Karen Webster

Commentary
Can Visa Checkout Ignite?
July 28, 2014

Visa Checkout launched last week as part of Visa’s efforts to be the biggest digital payments player on the planet just like it is in the physical world. Can it solve the massive chicken and egg problem that has stalled everyone else? Maybe, says MPD...

Commentary
Is Yelp + Amazon The Mobile Commerce Game Changer?
July 21, 2014

Facebook and Twitter made news last week when each introduced payment options. But MPD CEO Karen Webster says that the real player to watch is Yelp. She was prompted to think about an Amazon/Yelp combo after doing a deep dive on OpenTable in preparation for...

Commentary
Does The US Really Trail The Rest Of The World In Payments Innovation?
July 14, 2014

Financial Times columnist John Gapper got a check for a dollar in the mail which prompted him to write a piece that more or less portrayed the US as being total Luddites in the payments innovation department. Well, in a true case of payments patriotism...

Commentary
Can A Show About Nothing Teach One (Almost) Everything They Need To Know About Payments?
July 07, 2014

Sometimes it rains on the fourth of July and the only thing to do is binge watch Seinfeld. However, in the hands of MPD CEO Karen Webster, the show famously about nothing is so much more than something to do in lieu of fireworks. This...

Commentary
Is Amazon Fire A Threat to Payments?
June 30, 2014

Jeff Bezos sent people invited to the launch of the Fire phone a children’s book about a man who painted his house purple so he could distinguish it from all of the other white houses on his street. The analog he was making was that...

Commentary
To Disrupt or Not To Disrupt: Is That Really The Question?
June 23, 2014

It is hard to imagine Harvard professors as anything but the sorts of people inclined to shop at J. Crew and with excellent manners. So naturally it comes as some surprise when one Harvard professor accuses another of popularizing a signature theory that she believes...

Commentary
Are the Best Days over for Digital Wallets?
June 18, 2014

The slow path to digital wallets ignition has caused some in the business to say that they’re all but dead and more or less the payments equivalent of the Edsel. Fact or just a case of underestimating the slog that is ignition in payments? MPD...

Acquiring
PayPal’s Marcus Moves To Facebook
June 10, 2014

Old news but new analysis. Check out Karen Webster’s take on the news that stopped the payments world from spinning on its axis for a little while yesterday.

Acquiring
What Apple Didn’t Say That Acquirers Should Have Heard
June 09, 2014

Last week’s Apple WWDC keynote has prompted a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking with respect to Apple’s plans for devices, software and even payments. Although Tim Cook’s and Craig Federighi’s keynotes were devoid of any direct reference to how Apple would pursue “payments,” (even disappointing...