Payments on Fire™

In this timely episode of Payments on Fire®, Yvette Bohanan has gathered teammates at Glenbrook (Elizabeth McQuerry, Erin McCune, Cici Northup, and Joanna Wisniecka) to discuss the payment infrastructure supporting the foreign policy actions being taken as a result of the situation in Ukraine. In the past week, the UK, EU, and Switzerland announce sanctions against Russia, – with Switzerland setting aside a long-standing tradition of neutrality in participating in these actions and the US announcing sanctions against Russia’s central bank in a move that prohibits Americans from doing any business with the bank as well as freezes its assets within the United States. These measures are also targeting the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. As markets opened February 28, the Russian Ruble had fallen 29% against the dollar to an all-time low, after the U.S., European Union and Canada agreed to disconnect some Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank messaging system. We’re going to explore SWIFT and other payment infrastructure used to implement foreign policy on a routine basis, and why these recent announcements, in some respects, are taking this to a new level.

In this episode of Payments on Fire®, George Peabody will have back on the show two people that our listeners know well. Yvette Bohanan from Glenbrook Partners’ Education Team will co-host this episode, the second episode from 2022.Keeping the listeners updated about the digital currency systems, Yvette and Bethany May (new Senior associates) are promoting a webinar series about Central Bank Digital Currencies in February and another one in March about cross-border payments systems. Not by coincidence, today’s guest is an expert on this topic.George will also welcome back Ran Goldi, CEO of First Digital Asset Group to talk about the huge expansion of the stable coins business, how cryptocurrencies can benefit cross-border payments with small fees and almost instantly transfer. That would interoperability between the systems involved. Let’s hear Ran’s insight about it.

2022 just started and we got so much to see and learn this year. But, we are not alone in this learning journey. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are here to stay, so we also should learn why and how it works for the payments industry.    Starting this season of Payments on Fire®, we will have Ismini Psychoula discussing fundamental technology, AI and ML, and its role in financial services. Ismini is a Research Scientist at OneSpan. OneSpan is a global organization that is focused on digital banking security and e-signatures, delivering trust and business productivity solutions for more than 10,000 customers in 100 countries. In the financial industry, more than half of the top 100 global banks rely on OneSpan solutions to protect their online, mobile and ATM channels.    Ismini Psychoula got a PhD in Computer Science with a thesis about Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning for Smart Healthcare. At OneSpan she’s Researching and designing privacy preserving and explainable machine learning models for financial systems.   In this episode, you’ll hear about Ethical AI, AI feeding and monitoring, Machine Learning bias and how it all affects the financial system. We’ll take a deep dive in the research to prevent fraud and increase transaction security.   Come to the Payments on Fire® website for: Expanded show notes Podcast transcript The complete Payments on Fire® episode catalog

The new year is coming with lots of innovations for the payment industry. Some of them will impact some companies and/or all the industry, changing how things work on the marketplace. George welcomes back Russ Jones to Payment on Fire and they will uncover the lens of the game-changing innovations, including talking about the upcoming events and changes that really matter to the arc of the payment industry. Glen is a Payments Consultant, Analyst, Co-Author of "Payments Systems in the U.S.” and partner at Glenbrook Partners. In this episode, Russ will discuss the Webinar presented by him and Yvette Bohanan between December 15th and 16th about innovation and payments, with topics like types of payment systems and technologies, how the different use cases lay out what's unique about each, variations and differences around the world and how the payments industry is structured. You’ll also hear about core system modernization, systems running 24/7/365, strong customer payment authentications and several other topics. Let’s hear George Peabody and Russ Jones talk about what to expect for the payments industry in 2022. Come to the Payments on Fire® website for: Expanded show notes Podcast transcript The complete Payments on Fire® episode catalog The Glenbrook Education schedule

If you’re an e-commerce merchant selling across border, you’ve got to answer a few questions: What methods of payment should you support in each country you sell in? Not every country is as infatuated with cards as is the U.S. And even if customers in those countries are using cards, how do you optimize your authorization rate? If you’re not sophisticated about this, your decline rate could exceed 40%, a huge hit. It turns out routing transactions via local acquiring banks is one answer. But how do you do that? Subscription services store card numbers or a tokenized version to initiate periodic payment transactions. They never want to have a card declined because they, honestly, don’t want to have to contact customers to request they update their card account info because some portion of those customers are going to decide to cancel little used subscriptions. How does a merchant mitigate those lost payments? Serving the e-commerce needs of merchants operating across borders is a primary focus of payments service provider BlueSnap. In this conversation with BlueSnap CEO Ralph Dangelmaier and Payments on Fire® host George Peabody, you’ll hear how multiple discrete steps combine to keep AUTH rates high and costs in line. You’ll also hear from Ralph, a respected payments industry veteran, his views on fintechs and the opportunities available to new players in payments. Come to the Payments on Fire® website for: Expanded show notes Relevant links Podcast transcript The complete Payments on Fire® episode catalog The Glenbrook Education schedule

