirusNew Data: What COVID-19 Is Doing To Main Street SMBs
For most small businesses, the dawn of the new decade was filled with optimism for their futures. Consumer confidence was at an...
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19.8KCoronavirusThe 11 Days That Changed The Consumer’s COVID-19 Mindset
Thursday, March 19 was the first day of spring in the U.S. — a season that is symbolic of rebirth and renewal...
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23.9KCoronavirusWhat 2K Consumers Told PYMNTS About How COVID-19 Changed Their Daily Lives
On March 6, at the end of the first week that the coronavirus roiled markets and rocked the U.S., PYMNTS asked 2,128...
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10.6KBankingHow To Compete With Banks: Start With First Principles
Aristotle may have originated the notion of first principles thousands of years ago, but it would take Elon Musk to add a contemporary...
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15.5KCommerce ConnectedHow The Digital World Will Soften The Blow Of The Coronavirus
Sixty-seven years ago this month, Jonas Salk announced that he had successfully tested a vaccine for polio. Many in the U.S. breathed...
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9.4KCommerce ConnectedThe Connected Economy: It’s About Time
One of the most important innovations in history is the pendulum clock, which was invented in 1636 by Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch...
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10.0KEcosystemsWhat Amazon At 10 Can Teach Us About Uber At 10
Uber reported its earnings last week. Analysts seemed happier than they’ve been in a while about the company. That’s mostly because they...
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15.5KRetailWhy Consumers Are Firing Traditional Retailers
“Jobs to be done” – a theory popularized by the late Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen – is the notion that...
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14.0KDeliveryWho Will Win The Restaurant Aggregator Race?
Foot traffic is flat as digital dominates top-line growth. Purchases are shifting from individual brands to marketplaces. Mobile influences the purchasing and...
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13.6KPayments InnovationWho Will Shape The Future Of The Connected Economy?
Ten years ago, the world of payments and commerce was in a very different place. ISOs sold terminals and card processing, mostly...
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35.0KPayments InnovationWelcome To The Connected Economy
Making predictions is simply irresistible at this time of the year – this year in particular. Tuesday marked not only the end...
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27.6KPayments InnovationWhy Google’s Deal With Citi Isn’t About Becoming A Bank (But Is Still A Big Deal)
It was the gasp heard ‘round the world last week. Google confirmed that it will partner with Citi and Stanford Federal Credit...
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15.7KRegulationCongress Wants Digital Platforms To Release Their Algorithms – Why?
U.S. lawmakers proposed new legislation last week that would require internet platforms to more or less lay bare the intellectual property that...
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23.6KPayments InnovationWhy Super Apps Could Have Superpowers
It’s what WeChat and Alipay already are in China, and what LINE is in Japan. Rappi follows suit in Latin America. It’s...
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26.8KMobile PaymentsREPORT: What Apple Pay At Five Says About The Future Of Mobile POS Payments
Apple Pay went live five years ago yesterday, on Oct. 20, 2014. When Tim Cook took the stage a month beforehand to...
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13.2KGig EconomyWhat’s Wrong With The Attack On Gig Economy Pay
Drivers can’t make ends meet. Given the median income of roughly $25,000 a year and the number of hours required behind the...
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16.8KCryptocurrencyWhat We’ve Learned From Libra
PayPal officially pulled its support of Facebook’s Libra initiative after it no-showed at the Libra Association meeting last week in Washington, D.C....
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12.9KVoice ActivationApple – Phone Home
“There’s no place like home” are the famous words spoken by Judy Garland, playing the character of Dorothy, at the end of...
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13.6KPayments InnovationThe Real-Time Payments Receivables Conundrum
P.T. Barnum perfected the art of showmanship, a reputation burnished by the spectacular fame of the traveling circus and side show that...
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17.0KCommerce ConnectedWhat The Trendsetters Say About How We Will Pay Next Decade
Sheep are not natural-born leaders. If they were, they wouldn’t need border collies or sheepherders to make sure that they didn’t follow...
