There's a huge shift on the horizon. Want to learn about the state of cryptocurrencies in payments today? What about the entrepreneur’s journey in leading edge fintech and payments technology? Take a listen as Glenbrook partners George Peabody and Yvette Bohanan talk crypto, Diem, CDBCs, and the evolution of digital money with Ran Goldi, CEO of First Digital Assets Group. Goldi’s entrepreneurial story and experience with VC are well worth hearing as are his predictions for digital money’s future...
Apr 21, 2021•45 min•Ep. 148
Prepaid cards are the “apps” of the card world. Join George and Fiserv’s Head of Prepaid Dom Morea as they introduce prepaid’s twin modalities - open loop and closed loop - and then dive into how the gift card industry has morphed into a far broader set of uses cases. And plan to return for the next episode as they discuss open loop’s evolution. Card payments have four modalities: Charge Cards . There are charge cards that are a form of very short term credit, you pay off in full the monthly sta...
Mar 19, 2021•26 min
In our payments education workshops, we make the point that today’s fintechs rarely do something entirely new. At the macro level, our activities and the transactions they produce haven’t changed. We buy food and clothing. We pay rent. But where and how we do these things has been transformed by technology. A Great Time to Be a Fintech Fintechs are the newer, nimbler businesses that are most often changing how we do things. We buy tickets online, get takeout using our mobile phones, and file ins...
Mar 03, 2021•34 min•Ep. 146
GPay is Google’s app for payments, financial services, rewards, and, is expanding its capabilities, its partnerships, and its ambitions. Join Glenbrook’s George Peabody and Yvette Bohanan as they talk GPay with Steve Klebe , Google's head of GPay business development and Google's Processor and Partnerships work. Fairly recently, Google’s payments services were a disjointed collection of point solutions. Today’s GPay is far more than a rebranding job. Listen between the lines to what Steve has to...
Mar 01, 2021•42 min•Ep. 145
A Global Phenom Realtime Retail Payments (RTRP) systems are a global phenomenon. These systems exist or will soon in over 50 countries around the world. Some have been in operation for decades. The UK’s Faster Payments system, operated by Mastercard’s Vocalink unit, has been in operation for over ten years. Still others are still in the design stage. These account-to-account systems (A2A) have gained in regulator popularity because: They are fast. The receiver has near instant availability They ...
Feb 18, 2021•38 min•Ep. 144
Continuing our payments in fintech series, we talk about one of the major changes in the payments industry over the last few years: the installment lending phenomenon. Companies like AfterPay , Klarna , and Affirm (that just IPO'd and saw its stock double in one day) are leaders in this buy now, pay later (BNPL) space and appeal to Millennial and Gen Z users as well as the merchants selling to them. These firms offer a range of installment payment options: three, six, and 12 month payback period...
Feb 16, 2021•35 min•Ep. 143
Faster Payments: Fundamental Tech for Payments Innovation Payments innovation comes in waves. And the wave that’s breaking on the U.S. - having swept over 50 countries around the world - is faster payments. Also referred to as Real-time Retail Payments (RTRP) these systems are fundamentally different from what’s come before: They are push payment systems They are new, systemically important domestic systems Risk and economic models are dramatically different than what’s come before They run 24/7...
Feb 09, 2021•9 min•Ep. 142
The Fintech Phenomenon is rarely about doing something entirely new. It’s about doing things in a new way that better fits the needs of the target market. The fintech model also enables the provider to reach underserved market segments. Lending is, of course, the core offering of banks. But between their legacy processes, underwriting requirements, compliance demands, and more, they simply aren’t nimble enough to serve new segments in our evolving economy. And the banking crisis of 2008 left the...
Feb 05, 2021•31 min•Ep. 141
In a crisp explanation of account takeover and authentication risks, George and Robert Capps, Vice President, Market Innovation, at NuData Security. They discuss the findings of a recent NuData report and its experience with the sophistication of online fraudsters. NuData’s techniques are all about foiling cybercriminals as they bang at the front door of financial institutions, merchants, streaming services, and more. Payments on Fire® listeners know that we’ve been taking a steady look at fraud...
Jan 27, 2021•45 min•Ep. 140
Take a listen as George and Deluxe’s President and CEO Barry McCarthy discuss how the company continues to adapt to and prosper in the digital age. Barry talks about the journey the company has taken, in recent times shifting from a conglomerate model grown via acquisition to today’s streamlined and focused small business focused organization. The Journey from Paper to Digital Services In Glenbrook’s Payments Boot Camps® we make the point that fintechs rarely invent new functions out of whole cl...
Jan 12, 2021•38 min•Ep. 139
Open banking. It’s a term we started to hear about at the end of 2016 and since 2019 interest has remained high. That’s according to Google Trends. Along with those searches, the related hot topics were PSD2 and APIs. Regulation and technology is opening up access to bank accounts for payers, billers, and service providers. But the state of that openness varies by region and country with important consequences for billers, merchants, and their payment providers. In this wide ranging discussion, ...
Dec 17, 2020•48 min•Ep. 138
Financial inclusion for the poor is a global challenge. In this episode, we dive into the story of Mojaloop, a platform that enables interoperability and transaction routing between mobile money system operators, banks, and other providers. It’s a fascinating, and evolving, story. Take a listen. = = = = = = Individual Benefits, Nation Building Impact Financial inclusion for the poor is a global challenge. Over two billion adults lack access to financial services. While that number is declining -...
Dec 16, 2020•38 min
For a front row seat on payment innovation you have plenty of choices. Yes, Stripe and Square are based in the tech hotbed of the Bay Area and it’s tempting to stare at their success. But a look around the world reveals the evolutionary breadth of how payments are made, regulated, and brought to market. India and China alone reveal how remarkably different approaches can scale to enormous dimensions. There’s no better guide to what’s happening in payments around the world than Glenbrook’s own Ca...
Dec 01, 2020•20 min•Season 6Ep. 136
2020 has been an active period for payments innovation. COVID-19 has been a forcing function for digital payments across multiple payment domains. “Touchless” and “contactless” payments are now common themes of retailer advertising. And, of course, many other trends have accelerated this year. Fintechs, mobile wallets, the expansion of open banking initiatives, and point of sale lending are trends with impacts spreading across the market. 2020 has also seen the increased legitimacy of blockchain...
Nov 10, 2020•19 min•Season 6Ep. 135
COVID is a forcing function for digital channel growth across the world as consumers and businesses reduce their reliance on physical interactions. We’ve seen usage shifts in how bank accountholders in Peru transact - from branch to digital - as well as big shift in payment behavior. We outlined a lot of this in our own COVID series on Payments Views. Many merchants have turned to online as a matter of survival. Many restaurants, for example, have added order ahead and curbside pickup as standar...
Oct 28, 2020•36 min•Season 6Ep. 134
You’d have to be aggressively disinterested in the payments industry not to be aware of its attraction to investors. The COVID-19 pandemic has done nothing to dampen the interest, if not outright enthusiasm, for the payments industry among investors of all stripes. Actually, the pandemic has lit a fire under key industry segments like the e-commerce domain, digital banking, and disbursements. The dynamics of change pushing the payments industry ahead are only increasing. Incumbent Consolidation ...
Oct 14, 2020•31 min•Season 6Ep. 133
This Payments on Fire® podcast is a joint production of Citibank and Glenbrook. Tony McLaughlin of Citibank interviewed our partner Erin McCune about the U.S. payments market and business transactions in particular. The U.S. payments landscape is in the midst of unprecedented change -- triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, new faster payment infrastructure, open banking and an overall acceleration of digitization. Business payments are particularly ripe for change. The pandemic has exposed busines...
Sep 25, 2020•30 min•Season 6Ep. 132
NACHA’s Phixius is a new service for the exchange of the information about a payment between the sender and receiver. Take a listen to Payments on Fire® host George Peabody as he discusses Phixius with NACHA Advisor Peter Tapling . He helps us understand Phixius, how it works and where it applies. It’s a compelling idea. One of the long standing shortcomings in payments systems has been the degree to which the data about a payment can be shared. If we can share the data about the payment, to hav...
Aug 25, 2020•36 min•Season 6Ep. 131
In this Payments on Fire® George and Scott Giordano, VP and Sr. Counsel, Privacy and Compliance at data privacy management firm Spirion , talk about what can and has gone wrong, the high cost of sanctions for failure, and how to reduce the risks attendant with the handling of personal data. Privacy. It’s a huge issue. Many of us are concerned as individuals with how our personal data - our personally identifiable information or PII - is shared by social media and throughout today’s massive data ...
Aug 11, 2020•33 min•Season 6Ep. 130
In this episode, George speaks with Rafael Lourenco, EVP and Partner of fraud management provider ClearSale . Rafael returns to Payments on Fire® to address COVID’s impact including new online threats and the consumer behavior changes that challenge the customer checkout experience and fraud detection. COVID-19 has contorted how merchants do business into new shapes. COVID-19 is forcing some merchants, often inexperienced with the online world, to make a swift digital transformation with all of ...
