Black Dub - Our favorite band!

Durbin vs. Tester: Greenlist still succeeds

WSJ Marketwatch Story

Opportunities in the Underbanked Space - Bank 2.0 Briefing

Loyalty, the Social Way - pymnts.com

Loyalty, the Social Way - pymnts.com

Illustrative Graphics for our Greenlist Patent

Download Today's Press Release: HERE

Download Patent: HERE

Pay Anywhere, Anytime from Any Device?

Does the Financial Reform Act help or hinder the creation of new economic models in payments? Does a registry of payment addresses need to be neutrally positioned and open?

Summit Candy - Denali 1980

Soundtracks: Dropkick Murphys & Faure's Requiem

The Long Trudge

First Night on West Butress Route on Denali

Approach and Landing on Denali

Skype brings White Christmas, Kyle's B-day to Tim in Beige Iraq

We miss you, Tim!

Our resident poet/songriter, Mike Birch

Still as relevant today as it was in the early '80's!

Rock on, Mike!

Mobile Year in Review

greatest train story ever told

Trixie Whitley / Daniel Lanois: Black Dub

Black Dub - I Believe In You [Radio Edit]

What it is & Why we did it.

A Fighting Chance

"If I had more time..." Mark Twain

Compass Rose: Trusted Coordinates

Crossing the Divide

Greenlist® Debuts

PRESS RELEASE: HERE

A Permanent Mark

Our patent's claims are allowed! We filed it provisionally back on Feb. 28, 2003 and the final version was filed on Feb. 26, 2004. Seven long years.

AN ENHANCED SYSTEM FOR ELECTRONIC FUNDS TRANSFER AND ELIMINATION OF PAYEE’S NEED FOR ENCRYPTION AND PRIVACY

ITS CLAIMS:

1. A computer-implemented method for conducting financial transactions over a network of payment networks, comprising: associating a unique identifier with one or more payment addresses of an account and a holder of said account, said account residing at a financial institution and said associated payment addresses of said account configured to allow withdrawals by said account holder only and to allow a plurality of deposits to be made at different times; making said unique identifier available to users of an Internet portal or search engine without requiring a password or log-in; receiving data over said network of payment networks identifying one or more non-repudiable deposits to be made to said account; assigning said one or more non-repudiable deposits to said account using any one of said payment addresses associated with said unique identifier; and notifying on a real-time basis a depositor of said deposit of said assigning of said one or more non-repudiable deposits to said account, wherein the directory functions as a root directory for real-time synchronizing content with other directories containing a plurality of unique identifiers associated with a plurality of accounts residing at a plurality of financial institutions.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the directory associates the account holder with the financial institution.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the directory is in communication with and operable to be queried by a portal system to make deposits directly to the account associated with said unique identifier.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 3, wherein the directory is in communication with and operable to be queried by a portal system to withdraw funds from a depositor's account and deposit the funds directly into the account associated with said unique identifier.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the directory is maintained by a credit or debit card provider.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the account is linked to a standard financial account.

7. The computer-implemented method of claim 6, wherein funds are transferred automatically in real-time from the account to the standard financial account.

8. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the financial institution is a credit or debit card provider.

9. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein funds are deposited into the account from a merchant or service provider that accepts

10. The system of claim 1, wherein said Internet portal is associated with said financial institution.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein said Internet portal is available to a portable computing device.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein said portable computing device comprises a mobile telephone.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising aggregating said registrations by said plurality of registrars.

Why Change Now?

José De Francisco López poses an interesting question.

An Overwhelming Opportunity

Another fine song from PPI's resident songwriter

This could be our theme song for 2010!

Greenlist Datasheet now available

Datasheet Sept. 10, 2009

Greenlist now trademarked in China

The Innovator's Dilemma

If we don't build Greenlist, someone else certainly will, so we should do the deal rather than let others benefit.

Angel investors and bank partners thought that way.

Pilot banks and their debit network collaborator recently postponed their services launch for fear of being left out on a limb alone. Instead of being acutely aware of the risks, we need to understand how systems thrive despite the risks.

We now must accumulate successful implementations with larger, more confident bank-registrars and other institutions rather than become completely crippled by failure. We cannot risk partnering exclusively with just one kind of registrar. Decoupling this principle insures we will survive any failures derivative of that strategy.

How do we make long-term risk and results more visible so that people can understand it better?

Season's Greetings from Payment Pathways

This will be a tough Christmas for many poor and homeless people in Chicago and throughout the United States. In place of sending cards Payment Pathways has made an equivalent donation to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

(This organization is tackling homelessness and enabling people to shape their future and rebuild their lives)

Supreme Attention

Justices to study Business Methods patents: article here

A Career Begins...

PPI congratulates Tim O'Brien

on his USAF BootCamp Graduation with Honors

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dollar Bank now visibly sponsoring survey

Link: HERE for

Dollar Bank's "Managing your Bank Account and Payments" survey.

Please help us get the word out to social nets.

Change Agents

Strategic Investors warming up to PPI

The market is shifting to where PPI has Greenlist positioned.

Consumers and small business people are voicing their needs to their bankers.

The Hardnose Rule for Hardnose Bankers

Problem: How can Greenlist get to scale without simultaneously attracting every bank to become a registrar?
Answer: Permit consumers to register themselves directly, a la Paypal.
Tactic: Invite all Paypal users via their chat rooms, etc.
Explanation: Primary tenet of Greenist is its utter safety of resolving identifiers into routable bank payment addresses THAT CAN NOT BE DEBITED.
Solution: Restrict access to query the Greenlist to participating banks' web portals. Banks obtaining access must guarantee that any ACH numbers listed will NEVER be debited by their payment engine.

What bankers fear the most

Another bank selling services to their customers that they would have been able to offer had they been paying attention.

Star Financial Bank

Read about Ralph Marcuccili: here

This institution will continue to make news in the months ahead.

The Mobile Dimension

By some estimates, over the next couple of years more than 1 billion people will log in to the Internet for the first time, and most of these log-ins will be via mobile devices (like cell phones) and located in emerging countries. It is also estimated that by 2010, one in three Africans will own a mobile phone. With almost 280 million subscribers in Africa alone, mobile phones are recognized as instruments of change in finance, agriculture, media and, development work.

A recent Gartner report states that the number of mobile payment users worldwide is forecast to reach 73.4 million this year, says Gartner, up 70.4 percent from 2008 when there were 43.1 million users. The research firm predicts that the figure will reach more than 190 million in 2012, representing more than 3 percent of total mobile users worldwide. "Momentum in the mobile payment market gathered further in 2008 with a number of high-profile launches of mobile money transfer services in multiple markets, participation of major global institutions in near-field communication (NFC) payment trials, as well as new payment solutions entering the market," said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. She noted, however, that security concerns, regulatory issues, and an inadequate 'ecosystem' were still holding back growth in the sector.

Gartner defines a mobile payment as paying for a product or service using a mobile technology such as SMS, WAP, USSD or NFC. In terms of both number of users and transaction volumes, Gartner expects Asia-Pacific (including Japan) to maintain the largest share of the market. While mobile payment penetration in Western Europe is expected to rise from 0.9 percent in 2009 to 2.5 percent in 2012, and from 1.7 percent to 3 percent in North America; penetration in Asia-Pacific will rise from 2 percent in 2009 to 3.8 percent in 2012. Mobile payment penetration in EMEA and Latin America is also expected to exceed 3 percent by 2012.

1 year $10B Japanese bank turnaround

Read about PPI's shareholder, Steve Monaghan: HERE

"Naked Credit Transfers"

Pulse has informed PPI and two banks that member banks can be certified to send and receive credit transfers that are not preceded by debits.

Survey link now available

This link (https://www.survey-impact.com/bankpayment_survey_090500/) is your invitation to help us improve the global payments ecosystem by answering a few survey questions. It should only take six to eight minutes of your time. You may supply answers anonymously or at the end, you may optionally provide your name and email address to enter a drawing to win a $500.00 VISA gift card. If you do supply us with your email address, your contact information will NEVER be released to any other company. It will only be used to inform you when a bank launches Greenlist service in your state.

Thanks,

Richard O'Brien - Payment Pathways, Inc.

President & CEO

Bank executives' comments from the annual PULSE meeting in Austin, TX

"Why not describe Greenlist as the directory to enable Debit Card - to - Debit Card money transfers?"

"PULSE would be nuts to NOT enable such a service for its customers"

"Banks need to review Greenlist's Use Case Documentation to determine whether or not its APIs are lightweight yet thorough enough for banks to implement"

"Banks need to review PPI's patents and all pre-existing intellectual property to determine whether any outside entity would sue a bank for using such a resource"

"PPI should put its financial model Excel Workbook on the web for all banks to use to build their ROI justifications."

"PPI should release the results as soon as its marketing survey has sufficient respondents to be statistically valid."

"It is a good idea for PPI to return 50% of fees required by its Engagement & Standby Agreement if banks fail to achieve their chosen target volumes of Greenlist transactions."

"How quickly can PPI move to establish its neutrally positioned web service?"

Tipping Point Magnetism of Greenlist

A host of contemporary bank-innovators

capture our imagination and compel us to believe.

