Category Archives: Retail

CMO Imperatives in the Age of Agentic Commerce

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The emergence of agentic commerce represents a watershed moment for the retail industry. While the path to full commercialization is paved with significant challenges, it also presents unparalleled opportunities for innovation, differentiation, and the forging of deeper, more intelligent customer relationships. For Chief Marketing Officers, this new frontier demands proactive leadership, strategic foresight, and a willingness to embrace transformative change.

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Understanding Merchants – Cards on FIle

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Why merchants prefer cards they control. Implications for Agentic, Pay By Bank and beyond… 

Short Blog. My last blogs on the topic were Acceptance Hurdles (2022) and the more technical list of 14 core processing activities in Acceptance Part 1 (2016). 

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eReciepts – The Politics and Economics of SKU Data

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An update to my Data Games – 2021

© 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.

Electronic receipts (eReceipts) COULD transform the retail landscape by offering numerous benefits to consumers and businesses. With the potential to enhance digital wallets, improve customer experiences, empower AI agents, and increase advertising effectiveness. However, the widespread adoption and sharing SKU-level data face several challenges, most of which are NOT technical. Today, I’m providing an overview of key business and economic challenges of unlocking SKU data.

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Winning in Network of Networks: Collaboration

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My largest holdings are card networks, and I’m very keen on their continued growth and sustainability of competitive advantage. My confidence is based on five broad themes. 

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Future Scenario – Impact of “Perfect” Authentication

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A follow-up to my previous post covering Identity, Authentication and Risk

FIDO2, eID, Mobile Wallets, and other initiatives are rapidly advancing to a future of passwordless authentication. “Perfect Authentication” will be highly disruptive to all payment networks, methods and stakeholders. This blog outlines the rough economic impact, winners and losers in a future scenario. Today’s blog is not a dissertation but a “framework” providing puts and takes on disruption due to better authentication. 

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US Payments – Where to Invest

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New Payment Experiences

Topics today (pardon the typos)

  • Are US payments still an attractive area for investment and growth? If so, where are the opportunities?

  • High level view of the payment landscape and areas of friction

  • Consumer Journey –  how to unlock new consumer experiences

  • Where will innovation come from? 

  • Core areas for improvement?

  • Who are the best providers? Wallets as the new metaphor

  • Challenges with Issuer-led innovation (ie PAZE)

The top questions coming out of Money 2020 were: is the US payments environment maturing? Are there still opportunities for break out growth? Where? Who is best positioned and why?  Today I will be taking part of that on. 

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Separating Payment and Identity

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15 pages (summary is 4)

Follow blog from Payment Authorization – Under the Hood (ie working on a car engine), Trust Assertions – Identity will Define the Future of Payments and Role of Identity and Trust in eCommerce.

Today’s blog is one of my personal favorites, not only because of the topic but because of the leading experts in retail, identity, networks, and payments that collaborated and provided editing (thanks all). While I’m no longer the tech expert, I do have a unique view on the “inside baseball” incentives and realities of what is actually happening (behind the rules). Payments are not like a brand-new Ferrari operating to spec, they are a very messy business with complex rules, worn-out systems, unresponsive drivers and a broke racing team with no sponsor. This is a get-your-hands-dirty blog. Note that I’m open to feedback in case I’ve missed something

Outline

  1. Summary

  2. Survey of global identity initiatives

  3. How identity works in eCommerce today

  4. Technical example

  5. How identity improves CX and eCommerce payment flows

  6. Four future scenarios of identity and payments

  7. What should investors track

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MRC Recap – Looking up – A Retailers Perspective On Payments

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I’m glad I made the decision to attend my very first Merchant Risk Council event this week. For those that don’t know, MRC Vegas is the second largest payment event in the US (after M2020) but with a VERY different focus. MRC is attended by the “hands on” payment leaders from all the top merchants and the vendors that serve them: Stripe, Adyen, PayPal, V, MA, risk, fraud,  …. Etc. Whereas M2020 is attended by FinTech, Crypto, Venture, Institutional investor, and strategy audiences, MRC is much more focused on making payments work. 

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Driving Vision of Durbin? Bi-Lateral Connections?

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I now have 70% confidence in the forces shaping Durbin (still no threat to V/MA). 

© Starpoint LLP, 2022. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.

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