Jul 17, 2020•24 min•Season 6Ep. 129
Take a listen to Rapyd 's Eric Rosenthal and Glenbrook ’s George Peabody as they discuss Rapyd’s swift global expansion, its ability to quickly build new capabilities, and the firm’s cloud-based tech stack. It uses its “white label PayPal” model to payment-enable a wide range of companies and use cases. Programming Payments Has Been Hard Among the many evolutions in the payments industry over the last decade, and only accelerating today, is the programmability of payments. Prior to that, a porti...
Jun 18, 2020•44 min•Season 6Ep. 128
The transition away from paper to an all digital payments world has been underway for decades. But in the last few years the pace has accelerated. Global tech availability and focused development talent is letting software eat the payments world. Other enablers include business models such as payments facilitation and the focus on commerce, not just payments, for merchants. COVID-19 has simply added fuel to the fire. In May, for the first time, Mastercard reported that over 50% of its volume was...
Jun 11, 2020•17 min•Season 6Ep. 127
Take a listen to Craig McDonald, Chief Business Officer of Trustly and George as they discuss how Trustly makes its proposition possible. While Trustly is ramping up its U.S. presence, it does have timing on its side. In this pandemic-constrained age, merchants will be looking for lower cost payments and certainty. Trustly appears to have attributes to meet those concerns. In our payments education and payments consulting work, we frequently discuss payments “rails” - the networks and systems th...
Jun 03, 2020•43 min•Season 6Ep. 126
This illuminating Payments on Fire® episode takes a deep look at a very new Brazilian payments platform called Conta Zap (Zap Account in English) and how a group of community minded people came together with Conta Zap to provide basic income to economically displaced Brazilians during the COVID-19 outbreak. The story illustrates how the combination of entrepreneurial thinking, technology, and right-thinking regulation can make a real impact on even those living at the edge. The Situation This st...
May 27, 2020•33 min•Season 6Ep. 125
There’s no clearer indicator of COVID-19’s economic impact than payment metrics. In this Payments on Fire® episode, we speak with Bryan Derman , Glenbrook’s managing partner, and Glynn Frechette , SVP of PSCU’s Advisors Plus division, in a discussion of PSCU’s payment trends analysis. Glynn provides an exceptionally detailed view into the pain, and some real gains, that the pandemic has brought to U.S. payments activity. PSCU’s analysis points to both the depth of transaction volume declines for...
May 19, 2020•38 min•Season 6Ep. 124
It is super instructive to hear about payments evolution. So, it’s time to take a trip. In this Payments on Fire® episode we speak with Charles Ifedi , one of the founders of Interswitch, one of the leading digital payments providers in Nigeria, and founder of customer engagement platform company eBanqo . We hear a lot - and deservedly so - about innovative fintech companies but we hear very little about the advanced and highly competitive payment system already in place in Nigeria. Take a liste...
May 12, 2020•36 min•Season 6Ep. 123
Payment authorization rates are a theme we return to regularly on Payments on Fire® because they matter so much to merchants, issues, and the payment providers in between. If a big issuer declines more transactions than its peers, the merchant and the issuer, in fact, leave money on the table. The merchant loses sales. The issuer loses interchange revenue. In this episode, we speak with Stripe ’s Jeanne DeWitt , head of revenue and growth for the Americas, for a deep look into how her company ma...
May 05, 2020•37 min•Season 6Ep. 122
In Glenbrook's Payments Boot Camp® and in our payments consulting work, we use our Domains of Payments framework to subdivide the major use cases and payment contexts into a half dozen categories or domains. The Remote Domain contains cross-border e-commerce, a particularly challenging use case where the buyer and seller are separated by distance and, in the case of cards, credentials are presented without the cardholder present. This is card on file (COF), card not present (CNP) transactions li...
Apr 28, 2020•37 min•Season 6Ep. 121
In this special episode of Payments on Fire®, Glenbrook partner Elizabeth McQuerry , partner in charge of Glenbrook’s Global payments consulting practice, leads a conversation on the development and adoption of realtime payments in developing markets. Joining Elizabeth are Miller Abel, Deputy Director, Principal Technologist at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gene Neyer, Executive Advisor to Icon Solutions, board member at the US Faster Payments Council, who has supported Gates-funded pr...
Apr 21, 2020•49 min•Season 6Ep. 120
The “supermarket” days of financial institutions providing all of our financial services and holding all of our accounts are long over. Brokerages, insurance companies, and the expanding array of fintechs compete to hold, manage, or organize our assets. With so many custodians of our financial data, it can be difficult for an individual to generate a complete picture of her finances. That’s been a longstanding problem that was addressed over two decades ago by data aggregators like personal fina...
Apr 14, 2020•27 min•Season 6Ep. 119