Payment scams and the fraudsters who perpetrate them are everywhere. And as we speed up payments, the ability to send money from one account to another in near real-time, there’s a lot to like for users. And for fraudsters. Scammers love it when they convince us to send them money from our own accounts. This is called authorized push payment fraud and it is a growing problem. To shed light on APP fraud, its impact, and some approaches to detecting fraudster coercion and the misdirected payments it causes, join Glenbrook’s George Peabody and PJ Rohall, Fraud Subject Matter Expert at Featurespace, a fraud management software company. PJ is also the co-founder of About Fraud.Com, a community site for the fraud management industry. In this episode George and PJ discuss the growth of APP fraud, the range of scam types, and a few techniques to detect and deter it. You’ll hear him describe examples of the impact APP fraud has caused on individuals, many least able to weather this kind of financial damage. Psychological damage is real. Then come to the Payments on Fire® website for: Expanded show notes Links to UK Finance reports and Take Five for Fraud resources Podcast transcript The complete Payments on Fire® episode catalog The Glenbrook Education schedule

Financial health and inclusion in the US remain as major concerns  and challenges for the nation, the millions who struggle with access to affordable financial services, and payments experts focused in this arena. Join Glenbrook's Erin McCune and Justin Pituch as they speak with a recent panel of expert practitioners in the financial health space: Kimberley Gartner, Arjan Schutte, and Ryan Falvey.  Kimberley is Chief Growth Officer at Canary, a company that helps businesses establish emergency relief funds for their employees. Arjan and Ryan both work in the venture capital space; Arjan leads Core Innovation Capital and Ryan heads up Financial Venture Studio. Come to the Payments on Fire® website for: Expanded show notes Podcast transcript The complete Payments on Fire® episode catalog The Glenbrook Education schedule

This podcast with Mimi Joy explores consumer financial wellbeing in the US and initiatives to improve access to quality financial services for low and moderate income Americans. Mimi shares her perspective as Head of Partnerships at the Financial Health Network, a leading authority in the space. Topics discussed include: The current state of the financial health landscape Research on the effect of the pandemic on low and moderate income consumers and their financial wellbeing New approaches to serving the needs of vulnerable consumers Key financial health lessons for payments professionals Come to the Payments on Fire® website for: Expanded show notes Podcast transcript The complete Payments on Fire® episode catalog The Glenbrook Education schedule

Multiplayer fintech takes payments services to levels of depth and breadth not seen before. The breadth of payments platform services enables other fintechs to bring comprehensive capabilities to their customers. Listen to this conversation with Modern Treasury’s CEO Dimitri Dadiomov, its Chief Growth Officer Rachel Pike, and Glenbrook’s Erin McCune. You’ll hear: The creation story of Modern Treasury and the market conditions that proved demand The central role of enterprise payments operations How payments as a service is evolving as a business How its customers deploy its range of capabilities Why ACH is taking off in the fintech space Come to the Payments on Fire® website for: Expanded show notes Video Podcast transcript The complete Payments on Fire® episode catalog The Glenbrook Education schedule

In this wide ranging Payments on Fire® episode featuring gateway provider NMI, you’ll hear how payment industry roles continue to evolve as tech and consumer preferences change. Topics covered include: The evolution of touchless payments from QR to Tap on Phone NFC transactions What a gateway does How a white label provider sells and who uses its services What an ISV needs to think about when considering the role of payments facilitator COVID-19’s impact on merchant and consumer payments Take a listen to this conversation with Kyle Pexton, president and CFO of NMI and Nick Starai, NMI’s Chief Strategy Officer as they talk with Glenbrook’s George Peabody about the arrival of the NextGen ISO and how NMI is helping them, their bank customers, ISVs, and VARs get SMBs into payments acceptance. Come to the Payments on Fire® website for: Expanded show notes Podcast transcript The complete Payments on Fire® episode catalog The Glenbrook Education schedule