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Square Puck
Replica of first hockey puck ever used (it actually was square-ish) Square Puck: sounds dangerous, right? I think it is. There’s a famous/trite expression, commonly cited in the venture business,...
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Tokenization and the collapse of the four-party payment model
[This post originally appeared on forbes.com here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2013/02/15/tokenization-and-the-collapse-of-the-credit-card-payment-model/] It’s been a fascinating couple of...
View ArticleWhat’s The Big Idea?
Perhaps I’m just simpleminded, but one of the most important things I look for in a company is the ability to summarize the problem they are solving in one sentence. Often, at the outset, I’m less...
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Submerging Payments
The most important development in merchant payments right now isn’t happening in Silicon Valley (though I do think PayPal is only a few chess moves away from becoming the fifth network.) It isn’t...
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Redefining FinTech
I’ve spent the better part of my career investing in technology companies involved in financial services. Given that, it’s a bit surprising how much I hate the term FinTech. Historically, FinTech has...
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Race to the Bottom
I’d like to think that the vast majority of the investments we make are in companies whose products and services are not commodities, and not subject to the brutal forces of commoditization. In those...
View ArticleTrends in payments innovation.
Yeah, I’ve done it … this blog basically consists of a slideshow. Obviously we know what comes next: Listicle 24 signs that you may be a Fintech nerd Click bait The founder of twitter started a...
View ArticleOn Prepaid
My friend Dan Schatt recently published a great book called Virtual Banking (incidentally you can buy it here). Dan was kind enough to ask me my thoughts on the prepaid space, which I have always felt...
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Submerging Payments, Part II
Not much more than 100 years ago, the ice industry was a major component of the US industrial economy, contributing $660MM (in today’s dollars) to the GDP and employing 90,000 people, more than the...
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The Short History And Long Future Of The Online Lending Industry
Originally published at Forbes.com Credit, private or public, is of greatest consequence to every country. Of this, it might be called the invigorating principle. -Alexander Hamilton So...
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