Payments on Fire™

Authentication and identification are top of mind for payments professionals battling fraud these days. We’ve made progress over the past two decades in managing payments risk in the digital era, but fraud continues to evolve and often seems to be one or several steps ahead. The classic cat-and-mouse game has moved to a point where “Are you really you?” and “Should you have access to this account?” are the questions that are both increasingly critical and elusive to answer. In this episode, we take the long view, talking with Ori Eisen, CEO and Founder of Trusona. We reflect on what the payments industry has gotten right, the current challenges, and the future of authentication and identity. And, to pay attention to the here and now, we asked Ori to share his best practice tips for implementing passkeys.  

As scams, ransomware, account takeovers, and old-fashioned data breaches persist in our personal and business lives, we are all pondering how to get ahead in the cat-and-mouse game that global fraud rings seemingly have mastered. With this episode, we’re setting the stage for a series of discussions on authentication and identity, the critical components of tackling this pervasive issue. We’re embarking on a journey of perspective gathering from some of the industry’s leaders in risk management, authentication, and digital identity with this 2015 “from the vault” episode of Payments on Fire. Listen as Philip Andreae converses with George Peabody about the FIDO Alliance and its mission to bolster and streamline authentication. As you listen to this episode, consider the progress made since 2015 — have we come far enough, fast enough?

For decades, technology, regulations, and dissatisfaction with the status quo have formed a powerful triad, driving payments innovation. This triad is fueled by investors and innovators seeking to disrupt and legislators and agencies seeking to enforce compliance, increase transparency, and enhance fairness. In this episode, John Pitts, Head of Policy at Plaid, sat down with Yvette Bohanan to discuss open banking and its potential to change the finance industry’s playing field: How consumers manage their personal financial lives, how financial service providers compete, and what this means for businesses. Listen to hear how, once again, the triad is at work reshaping the payments industry.

In this episode, we fan the flames to get Glenbrook’s hot takes on the proposed Capital One acquisition of Discover. Now that the dust has settled a bit on the February announcement, and while we wait with bated breath to see if the regulators will sign off on this deal, we wanted to debate the potential winners and losers - and possible outcomes -  of an acquisition. We spend some time discussing how this combination would impact some key stakeholder groups - networks, banks, processors, payment service providers, businesses, and merchants. Now that our thoughts are on the record, we're eagerly anticipating what we got right and what we missed if this intriguing acquisition comes to fruition.

In this episode, Yvette Bohanan is joined by Glenbrook Managing Partner Bryan Derman and guests Michele Alt and Adam Shapiro, Partners at the Klaros Group. The result is a lively discussion about regulators and the impact of the current regulatory environment on banks and fintechs, a topic of utmost relevance in today's rapidly evolving industry landscape. The economy and all that is at play during a major election year create a fascinating backdrop for this conversation.

The process of accepting payments is a labyrinth of complexity, and payment service providers are the guiding lights that help merchants navigate this maze. They assist in deciding which payments to accept, how to connect to networks, and, most crucially, how to optimize revenues and reduce risk. But what about the providers themselves? Is their work getting more or less complicated? We sat down with Trevor Nies (SVP, Global Head of Digital) who leads Adyen’s digital payments organization, to explore this question as it relates to pay by bank. We discussed the pay by bank landscape in the US compared to other countries and why the US seems to be facing some headwinds. And, more importantly, what merchants should be thinking about when it comes to implementing pay by bank.

In Episode 231, Samantha Gordon and Simon Skinner discussed the orchestration framework they developed to help our clients decipher a somewhat overused term in the industry. It was a great discussion, and if you missed it, I recommend you give it a listen. We covered a lot of ground in that episode that sets up this conversation with John Lunn, CEO and Founder of Gr4vy. While preparing for this podcast, John observed that “every merchant has an orchestration platform; they just don’t call it that.” That struck a chord as incredibly insightful. Merchants, at least those with the engineering resources to do so, have been adding software infrastructure to their operations to improve authorization rates, handle tokenization, route to different networks, and a host of other capabilities that simply do not come with the basic developer API toolkit. Those without engineering teams to help automate these capabilities are left to manual or ad hoc means to manage their operations. Either way, operational gaps often lead to lost revenues, increased costs, and sub-optimal customer experiences. Using the orchestration framework to guide our conversation, we discuss how orchestration is enabling merchants to do things differently—with more latitude and agency over their payments operations. We invite you to delve into this episode, which shifts the conversation from “What is orchestration?” to “Why is orchestration so powerful?” It's a valuable discussion you won't want to miss.

Glenbrook's Russ Jones often chats with professionals working for companies inside the payments industry who are providing payments and services to end users such as businesses, enterprises, governments, and individuals. Or they may be working at an enterprise, a merchant, or a biller. And they’re all trying to figure out how to save money in payments. In this episode, Russ joins Yvette to talk through 8 simple ideas about how you make money in payments.

Acquired by Mastercard in 2017, the UK’s Vocalink manages the UK’s Bacs payment system, ATM LINK switching platform, and the Faster Payments System, FPS. To make this more tangible, consider these statistics: Vocalink processes over 90% of UK salaries, more than 70% of household bills, 98% of state benefits, and powers 60,000 ATMs.  Vocalink’s influence goes beyond the UK, with technology that powers fast payments infrastructure in countries such as the US, Thailand, Sweden, the Philippines, Peru, and Saudi Arabia - just to name a few. Vocalink’s origin story, which began in 1998, spurred payments modernization efforts worldwide. For this episode, we sat down with Gregor Dobbie, former CEO of Vocalink, to discuss what we can learn from Vocalink’s journey and what the future holds for core payment systems.

Steve Klebe, a payments industry veteran and angel investor, shares his wealth of experience in forming strategic partnerships that can uplift the entire sector. He discusses his 30-year journey, emphasizing the balance of research, resilience, and intentionality. Listeners will find insights on the complexities of collaboration with giants like Visa and the evolving landscape influenced by AI and quantum computing. Steve stresses the importance of nurturing relationships and active participation in the community for lasting success.