Their quest is carried out not only for bank profits

but for the good of all humanity.

Their journey ultimately involves the dissolution of banker ego

which in turn leads to enlightenment and wisdom.

Starting out at point A: the present bank crisis leads to

transformation-awareness of a neutral directory's benefits,

resulting in point B: replacing regressive payment methods

with safer, more efficient, instant payment applications.

We all identify because it reflects our own personal metamorphosis.

Responsibility for safe-keeping our money:

In transit.

At rest.

Putting more of our money to work more effectively - for us.

Imagine Peace.

Youthful tag line voted most compelling

Poll results determined the best tagline for Greenlist.

"Bill it now. Pay it safe."

Crisp and tweet-friendly.

Think Greenlist

for a trusted, new cool way to pay

with safety, ease and speed.

It works for consumers and small businesses, alike.

Coming soon from a bank near you.

My Dad's parents

My Grandfather, Joseph Bernard O'Brien of St. Paul, MN met my Grandmother, Frances Lutz of St. Louis on a train. They travelled with their respective entertainment troupes from town to town across the Midwest. My Grandfather, much to the dismay of his older brother, William, abandoned the idea of a partnership in his law firm in favor of singing in Enrico Caruso's chorus.

Frances was a free spirited young woman who travelled throughout the country with her high school diving team after graduation. They created a vaudeville act that involved whole-body makeup to look like Indian Princesses. They would dive into a shallow pool of water from a high diving platform. Chemistry between Frances and Joseph must have been good. She converted to Catholicism and they decided to spend their lives together in Toledo, Ohio. My Grandfather made a living to support their five kids by selling wall-safes to banks across the Midwest.

My father sang in several Gilbert and Sullivan light opera productions while attending college. Real world events intervened when he was chop blocked and suffered a knee injury which caused the withdrawal of his football scholarship. My Grandfather died of a heart attack around that time. My Dad enlisted in the Air Force's Officer Candidate School and became a navigator of a B-29 flight crew and flew 29 missions in the Korean War. 1948 was a tough year and he served his country until 1953 and again in 1960-62 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

I never knew my Grandfather but I fondly remember my Grandmother playing poker with her four sons and daughter while wearing green eyeshades every year at the O'Brien Reunion at some unsuspecting Midwestern Holiday Inn.

She used to tell us grandkids, "Always follow your dreams and you will be happy." I did and I am.

PINs becoming obsolete?

A new (and different) factor is needed for card-not-present transactions. See article. I propose call-back to the payer to authorize payments to online merchants because:

a.) It uses a separate network (cell or wireline) which is in itself another factor

b.) It enables capture of voice print authorizing payment

c.) It allows voice identification (although that would be overkill for most scenarios)

A whitepaper every banker should read

Author:

George Thomas

Viewpoint:

Enhancing Wire Transfers to Attract Consumers

Click to get it:

HERE

USAF-bound

Tim O'Brien & his Godmother, Mary Andelbradt

Our son, Tim, enlisted in the Air Force this week.

We are very proud of his decision to serve our country.

Why the "Banks-only" Registrar Rule?

Banks serve us

We trust banks six times more than other institutions

Banks keep our money safe

Any bank can offer debit card, loans, savings

8,500 banks and nearly as many credit unions = systemic strength

Our Principles - Green means 'Go!'

• Universal.

Banks can register any identifier as long as it is unique.

• Responsive.

We work hard so you can just 'think it - pay it' or 'think it - bill it.'

• Friendly.

We help banks use different payment networks, all over the world.

• Simple.

We do not sacrifice security or ease of use as banks let you do more.

"Names" (URNs) as Naming Authority Pointers

Filed revisions to claims, today

in response to USPTO Office Action

Greenlist provides payors desiring to pay electronically, a means to locate, validate and effect the transfer of assets to another party by resolving public identifiers into routable, authenticated, payment addresses so transaction requests can proceed without risk of failure due to identity fraud.

This happens without divulging confidential information about transactors while assigning liability for certain risk consequences to the lowest cost risk bearers: banks.

Greenlist authenticates destination payment addresses before banks make financial transactions. Greenlist is completely trusted by risk-bearers. Liability for risk is borne by the registrars of the information contained within the registry.

This liability transfer substantially reduces the payor’s cost of bearing risks because the receiving bank is obligated to reimburse the payor's bank if the payment information identifying the payee is inaccurate.

Banks are responsible for certifying that someone or some entity claiming to be an authorized party is not an impostor. Banks can now offer new levels of service at a substantially lower cost for a variety of transactions. Next up: how the migration to instant electronic payments will affect you.