Maybe you've already noticed it—it's at the top of this web page—but we've got a new name: Take On Payments, or TOP, for short. It's a change we made after a great deal of thought, internal discussion, and input from others. In our many presentations over the last year to payments-related groups consisting of financial institutions, merchants, processors, technology vendors, consumers, and regulators, we always promoted our blog. We put a great deal of effort into every post, and view the blog as an important channel to communicate to the payments industry on timely, risk-related payment topics in what we hope is an educational and thought-provoking way.
However, we were frequently asked about the significance of the name Portals and Rails. The majority of people get the "rails" part since that term is often used to refer to the payments infrastructure—such as in the phrase "riding the check rails." The "portals" part is more of a mystery. People aren't sure if we intend to use it with its generally accepted meaning—that is, an entranceway—or as a reference to a website, which provides information and links to other sites.
So we undertook an evaluation of alternative names that would more clearly identify the purpose for our posts, and we eventually chose Take On Payments. Yes, it's a bit of a play on the words as you can use "take" in a couple of different ways. First, you can think of it as a noun, as in the word "viewpoint." That was our primary thrust since we work hard to provide our perspective on the various payments issues and their risk-related factors. Second, you can also think of "take" as a verb, as in "assume possession of," since we are charged with the responsibility of engaging the entire payments community about payments risk issues. Finally, we like the acronym TOP—we hope Take On Payments will be at the top of your reading list.
In the end, a name is just a name, and we understand that the content of the blog is what is really important to our readers. While the Portals and Rails name has left the station for a final time, our commitment to providing the payments industry with timely and informative content to encourage thought-provoking dialogue about payments risk remains unchanged. As always, we encourage your feedback and hope you will encourage your colleagues to subscribe as well.
By David Lott, a payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed