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Change Is good, but Slow
In August I celebrated eight years at Paybefore! When I joined the company in 2007, Google was just a search engine and Apple had nothing
to do with payments. Prepaid was starting to take off, and it was a time many prepaid executives have compared to throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks—not everything did.
As the lines continue to blur between prepaid and the broader pay- ments landscape, things look a lot different now. We’ve witnessed several IPOs and a lot of consolidation. And, we’ve seen technology companies and social media giants move to stake their claims in a complex industry where established players are investing like crazy to stay relevant.
One important change we’ve seen is the meteoric rise of women lead- ing the push to make the payments experience more integrated into our daily digital lives. Starting on page 32, you’ll meet 24 women at the forefront of payments, according to your votes on Paybefore.com. If you don’t know them already, you should!
One thing that hasn’t changed much is the prevalence of plastic cards. This fall we finally arrive at the much-discussed EMV liability shift in the U.S. (page 100). For those issuers that have reissued the more costly chip cards, there’s an incentive to make sure that plastic stays in consumers’ wallets for the immediate future. And, no matter how excited you are about Apple Pay (page 76), Samsung Pay, Android Pay or CurrentC (page 68), chances are you’re still pulling out plastic for most transactions. In this issue we talk to card manufacturers
(page 86) and issuers (page 18) about why cards matter in a mobile world.
Change is slow—especially when it comes to consumer behavior. That said, when I started writing about prepaid, I never could’ve predicted all the changes we’ve seen. What excites me about my work, that of our Paybefore Awards Europe winners (page 4)— and the work you’re doing—are the possibilities we haven’t begun to imagine.
Here’s to good change!
Loraine DeBonis Editor-in-Chief
volume 8 • fall 2015
paybefore.com 1
Lindsay Tis
MAnAGInG DIrECTOr
ltis@iirusa.com
Matthew J. Middleton
BUSInESS DEVELOPMEnT
mmiddleton@iirusa.com
Loraine DeBonis
EDITOr-In-CHIEF
ldebonis@paybefore.com
Bill Grabarek
SEnIOr EDITOr
bgrabarek@paybefore.com
Kate Fitzgerald
EMErGInG PAyMEnTS EDITOr
kfitzgerald@paybefore.com
Adam Perrotta
ASSISTAnT EDITOr
aperrotta@paybefore.com
Robin Chalmers Mason
PrODUCTIOn EDITOr
robin@paybefore.com
Doris Kwok
MArkETInG ASSISTAnT
dkwok@paybefore.com
Pay Magazine is designed by Kelly N. Kofron; art and photos © Paybefore and Shutterstock.com unless otherwise noted.
Pay Magazine is published biannually. PaybeforeTM, Paybefore.comTM, Pay NewsTM, Pay GovTM, Pay Op-EdTM, Pay WeekTM, Pay MagazineTM, Pay ConnectTM, Pay Awards® and Paybefore Awards EuropeTM are the property of Paybefore, 708 Third Ave., 4th Fl., New York, NY 10017 USA. All material contained within Pay Magazine is the property of Paybefore. All other product and service names may be trademarks of their respective companies. ©2015 Paybefore. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any kind is strictly prohibited without express prior written consent of Paybefore.
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