Sections
Posts By Karen Webster
-
2.6KCoronavirusNew 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...
-
10.7KCoronavirusThe 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...
-
8.0KCoronavirusWhat 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...
-
5.6KBankingHow 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...
-
10.4KCommerce 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...
-
5.9KCommerce 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...
-
6.8KEcosystemsWhat 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...
-
12.5KRetailWhy 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...
-
10.9KDeliveryWho 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...
-
10.9KPayments 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...
-
30.3KPayments 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...
-
23.4KPayments 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...
-
13.4KRegulationCongress 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...
-
19.6KPayments 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...
-
21.4KMobile 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...
-
10.9KGig 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...
-
14.3KCryptocurrencyWhat 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....
-
11.2KVoice 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...
-
11.2KPayments 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...
-
14.9KCommerce 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...
-
14.0KPayments 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...
-
15.4KPayments 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...
-
15.2KEcosystemsWho 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...
-
11.5KRetailWhat ‘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...
-
11.2KPayments 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...
-
8.8KCryptocurrencyThe 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...
-
8.2KCryptocurrencyIf 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...
-
15.5KFacebookWhat 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...
-
9.7KRegulationThe 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...
-
11.2KPayments 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...
-
10.4KInvestmentsWhy 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...
-
10.9KEconomyWhy 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...
-
13.5KPayments 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....
-
13.0KRetailWhy 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...
-
16.0KPayments 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...
-
15.4KEcosystemsWhy 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...
-
17.5KPayments 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...
-
20.7KFaster 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” –...
-
18.0KResTechWhy 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...
-
15.2KPayments 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...
-
21.6KPayments InnovationCould Online Intermediaries Control The Physical Point Of Sale?
The year is 2039. The youngest of the bridge millennials – those 30- to 40-year-olds who today represent the first generation of...
-
18.4KRegulationMerchants Gone Wild: The Surcharge Edition
Since about mid-December of 2018, checking out in the stores here in Boston has become even more of a hassle. Never mind...
-
18.7KFaster PaymentsThe Big Tech Canary In The Faster Payments Coal Mine
There’s a canary in the faster payments coal mine. It flew in on Dec. 14, the Friday before the week before Christmas,...
-
23.8KPayment MethodsWhy The Physical Store Model Is Dead
It looks like we can finally have a serious conversation about the impending collapse of physical retail in the U.S. All it...
-
18.3KPayments Innovation2019: What To Take Forward And What To Leave Behind
Welcome to the first Monday of 2019. According to the Chinese calendar, 2019 is the “Year of the Pig” – which may...
-
21.1KPayments InnovationDid Payments 2018 Predictions Come True?
In about two weeks, 2018 will be one for the history books. And from a payments and commerce perspective, it really has...
-
16.7KPayment MethodsDecoupled Debit — Again?
The year is 2007. Headlines are filled with news of a “revolutionary” product that will change the fortunes of merchants and unlock...
-
15.0KSecurity & FraudWhy Consumers Will Shrug Off The Marriott Breach
In 1954, mathematician L.J. Savage published research about how consumers process information when making decisions. Dubbed the sure-thing principle, Savage’s work showed...
-
23.2KMobile CommerceWhat Black Friday Tells Us About The Future Of Retail
The verdict is in. Black Friday was a boon for online retail. Nostalgia still drove consumers to physical stores to snag and...
-
25.7KConsumer InsightsThe Walmart/Amazon Whole Paycheck Matchup
Walmart’s Q3 earnings last week was a story of strong digital sales and 16 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth. Consumers, executives...
