Digital payments

TBT: October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month (And it’s not too late to put it to work)

Posted by on September 17, 2020 at 3:09 pm

I am the first to admit that when it comes names of commemorative months, National Cyber Security Awareness Month isn’t the sexiest. Reducing it to the initialism NCSAM makes it easier to write, but not easier to pronounce—En-see-sam? Nik-sam? Ink-sam?—and it it doesn’t help in the sexiness department, either.  Perhaps that’s why, even though NCSAM has been […]

Walmart takes on Prime, while Amazon drones on

Posted by on September 14, 2020 at 1:57 pm

Here’s how PYMNTS.com describes Walmart Plus*, Walmart’s new delivery program, set to debut tomorrow: For $98 annually or $12.95 a month, members will receive unlimited, same-day free delivery, Scan & Go on the Walmart app that allows customers to scan their items as they shop and pay with Walmart Pay for quick and touch-free payments […]

TBT: When it comes to innovation, think small

Posted by on September 10, 2020 at 1:44 pm

Yesterday when my wife kicked off her ASICS workout shoes, I noticed this line on the removable insole: “Be better than yesterday.” That, I realized, says it. The financial services industry is obsessed with innovation. Rightly so, for we cannot let the competition outstrip us. But when we limit innovation to mean the next big shiny […]

A toaster in a new suit of clothes

Posted by on September 7, 2020 at 7:00 am

The financial services industry has never been short on clichés. There’s the diminutive clerk wearing a green visor and sleeve garters. The rotund, cigar-chomping financier. The heartless, mustache-twirling userer. Not to be overlooked are clichés the industry brought upon itself through marketing. There’s the “friendly banker.” (“If the banks are so friendly,” comedian Alan King […]

TBT: Bank metamorphosis for fun and profit

Posted by on September 3, 2020 at 1:57 pm

You will doubtless agree that morphing beats going the way of the typewriter. The good news for banks is that morphing in a digital environment represents more than survival. It represents exciting opportunities to prosper in newer and bigger ways. The digital age has not rolled forth without casualties. Type-writers, maps, encyclopedias, calculators, film cameras, […]