From realtime to person-to-person and crypto, digital payments continue to change the payments landscape in the United States. Even so, cash is back, to the detriment of one growing business, as covered in this issue's links.

Corporates are paying attention to realtime payments

On March 22, 2018, Mission Health in Asheville, North Carolina announced its intention to sell its seven-hospital not-for-profit (NFP) health system to HCA Healthcare, the nation’s largest for-profit healthcare system. The parties expect to sign definitive sale agreements by mid-summer and finalize the transaction by year-end. [1]

Goodbye “Dr. Know-It-All”: Medicine’s Liberating Knowledge Explosion

The digitization and globalization of medical information is overwhelming traditional medical practices. Physicians confront a continuous avalanche of medical discoveries on disease origins, symptoms and treatments. By 2020, medical knowledge will double every 73 days.[1]

The dramas of volatility in the price of bitcoin and scams in "coin"-offering fundraising schemes overshadow legitimate cryptofinance developments.

For nearly the last year, crypto-coins have been developing into an asset class and investment ecosystem. From two conferences I attended this year, one in Chicago and the other in Singapore, it seems to me that the Chicago firms see the opportunities for developing trading infrastructure while the Asian investors and regulators see real possibilities for financial innovation.

In 1970, Marcus Welby, MD became ABC Television’s first show to top network television ratings. Dr. Welby was a cheerful family practice physician with a soothing bedside manner who was on a first-name basis with his patients. In the toughest cases, Welby focused on his patients’ clinical, social and even spiritual needs. In turn, patients trusted Welby, embraced his care and got better.

Quad/Graphics, the American printing company, was founded near Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1971 by a husband and wife team. Harry and Betty Quadracci saw advantages in a family approach to doing business coupled with a long-term outlook and a willingness to innovate. Today, Quad/Graphics is a $4B company with facilities all over the US and around the world.

International FinTech startups are looking to the United States as a vast consumer and business market for their applications and services. Despite the difficulties posed by a dual regulatory system, in which multiple federal regulators join agencies in all 50 states, the wealth and size of the market beckons.