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New technology rarely disrupts industries overnight. Instead, it is first used by existing players in established markets to gain a competitive edge. On-chain finance is no different. While decentralized finance (DeFi) and public blockchains promise a future of open financial networks, the immediate growth will come from closed, permissioned ledgers operated by financial institutions.
Continue readingOptions for Cards in Agentic Commerce (Sorry for typos.. )
My friend Simon Taylor wrote an excellent post on the 4 Models of Agentic Payments last week. Discussion in the industry is great, and while I respect Simon’s views, we are not entirely aligned. My focus today is on the card options.
As I discussed in Agentic Wallets and Federated Data, the models of agentic commerce are in a very high state of flux. While early leaders like OpenAI’s Operator and Perplexity demonstrate the power of what is possible, Google, Amazon and others are in a much better position to use their deep consumer insights and direct connections (from phone and search to Alexa). The initial retailer reaction to Agentic is not positive, with one saying, “We are not looking to enable another Google to disintermediate us in product search; we have our own plans to use AI to improve consumer experience”. What is certain? AI will profoundly impact how goods are sold and how consumers interact with retailers and specialists (see Hype and Reality of Agentic Commerce).
Continue readingHaving just completed a merchant survey, Retail CMOs were quite clear with their top 3 companies they would spend time with to improve eCommerce (payment focus):
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Adyen was the largest network “tokenizer” and realized the benefits through enhanced authorization rates and reduced fraud. As I explained in Tokens and Binding 101, this history of tokens in payments is long, with each stakeholder maintaining an ability to tokenize. While all token strategies protect data, network tokens differ in RULES, binding (to a customer and device) and acceptance. For example, Visa’s Cloud Token Framework (CTF) and Mastercard’s Digital Enablement Services (MDES) address 6 key areas:
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Visa held their Investor Day last week on Feb 20, and I encourage everyone to read through the presentations. Most of you know my strong network bias, V/MA are my top personal holdings. I’m not a financial analyst; my investment hypothesis rests on the strategic need for card networks and their sustainable advantage in meeting those needs.
Let me provide my top 7 reasons why I am so firmly behind the networks, with references to investor day content and my previous blogs.
Continue readingStimulating community discussion is the #1 reason I write this blog. The intersection of payments, banking, and technology is evolving rapidly, and I’m fortunate to engage with great minds like Dave Birch and new friends like Simon Taylor. Dave’s recent post on crypto predictions got me thinking about a topic I keep coming back to—wallets and networks.
As a former banker, I’m naturally more skeptical about FinTechs disrupting the core of banking. Consumer behavior is incredibly difficult to change, and financial services are among the most competitive industries in the world. If there’s one concept where my perspective diverges from many thought leaders, it’s the power of bank networks (read more). These networks are the foundation of financial transactions, and they continue to define the way money moves.
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Continue readingUS Payment Infrastructure is in the midst of completing a major renovation.
Let me preempt the #1 question most of you are about to ask “are card volumes at risk”? Nope, why on earth would banks want to walk away from the most profitable retail banking product in the history of man (see Future of Retail Banking)!?
© Starpoint LLP, 2025. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced or retransmitted, in whole or in part, in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner. Also, see our Legal/Disclaimer (this is a highly opinionated and partially informed blog).
My estimates for how US eCom market share will shift in next 3 yrs are at the end of this blog.
eCommerce is not a single monolithic market. There are many “segments” to optimize that vary by geography, retailer type, consumer device, customer type (guest vs loyal), transaction type (recurring vs new), ad type, payment type,…etc. A great source of this information is Monetate (highly recommend). For example, let’s look at conversion rates by industry, device and region.
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