Payments on Fire™

Stretching the retail financial institution's (FI) mission beyond checking account and debit card management is on that industry's agenda. It's what fires the imagination of fintech entrepreneurs too because retail financial services is an industry in need of creative, expansive approaches to accountholder services. Not every idea catches fire but fortunately there are those willing to light a match. This Payments on Fire podcast looks at Sensibill, a digital receipting and data repository service for FIs. Join Glenbrook's George Peabody and Sensibill's CEO and co-founder Corey Gross in this discussion of how an FI can help its accountholders turn digital receipts into data far more useful than what's on a statement or that piece of paper stuffed into a purse or wallet.

Machine learning and the broader category of artificial intelligence are rightly attracting attention and discussion. These are powerful technologies. But, like many new technology conversations, there's the suggestion that they can address all use cases. Maybe focusing on a single use case is the better approach right now. Join Glenbrook's George Peabody and Nuno Sebastiao, Chairman and CEO of fraud management firm Feedzai, in this refreshing discussion about the role of machine learning in fraud management, some of its limitations, and how services like these fit into an enterprise's fraud and risk management operations.

Digital identity is the black hole of the internet. Our online lives simply aren't protected by a system without strong authentication. Killing the password is Mission One for security professionals because they're so readily stolen through phishing attacks and malware. Users, warned to make passwords complex and unique, have no hope of remembering them. And a password is simply one factor of secure authentication. Biometrics and data, when used in combination, can relieve password fatigue and, for the relying party, increase security substantially, bringing some light to that dark place on the internet. We talk with MasterCard's biometrics and authentication leader, Bob Reany, about where biometrics work and the intersection of device-based tools with what the cloud provides through Big Data, particularly device profiling and behavioral analytics. Your fingerprint's not just for unlocking the phone anymore.

Chargebacks are one of the card system's great consumer benefits. If fraud happens, the merchant doesn't deliver on what was promised, or you're charged six times for something you bought just once, the chargeback mechanism returns your money or restores your credit. What's not to like? Well, if you're a merchant, a lot. While there are plenty of legitimate chargebacks, there are also consumers who take advantage of the system through "friendly fraud," the "I didn't do it" chargeback category abused by all too many. Chargebacks are expensive for merchants. There's a chargeback handling fee from the acquirer. There's the cost of disputing the chargeback. There's the cost if, at the network's discretion, the merchant loses the chargeback. And then there's the small matter of the cost of the goods or services. Take a listen to this audio primer on chargebacks with Glenbrook's George Peabody and Chargeback's CEO Dave Wilkes. Hear how they work, what the trends are, and how Chargeback assists merchants in the chargeback dispute process.

This episode of Glenbrook's Payments on Fire podcast comes from the Shoptalk conference, mid-May 2016. Focused on the entire customer engagement cycle, the attendees are all about influencing consumer behavior, the processes of moving customers through that cycle, about making some portion of enterprise IT work more smoothly, or, yes, even about payments. Take a listen to my conversations with start-ups Tuku (in-store digital content delivery), Belly (in-store loyalty), Bold Financial Technologies (payout management for Treasury) and established fintech provider ACI Worldwide.

Payments industry professionals naturally have a hard focus on the industry's own dynamics. So, it's not uncommon to lose sight of who the customer is and who pays the freight. In retailing, yes, the consumer pays, but payments is a direct cost to the merchant. With all of the changes underway in the U.S. payments landscape, merchants now view payments as a complex, strategic element of their business, both as a way to drive new sales as well as a cost component to be tightly managed. To learn what's top of mind for a large scale retailer, take a listen to Dean Sheaffer, SVP of Financial Services at Boscov's Inc., the U.S.'s largest family-owned department store. In this Payments on Fire podcast, Dean addresses payments as a sales tool (Dean and his team have upped usage of the Boscov private label card to 40% of tender!), payments and data security, and the potential of Faster Money.

Extension of credit to people in developing markets has been a long time challenge. Banks, of course, look to repayment history to make such determinations but in much of the world, banking relationships and repayment track records are few. But history has demonstrated that extension of credit in developing markets can be effective and profitable. Just look at the Grameen Bank's high micro-loan repayment rates. To address this repayment data dearth, Lenddo.com developed a lending data set in multiple developing countries, having gone into the lending business just to generate the data it needed to tune its machine learning capability. Lenddo then built its algorithms that examine some 1,000 characteristics in the data drawn from social, mobile, and other sources. This Payments on Fire podcast with Lenddo.com's founder Jeff Stewart takes a look at lending in developing countries, social and mobile data sources, and examines the algorithmic "black box" that is at the heart of the company's approach to making credit decisions in "thin file" markets.

The world of moving money is changing. And faster is the theme. Domestic real time payment systems are showing up across the planet. Today's discussion is full of bitcoin, open and permissioned blockchain approaches to speed asset exchange. But the competitive balance between proprietary and open systems is in flux. The view that moving money is or should be an internet-wide capability is a guiding principle for Jeremy Allaire, founder and CEO of Circle. Take a listen to Jeremy on how Circle is connecting US dollars to British pound sterling, his plans for the euro, and how multiple technologies - blockchain and machine learning among them - enable money movement for Circle's customers.

The Smart Card Alliance has been educating payments, government, and security professionals since 2008 on the fundamentals of smart card technology and how smart cards are put work across a range of use cases. In this Payments on Fire podcast, Randy Vanderhoof, Executive Director of the SCA and the EMV Migration Forum, talks about the organization’s training programs, their evolution and the establishment of the new National Center for Advanced Payments and Identity Security, an expansion supported by a grant from Heartland Payment Syhttps://www.heartlandpaymentsystems.com/stems. Talking with Randy is always refreshing. He lays out the important elements of payment security and speaks directly about how they interrelate. Hardware-based security is always at the core of his mission but he’s well up on the expanded use of data and mobile devices in authentication and payments security.

Blockchain. Is it the most revolutionary technology in value exchange ever or just the latest fintech buzzword enjoying its peak on the hype cycle? Or both? These young techniques are undergoing swift evolution, going from bitcoin and money transfer into new use cases such as identity management. There’s still truth in the cartoon’s joke that, online, no one knows you’re a dog. The challenge goes beyond discerning hacker activity from the permitted. It’s also about the release of just the data necessary to satisfy the needs of both parties in a transaction - and no more. How much better that would be than sharing a full suite of personally identifiable information when simply asking the question “are you over 21?” Take a listen to my discussion with Matthew Commons, CEO, of Cambridge Blockchain on how his company’s blockchain-based approach can be used to address one of the internet’s remaining fundamental concerns. You’ll also learn about the state of play in this new stage of permissioned blockchains.