For many months, a heated debate has raged across a variety of sectors on the question of which web-based payment technologies people are going to use in future when they go shopping. Not only players from the financial sector are intensively searching for an answer. [more]

The rise of mobile and online payments opens up new opportunities, but of course also presents new risks for financial services providers. A lot of attention is currently paid to the (walled garden) strategies of new competitors such as Google, Apple or PayPal. They are increasingly putting out their feelers in segments outside of their own territory, e.g. the market for (mobile) payments. Those financial services providers who do not modernise their upstream and downstream value chains or subject them to the transformation process required for the digital network architecture could suffer painful losses over the medium term. Our paper draws four scenarios on how the market share of banks might develop in about three to five years’ time, with a particular focus on the European market. [more]

Many governmental and non-governmental institutions at national and international levels are currently devoting an intense amount of time and effort to the future of communications networks and data traffic – most recently for example there has been the German parliament’s committee of enquiry into the internet and digital society, the European Parliament and the World Conference on International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Dubai. Accordingly, the term “net neutrality” is also on everyone’s lips. However, in public debate the term is all too often misleadingly simplified. [more]

In the euro area, the five biggest clearing houses processed 84.8% of the total ACH transaction volume or 38.4% of all payments. Up to 2011, there was hardly any change in the ACH 'league table'. There is, however, recent evidence of growing cross-border competition between ACHs for transaction volumes. Consolidation of several national clearing volumes on one technical platform has started. Whether this will lead to a fully integrated Single Euro Payments Area is still to be seen, though. [more]

We are going through a period of structural change – including when it comes to knowledge as a resource. The emerging knowledge economy is gaining ground around the globe. Read on to discover how much (more) knowledge is being produced, what trends are evident in relation to investment in knowledge, how money is made from knowledge, what are the products of the knowledge economy, and who are the main players in this knowledge revolution and knowledge economy. You will also find out what opportunities the emerging knowledge economy offers for companies and regions. [more]