Recent blogs

Never a Vacation from/for Payments

I was out last week for a much-needed vacation with my parents and siblings. It marked the first King family vacation since the summer of, oh gosh, 1992, when my brother, sister and I were still young enough that our parents enjoyed traveling with us (i.e. not yet teenagers). Unlike our previous ventures, this time we flew the friendly skies rather than hitting the highways in a Dodge Caravan. And also unlike our previous ventures, we set out to cross the border…something completely foreign for my dad (pun intended).
 
My dad seemed to be a bit nervous about leaving the U.S. He called me almost every night the week before our departure with various questions about how he would survive in the rough-and-tumble resort in Puerto Vallarta. Just before we left, the topic of his concern just so happened to be payment vehicles. Should I board the plane with cash on hand? If so, how much? What currency? Where can I even get Pesos before landing in Mexico? You get the idea….
 
I was happy to tell him that payments was one area that did not warrant any worry. So long as he had a debit card, there would be ATMs aplenty and debit card-accepting merchants galore.
 
After we’d hung up, I found myself thinking about how dramatically the payments space has evolved since that last King family vacation. A few of those payments innovations I would classify as most impactful include:

     (1)     Electronic formats, like CSV, EDI and XML: Offering consumers and businesses alike a means to “interact” with their purchasing data.

     (2)     The Internet: Which gave birth to numerous online purchasing and payment solutions, such as eBay and even our own Multi Service Marine bunker procurement platform.

     (3)     The P-Card: Providing businesses with line-item details about their credit card purchases.

I wonder what’s next… How will social media and mobile payments change our lifestyles in the next decade? Thoughts?

-Jenny