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16.7KPayments InnovationWhy Invisible Will Make 2020’s Payments Innovation Roar
The famous 18th-century political satirist and author, Jonathan Swift, wrote in 1745 that “vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” Two...
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18.1KPayments InnovationWhy FedNow Will Slow Real-Time Payments
I’m from the government and I’m here to make sure you get your paychecks faster – even instantly… …if you can just...
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17.4KEcosystemsWho Will Be The Consumer’s Everyday App?
Everyone wants to be the consumer’s everyday app – the “super app” to rule them all, the front door into the goods...
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13.7KRetailWhat ‘Stranger Things’ Teaches Us About Attacks On Big Tech
A couple of months ago, I decided to give spinning a try. I’m a runner, not a biker, but wanted to see...
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13.3KPayments InnovationFacebook Slapped With $5B FTC Fine, But Still Has Lots Of Friends
The most interesting story about Facebook since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke is one that hasn’t really been written. And it’s the...
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10.7KCryptocurrencyThe 4 Key Clues To Understanding The Future Of Facebook’s Libra
It’s been a little over two weeks since we all got our first look at Libra and Calibra. No doubt there will...
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10.2KCryptocurrencyIf Facebook Wants To Be WeChat, Why Did It Launch Libra?
Have you overdosed on Libra coverage yet? And it’s not even been two whole weeks. Facebook’s launch of Libra on June 18...
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18.8KFacebookWhat The Launch Of Facebook’s Libra Means For Payments
The endless speculation over Facebook’s plans to build a new set of global payments rails and launch a global cryptocurrency comes to...
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12.1KRegulationThe Only Thing Missing From The Big Tech Breakup Debate: A Debate
Bashing Big Tech has become something of a sport. Regulators are circling the wagons. Policymakers are preparing to haul Big Tech execs...
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13.3KPayments InnovationWhy Search And Logistics Will Shape The Future Of Retail Payments
The two most powerful forces shaping the future of retail payments have nothing to do with payments at all. At least at...
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13.2KInvestmentsWhy Anyone Can Be A Unicorn Now
It started with a postcard that was slipped under my front door in Boston last fall. It was an invitation to join...
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12.8KEconomyWhy The Loan Shark Prevention Act Will Harm Consumers
Let’s hop into the time travel machine this Monday morning and go back to the year 1973. Here’s why. The proposed credit...
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16.1KPayments InnovationWill Facebook’s Crypto Payments Rails Get A Big Like?
The news last Friday that Facebook has plans to launch its own global crypto-based payments rails is déjà vu all over again....
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15.4KRetailWhy Amazon Bet (Almost) A Billion On Certainty
Amazon announced last week that it would spend $800 million to make one-day shipping the default for Prime members. Much of the...
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18.7KPayments InnovationIs Uber Next Decade’s Trillion-Dollar Platform?
Uber filed its S-1 last Thursday (April 11), two weeks after Lyft went public. By close of business on Friday, Lyft’s stock...
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17.1KEcosystemsWhy Me-Too Services Can’t Save Apple
Three years ago, I wrote a piece in which I said Apple had become the kind of company that Steve Jobs once...
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19.7KPayments InnovationWill Amazon Pay Plus Worldpay Conquer Food?
Most of the payments chatter last week focused on FIS’ mega acquisition of Worldpay. The topic of conversation was the inevitable consolidation...
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23.5KFaster PaymentsFaster Payments: Does The Fed Have A Hidden Agenda?
“Connect the dots” is used as a metaphor to describe how a series of discrete events can explain a “big picture” –...
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19.9KResTechWhy Restaurants Should Be Worried
The true measure of innovation is when no one has come up with anything better a couple of centuries later. Nearly 300...
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17.2KPayments InnovationWhat Amazon HQ2, Interchange Fees And Facebook Have In Common
I hosted a digital discussion last week with an executive from Sift with more than 15 years of experience building trust and...
