Topic
Money and payments matter, but most people take them for granted.
Some had predicted that Bitcoin would upend fiat currencies and the prevalent retail, person-to-person, and interbank payment systems. However, cryptocurrencies haven’t made much of a dent. Come hear Eric Grover will discuss the evolution of payment systems and his thoughts about the future.
Eric will touch on the electronification of payments, and the uses familiar systems such as Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, Discover, Zelle, Square Cash, and Western Union. He will also explain how these more traditional systems are being impacted by realtime interbank payment systems, by Bitcoin and the wave of eleven thousand plus cryptocurrencies, by private digital fiat currencies, and by stablecoins like Tether, Circle, Diem (originally Facebook’s Libra).
Eric will also discuss the moves toward central bank digital currencies. Is there a case for a general-purpose digital dollar? Should the Federal Reserve expand its role in money and payments? Will the U.S. dollar remain the King as payment systems evolve in the 21st century? Eric will address these questions and more.
Eric Grover
Eric Grover is Principal at Intrepid Ventures, providing corporate development and strategy consulting to financial services, payment network, and processing businesses, principally in North America and Europe, and to firms serving and investing in the payments space.
Eric is one of the world’s foremost independent payment-system authorities and thought leaders, and has a comprehensive understanding of the global payment network and processing space. Grover is an expert on network competitive dynamics and the unprecedented wave of innovation stressing and enhancing the payments industry, and was the first to publicly make the case for banks to demutualize MasterCard and Visa.
His prior experience includes work with Visa International, GE Consumer Finance, BofA, NationsBank, Transamerica, and serving as a nonexecutive director on Nordstrom’s credit card A/R subsidiary’s board. His commentaries have been frequently published in the American Banker, Banking Strategies Magazine, Barron’s, Citi Journal, Digital Transactions, the Hill, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, National Review, RealClear Markets, and the Washington Times.
Grover has a BA in economics from Amherst College and an MBA in Finance from NYU Stern’s Graduate School of Business.