Hello and welcome back to Bullish, TechCrunch’s first talk show. This time ’round we’re handling payments. After all, what’s the point of having money if you can’t use it?
Joining us this week is Edward McLaughlin, MasterCard’s Chief Emerging Payments Officer, to break down how incumbent payment properties are both watching new payment technology, and, naturally, leveraging it to their own advantage.
Transferring money inside of your own country is generally not too horrible. Moving money out of your home turf is harder. Moving it between a developed, and a developing nation can be downright confiscatory.
The high fees that the globes’ less economically well-off therefore pay a regressive tax when supporting their families the world around. You can parse the morality of that yourself, but where there is friction, there is the chance for innovation and, yes, disruption.
While that is the case, you can’t just shout bitcoin and let slip the dogs of change. What will be most interesting moving forward is how emerging technologies, cyrptocurrencies included, find harmony between traditional financial power structures, and winsome advantages for both the banked, the underbanked and the non-banked.
As a small caveat, this is not merely an extra-United States problem. The issues presented by uneven distribution of banking services are present here in this nation as well. Regardless, it’s fair to say that the days when credit cards ruled eminent are likely numbered.
Bullish airs every Wednesday morning at 7 am Pacific, and 10 am Eastern. We’ll see you all soon.