Leaders In Payments

My guest this week leads from a place of ownership, action, honesty, and trust – the core values upon which his company was founded. Nayax CEO and Co-Founder Yair Nechmad has a passion for creating an efficient enterprise system that affords his customers and employees the work/life balance we all deserve.For those of you who may not know, Nayax is a payments company offering integrated POS solutions and software for the unattended market sector. They are currently growing at more than 35% year over year, with more than 700 employees contributing to their success.As for their competitive advantage, according to Yair, they are the only company globally operating an end-to-end loyalty and payments solution, with a foot on the ground in 65 different countries. Their use cases include tier 1 retailers looking for a business-in-a-box solution and they offer both software and hardware for a one-stop-shop ecosystem.Tune in this week to hear Yair talk about the evolution of the unattended industry and his journey to CEO. We also talk about where he sees the industry going in the next 2-3 years as it relates to loyalty programs, embedded options and payments being the center of gravity for the entire customer journey.

My guest this week has quite a fascinating résumé in the sense that none of it really has anything to do with payments. To his own admission, he’s not going to win on pedigree, and on paper he may not even make sense, but Extra CEO Max Hellerstein has proven himself to be quite the “silent winner” when it comes to finding a problem and solving the hell out of it.For those of you who may not know, Extra is the first ever debit card that allows consumers to build their credit history with every single swipe. And not only do customers get the opportunity to have credit level history on a debit rail, they also benefit from AMEX-level perks and rewards to incentivize their sensible spend. As for the user experience, Extra requires no existing credit for application. The only thing Extra need to verify approval is a cash balance that is sufficient for subscription. They then underwrite their customers for a spend power equivalent to the amount of cash in their account plus an additional predetermined cap. And then every transaction counts towards sufficient spend data to be reported to the existing credit bureaus. The company generates revenue based on a subscription fee, and the interchange on every transaction is then given back to the customers to incentivize them with rewards and select offerings. Regarding their competitive advantage, Max touts their capacity to say “yes” more often, take smarter risks, and offer less painful onboarding.Tune in this week to hear Max talk about his journey to CEO, his strategy for getting obsessed, and where he sees the industry going in the next 2 to 3 years as it relates to consolidation, bundling, and the potential for one universal rail.

My guest this week has a genuine passion for teamwork and a competitive edge that she credits her family for. Being the youngest of seven children, CompoSecure Chief Revenue Officer Amanda Gourbault always had to be able to run faster than everyone else in order to get them to pay attention to her. And this tenacity has served her well throughout her payments career.For those of you who may not know, CompoSecure is the world leader in metal cards. They have a portfolio that spans throughout financial institutions and fintechs alike, with some of the most recognizable brands in our industry. In fact, the fintech sector is actually the leader of metal card issuance. Why? According to Amanda, the metal card offers an enhanced user experience that you really can’t get anywhere else. She describes it as the physical embodiment of the customer relationship with such an innovative flair that it provides a natural uplift for any brand that issues it.As for the benefits of a metal card, Amanda talks about several use cases with impressive results – including an Amex issuance that resulted in a 52% uplift in customer retention and a 17% uplift in spend. Another interesting stat? 47% of all new metal cardholders are millennials!Tune in this week to hear Amanda talk about her journey from magstripe to metal and some of CompoSecure’s most innovative projects – including an Amex/Delta partnership that issued a limited-edition card made from the wings of a 747! We also discuss where she sees the industry going in the next 2-3 years as it relates to frictionless authentication, password-free login, and biometrics.

What does an avid cook with a graduate degree in law and epidemiology have to do with payments? A lot more than you may think! Banyan CEO and Founder Jehan Luth has a passion for item-level data and credits his background in both computer and food science as the foundational building blocks for his success.For those of you who may not know, Banyan set out three years ago to build the infrastructure to both manage and utilize item-level data. And with this data, they work with merchants, banks and fintechs to power new experiences and use cases leveraging this type of granular information.So, what are we talking about when we say item-level data? It’s a very distinct specificity around what you choose to buy versus where you choose to spend your money. And the most prolific use cases are, of course, card-linked rewards and loyalty offers. It’s the difference of being able to take the standard loyalty offer of, let’s say, $25 off your next purchase at a certain location and optimizing it to a more personal offer that gives you $25 off pet food the next time you shop that store. Why pet food? Because that accounted for 75% of your total bill the last time you shopped there. As for their competitive advantage, Jehan talks about powering the rails to leverage experience-based value in a way that has never been done before. In this way, Banyan is not just taking an existing product and trying to make it better but, rather, creating the infrastructure for a product that has yet to even be mainstream enough to optimize.Tune in this week to hear Jehan talk about his journey to CEO, including why the Indian banyan tree provided the inspiration for his thriving ecosystem. We also talk about the power of atomic nodes, V2 fintech and the future forward trend of merchants and banks coming together on behalf of the customer journey.

