Theodore Iacobuzio
Vice President, Global Insights
Theodore Iacobuzio is vice president in charge of Global Insights, MasterCard’s interdisciplinary thought leadership organization. He and his team use research and analysis to better understand consumer behavior and market dynamics—and how those insights can strengthen the business performance of MasterCard customers around the world. Under his direction, MasterCard has published groundbreaking work on payments profitability, the myth of debit “cannibalization,” global debit point-of-sale migration, remittances in Asia/Pacific and the Middle East, and affluent segmentation in Brazil.
Prior to joining MasterCard in 2009, Mr. Iacobuzio led the Payments Practice at TowerGroup. Based in Purchase, N.Y., he can be reached at ted_iacobuzio@mastercard.com.
Anybody with an interest in the future of payments must read the Wall Street Journal’s interview with the lead software developer for the virtual currency, Bitcoin. It’s easily the best piece to appear so far—Payments Perspectives blogs excepted, of course—on the subject of the stateless currency. The developer, Gavin Andersen, is bright and engaging, and
Read More
Obsess much? That’s what my kids would ask about my interest in Bitcoin, the virtual currency that recently tanked from $200 to about $55 apiece. Only to rise again? Consider the following: - U.S. retail sales fell in March by more than in nine months, according to the Commerce Department - Cyprus may be forced to give
Read More
Payment Perspectives certainly generated a flurry of activity in our reporting on Bitcoin, the virtual currency backed up by the full faith and credit of everybody else holding Bitcoin. One commenter proposed that what was behind Bitcoin was “one, huge worldwide asset: the internet”; which seems to suggest cyberspace ought to have a seat in
Read More
Last week’s U.S. March jobs number (“a punch in the gut” according to former Obama Council of Economic Advisors chief Austan Goolsbee)—in which the economy added 88,000 jobs as compared with expectations of 190,000—compare strangely with consumer spending figures. According to both U.S. government statistics and self-reported consumer trending, U.S. consumers are spending more. The
Read More
It turns out that under the pressure of events, the economy in Cyprus is becoming cash-driven. Merchants are making purchases in cash, because their suppliers are demanding it, and in turn demanding cash of their customers. Because they don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Literally. The headline on the print version of this story
Read More
Towards the end of his life, the great American poet Robert Frost wrote, In the ear and in the eye, What you get is what to buy. He was talking about television and radio, of course, but he didn’t know the half of it. How could he? It was 35 years after his death that
Read More
Community bankers are generally mild-mannered types, and your agent didn’t spot a pitchfork or a torch, not one, in Orlando at the recent American Bankers Association Community Bankers Conference. But there was a whiff of revolt in the air as those bankers contemplated new levels of regulatory scrutiny. Like Basel III. The ABA did a terrific job
Read More
