Payments on Fire™

In this episode, Rehman Baig, Chief Product Officer at FlexFactor joins Drew Edmond to talk about how FlexFactor is rethinking payments optimization through a Merchant of Record model. For most people in the industry, “Merchant of Record” is usually associated with global tax compliance and marketplaces, not optimization. But FlexFactor is using it to directly address failed payments and auth rate challenges in a way that merchants...

Would you let a software agent, powered by AI, search, select, and complete a purchase on your behalf? Will a merchant be able to tell if there’s a human or robot behind the transaction? What about risk and regulation concerns? 

Russ Jones and Drew Edmond spent some time at the Glenbrook water cooler this week to consider the rapidly emerging topic of agentic commerce and agentic payments. Tune in as they explore different industry...

In a series of episodes, Glenbrook's Joanna Wisniecka will to bring you up to speed on what’s happening globally as countries modernize payment networks and reach individuals and businesses through faster payment systems.

In this episode, Joanna welcomes Sabine Mensah, Deputy CEO of AfricaNenda, a leader in financial inclusion, to explore Africa's dynamic path towards inclusive instant payment systems and the need for continued inn...

Here’s a payments conundrum for you: We now have more ways to authenticate access to an online account or app than ever before. And yet, account takeover (ATO) - basically unauthorized access to an account - is at record levels.

In this episode, Glenbrook’s Yvette Bohanan and Chris Uriarte are joined by Rocky Scales, CEO of IDgo, to explore this multifaceted problem. 

Tune in as they discuss the vulnerabilities in authentication te...

In this episode, Brant Peterson, Head of Enterprise Product, North America at Worldpay, joins Drew Edmond to talk about payment optimization through the perspective of a payment service provider. Worldpay is one of the world’s largest global PSPs - it processed over 2.5 Trillion Dollars in 2024, which was made up of 50 Billion transactions.

Tune in to hear their perspectives on payment optimization and solutions that PSPs can offer...

David Maimon, head of Fraud Insights at SentiLink, joins Yvette Bohanan for another episode to raise awareness about different fraud tactics and their impacts. 

In this conversation, Yvette and David explore the intricacies and implications of Credit Profile Numbers (CPNs) and synthetic identity fraud, as well as  “zombie debt” and assumed identity fraud.  Listen in to hear the implications of these fraud ...

“Payments Performance Optimization” is a pretty broad term, and it might mean different things to different people. 

In a series of Payments on Fire episodes this year, Glenbrook’s Drew Edmond will be talking to guests who are approaching payments optimization from a variety of different angles, with a focus on primarily online, card not present merchants. 

At the end of the day, a merchant wa...

As legal and regulatory restrictions have become relaxed in recent years, we’ve been noting the increasing prevalence of surcharges on payment cards here in the U.S. 

Perhaps it was inevitable that the practice would become more commonplace in our market, which is known around the world for relatively high rates of card interchange and a relatively light touch in financial services regulation.

Surcharging is a tricky i...

In 2024, to our great delight, we had a conversation with David Maimon, Head of Fraud Insights at SentiLink. We’re fortunate to welcome David back for a quarterly series this year to check in on payments fraud writ large - to better understand what’s happening and why.

Listen in to this episode as Yvette and David discuss the evolution and resurgence of check fraud, the increasing sophistication of fraud rings targeting banks and t...

In this episode, Anthony Sharett, President of Pathward, joins Glenbrook’s Bryan Derman to share insights on the evolving partner banking space, the importance of risk and compliance frameworks, and Pathward's mission of financial inclusion. Tune in as they also discuss potential policy and regulatory changes due to implications of major discrepancies in the banking-as-a-service arrangement between fintech platform Syn...

In this episode, Debbie Bartoo and Russ Jones join Yvette Bohanan to discuss Glenbrook’s focus on payments education and share some of the fun and fascinating things that have happened in facilitating workshops for 34,000 (and counting) payments geeks. Listen in to hear behind-the-scenes insights from their workshop experiences and highlights from the latest offering, On-Demand Learning, as Glenbrook continues to evolve payments ed...

Booshan Rengachari, CEO of Finzly, joins Glenbrook’s Elizabeth McQuerry and Simon Skinner to discuss how software, fast payments, and open banking are reshaping the banking industry and the way we think about financial services.

Tune in as they cover the challenges of modernizing legacy banking systems, the rise of fast payments, and the potential of open banking to integrate banking services into everyday life. The episode also ex...

The Glenbrook partners reflect on key trends and challenges in the payments industry that shaped 2024 - from generative AI, open banking, the evolving regulatory landscape, and the rise of fast payment systems worldwide. And you can't get the Glenbrook team in a "room" without discussing ongoing fraud implications, orchestration in merchant payments, and the progress of tokenization. Tune in to hear insights from our industry exper...

Real end-to-end testing requires real-world transactions. Sometimes that’s not too difficult to do if you are implementing payments in your own country. But step outside your border, and it gets a bit harder. 

People new to payments turn to logical solutions when faced with this problem. Can you call the acquirer? Won’t they have test accounts for us to use? (Probably not.) Can’t we just drip a few transac...

Payments and treasury are two sides of the same coin. Payments teams are responsible for the customer journey - payments into a company and sometimes disbursements to sellers, app developers, content creators, or vendors. Their role usually includes working with banks and other providers to ensure money moves into and out of the company’s accounts correctly and efficiently. 

Treasurers are responsible for ...

Yvette Bohanan and Russ Jones celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the announcement of Apple Pay by reflecting on its origins, challenges, and successes. The episode highlights key features like tokenization, encryption, and biometric authentication, emphasizing Apple Pay's focus on security, privacy, and convenience. Tune in to take a look back at Apple Pay’s significant impact on the payments industry and a look forward to its co...