My guest this week has a fascinating history indeed. He speaks 5 languages, has lived in 6 countries and has a genuine passion for solving customer problems. In fact, he’s only interested in tech that can manifest solutions. Trustly CEO Alexandre Gonthier is a true trailblazer when it comes to payments. For those of you who may not know, Trustly is an alternative payment method for consumers that enables them to pay with their bank account by signing into their online banking. It’s a formless user experience with absolutely zero reliance on card networks or card rails, and their target audience includes billers, online gaming, financial services, and ecommerce merchants with low transaction volume and high frequency.  The original pain point they set out to solve was how to the bring paper check methodology alive in a mobile first world. From there side, billers were having a challenging time getting ACH adoption from their mobile customers. They needed an experience where people didn’t have to remember their routing and account credentials just to satisfy their payment. And why was this such a good niche? Because, according to Alex, 30 to 50% of Americans still prefer to pay their bills using their bank account. As for their competitive advantage, Alex touts a user experience paradigm that is formless, more secure, more economical and more revenue efficient. The capacity to process payments outside of the card networks offers less fraud and higher transaction approval rates.Tune in this week to hear Alex talk about his journey to CEO, including why we have him to think for the first content charging platform and the first proximity payments platform, as well as where he sees the industry going in the next 2 to 3 years as it relates to real-time transactions, crypto, blockchain, and stablecoin.

My guest this week is an engineer by training who found his love for tech and finance while in the middle of his MD-PhD program. And we can now credit him as one of the primary influencers who put esports on the map and helped establish it as a real industry. Payment Labs CEO Han Park has a passion for building businesses and mentoring people – both of which have paved the way for his professional success.For those of you who may not know, Payment Labs is an online gaming and esports payout company that set out specifically to address a large gap in payments. Efficient, global payments for businesses to pay out in a cross-border and compliant fashion was a necessity, at one point, that was not being addressed by any of the broader platforms. Seeing this demand, Han built an entire business based on the need to efficiently and compliantly clear out prize pools for gaming and esports events – a use case that would have originally taken up to 9 months to complete before his innovative platform.As for their competitive advantage, Han touts compliance regulation and optimized payment routes as two of their most competitive offerings. Not only do their clients get the benefit of mitigating risk through AML, cross-border, and tax credit compliance, they also benefit from the most efficient means available for payors and payees to pay or receive using their preferred exchange medium.Tune in this week to hear Han talk about his journey to CEO, including how biotech eventually led to fintech, as well as where he sees the industry going in the next 2-3 years as it relates to the global digital economy, online virtual markets and the gaming/esports sector.

What do ISVs have to do with banking in the near future of fintech? According to Maast CEO Tom Bell, just about everything! For those of you who may not know, Maast (which actually stands for Money as A Service +) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Synovus bank with a mission to create a true embedded finance platform for ISV and SaaS providers. When asked to expand on what their platform is capable of, Tom says “imagine everything you know about embedded payments and extend that into other banking products. Our goal is to take the bank itself and embed it into the software providers platform.”As far as the Synovus relationship impacting their competitive advantage in the marketplace, it actually serves to create one of their biggest value ads. Not only do they take a lot of friction out of the embedded model by enabling Synovus to take their product and distribute it nationwide in a much more efficient manner, they also provide a tremendous benefit to their ISVs and SaaS customers in that they already have all the regulatory, risk, and compliance mandates covered comprehensively on their end due to their relationship with the bank. It really offers much more of a plug-and-play model, allowing the ISV/SaaS to be 100% confident that the Maast platform is in line with regulatory compliance and requiring them to do nothing more than code to their API.Tune in to hear Tom talking about the true definition of embedded finance as it relates to the comprehensive offering, not just embedded payments, as well as where the embedded finance industry is headed in the next 2 to 3 years. Spoiler alert: in this new world, small businesses may not even know who their bank is because they have no need to.

Attention all music fans! This podcast is for you. If you could think of one area in the music industry that has remained totally stagnant amidst all the technology and evolution, what would it be? For those of you that said ticketing, you’re exactly right! Now, for those of you wondering what revolutionizing the ticketing industry has to do with payments, I have YellowHeart CEO and Founder Josh Katz here to tell you.  YellowHeart is a Web3 based digital ticketing platform with a mission to evolve live event ticketing for the first time in history! And where does it all start? With the payment, of course! In Josh’s model, the payment is actually the point of engagement that allows for a ticketing experience that far exceeds the traditional industry standard. Before YellowHeart, the ticketing experience consisted of a barcode or proof of entry stub that told you your seat, location, and basic event information. Now, with YellowHeart, ticketing is a full-on engagement tool for fandom.In fact, the payment process unlocks a plethora of perks available for purchasers. This includes everything from the capacity to receive messages from fans, digital content, high-end art, coveted vinyls and a slew of other interactive engagement tools. Before YellowHeart, the ticket would die immediately after the point of entry. Now, just the point of purchase brings (and keeps) it alive! Tune in this week to hear Josh talk about his journey to CEO, including why you have him to think for good music in public places like restaurants, offices, and coffee shops (just to name a few). We also talk about where the industry is going in the next 2 to 3 years as it relates to bitcoin, Blockchain, and Web3 technology.

Happy New Year! We’re starting out with a bang this year with a guest who was not only a former Southwest Conference Rice University football player, but one who also has bragging rights with both George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. Oh, and he’s also a big player in payments (of course). AccessOne CEO Mark Spinner has a passion for coaching, loving what you do, and being willing to invest enough to keep showing up.For those of you who may not know, AccessOne is a financial technology company that exists to empower patients to live healthier lives. They focus on human-centric payment affordability tools with a passion to help patients manage their financial responsibilities with payment options they can afford. The company itself was founded by a third-generation physician and the DNA of the brand is steeped in empathy for the patient experience.As for what problems they solve in the industry, Mark speaks openly about the complications that still plague the financial healthcare landscape. Disengagement in healthcare payments due to friction is a big problem area they strive to find the easy button for, as well as affordability from the patient perspective. Regarding their competitive advantage, Mark touts patient centricity and flexibility as their driving distinguishers within the payments healthcare space.Tune in this week to hear Mark talk about his journey to CEO, including what drew him to AccessOne, why he has never been so excited about multifactor authentication, and where he sees in the industry going in the next 2 to 3 years as it relates to a frictionless obsession.

This episode is sponsored by Citizens Pay. With Citizens Pay, merchants have the security of a leading national bank and an omnichannel platform designed to streamline the buying process.  If you want to learn more about Citizens Pay, visit https://citizensbank.mvk.co/2hycr where you can find additional information about Citizens Pay and the buy now pay later payment model.My guest this week has a passion for a conscious decision making and a love for the growth potential that comes with working for smaller companies. Span this across a 25-year career in fintech and you have the makings of a podcast worth listening to. PayQuicker President Charles Rosenblatt has a lot to say about payments and the original gig economy!For those of you who may not know, PayQuicker is a global payments platform that does payments for gig economy workers around the globe – in 200 countries and 50+ currencies. They are a complete white-label solution that offers companies the capacity to pay in multiple currencies and with multiple payment methods, including virtual card, direct deposit, e-wallet and even crypto. They have upwards of 80 employees and the company has been around for 15 years. For those of you wondering what market sector they serviced 15 years ago, when the gig economy wasn’t a thing yet, you’re a good company. I asked the same question. And the answer was unexpected! According to Charles, there was, in fact, a thriving gig economy back then. According to him, multilevel marketing reps were the original gig workers!As for their competitive advantage, Charles touts the company motto (happy payees) as a main driver for their success. While it’s true their main customer is the corporate client, their intentional focus on the payee results in a company culture and brand that excels in customer experience. The other advantage? In addition to their global platform, PayQuicker also developed the first ever payments orchestration platform for payouts that offers only 1 API and only 1 integration!Tune in this week to hear Charles talk about his journey to president, how they manage to secure a 99% retention rate, and where he sees the industry going in the next 2 to 3 years including more simplicity, ease at the corporate level, and one single point of contact.