Leaders In Payments

What happens when the primary users of an industry's products aren't well-represented in its leadership? Serena Smith, Chief Client Officer at i2c, tackles this fundamental question in a fascinating exploration of women's influence in the payments ecosystem.

The stark reality? Women drive 85% of consumer purchases across categories but hold only 27% of C-suite positions in financial services. This disconnect...

Billi Jo Wright's unconventional journey from working in her uncle's sheet metal factory to executive leadership in payments spans nearly three decades and offers powerful lessons about persistence, adaptability, and betting on yourself. Without a college degree but armed with boundless curiosity, Billi Jo navigated through various roles across issuing and acquiring before finding her passion in risk management, where she...

What happens when you build direct connections to over 350 real-time banks and wallets worldwide? You create what Thunes CEO Floris de Kort calls "the smart superhighway to move money around the world."

The limitations of traditional cross-border payments are all too familiar for businesses operating globally. SWIFT transfers take days, lack transparency, come with hefty fees, and stop completely on weekends and ...

Step into the world of payment innovation with Pierre Aurel, Chief Product Officer, and Norman Frankel, Chief Growth Officer at Stanchion Payments as they demystify SoftPOS technology - the revolutionary software turning ordinary smartphones into powerful payment terminals.

SoftPOS fundamentally transforms how merchants accept payments, enabling any NFC-capable Android or iOS device to process contactless transactions with...

What happens when you combine the merchant benefits of pay-by-bank transactions with the consumer rewards typically reserved for credit cards? Matt Brennan, CEO of Spire, reveals how their groundbreaking approach is transforming everyday payments across America.

Brennan walks us through Spire's innovative branded payment solution that powers merchant-specific programs like Shell's "S-Pay." By partnering...

Digital commerce security stands at a critical crossroads, with an average of 66 third-party vendors present during the typical e-commerce checkout flow. Each of these represents a potential security vulnerability that could compromise your customers' payment data. Few understand this landscape better than Rui Ribeiro, Co-Founder and CEO of Jscrambler.

Ribeiro's journey began in Portugal with a computer science b...

The future of payments is shifting dramatically as consumers demand more options and businesses seek better ways to assess risk. John Gordon, CEO of ValidiFI, takes us deep into how bank account behavior data is becoming the missing puzzle piece in understanding consumer reliability beyond traditional credit scores.

Gordon explains how ValidiFI sits at the critical intersection of compliance and fraud prevention, helping b...

Max Galash takes us on a fascinating journey through the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency landscape as CEO of Coinchange, a global crypto brokerage and asset management platform with offices in Warsaw and Toronto.

Having pivoted from a direct-to-consumer approach following the collapse of major players like Celsius and BlockFi, CoinChange now focuses exclusively on B2B relationships with crypto operators, exchanges, neobank...

We’ve officially reached 400 episodes of the Leaders in Payments Podcast - and what a journey it’s been. I’m incredibly proud of this milestone and truly grateful to our listeners, guests, and community. With over 375 guests featured, we’ve uncovered countless insights from the best minds in the business.

To celebrate episode 400, I sat down with Barry McCarthy, President and CEO of Deluxe. Barry takes us on a fascinating journey th...

As CEO & Co-Founder of Sling Money, Mike is transforming how we think about sending funds across borders by making international transfers as effortless as sending a text message.

During our conversation, Mike reveals how a personal experience moving USDC between the UK and San Francisco sparked his vision. The transfer itself was instant and free, but everything around it felt clunky – "like using a Unix command ...

Frank Arellano, founder and CEO of Revolv3, peels back the curtain on a staggering $600 billion problem plaguing the payments industry that few executives fully understand. False declines - legitimate transactions incorrectly rejected by payment processors - account for a shocking two-thirds of all credit card declines. For subscription-based businesses, this translates into devastating levels of involuntary customer churn.

The world of payments is undergoing a radical transformation, and at the heart of this revolution stands Wix Payments. In this compelling conversation with co-heads Vova Tsukur and Amit Sagiv, we uncover how this powerhouse is reshaping financial services for small businesses across 190 countries.

What makes Wix Payments truly special? It's not just another payment processor. By leveraging deep user knowledge gathered...

Darryl Hicks, founder and CEO of FlexPay, takes us behind the scenes of a problem costing subscription businesses millions each month – failed payments and the resulting involuntary customer churn.

From his early days cleaning toilets in his parents' commercial cleaning business to consulting for major telecom companies in the Twin Towers, Darryl shares his unique journey to founding a company that's now process...

Dan Battista, CEO and Partner at Factor4, takes us on an journey through the rapidly evolving gift card landscape. With genuine passion and deep industry knowledge, Dan reveals how Factor4 has grown from just 3 employees to 22 staff serving over 21,000 merchants in just a decade.

The conversation illuminates Factor4's remarkable approach to customer service – answering emails within 10 minutes and phones within two ri...

What happens when you combine identity verification with payment precision? That's the question Ben Turner set out to answer when he founded Verituity, a company transforming enterprise disbursements by focusing on verification at every step of the payment process.

Drawing from his experiences at Network Solutions in the early days of e-commerce, Turner recognized that payment fraud and errors stem from an identity pr...

Ever wondered how pest control, landscaping, and janitorial companies are being transformed through innovative financial technology? Jacob Olins, SVP & GM of Fintech at WorkWave, takes us deep into the world where field service management software meets cutting-edge financial services.

WorkWave has positioned itself as the operating system for field service businesses, providing everything from customer acquisition too...

Meet Jeff Shea, the co-founder and CEO of Under who's revolutionizing how payments companies onboard merchants. Drawing from over two decades in payments and fintech, Jeff has created a digital account opening platform that's solving one of the industry's most persistent challenges.

Under helps payments companies streamline merchant onboarding through integrated identity verification, automated risk assessme...

What happens when you combine decades of payment industry expertise with a mission to solve one of the most overlooked problems in business banking? Brian Bailey, President of Clip Money, joins us to reveal how his company is transforming the way businesses handle cash deposits.

Despite the rapid growth of digital payments, cash still accounts for nearly 30% of all in-store transactions. Yet for decades, businesses have be...

Mary Kay Bowman takes us behind the scenes of BILL's mission to transform financial operations for small businesses through an expertly crafted blend of software and financial services. As EVP and GM of Payments and Financial Services, she brings decades of experience from pioneering roles at Amazon, Square, and Visa to tackle the challenges that interrupt the daily flow of small business finance.

The conversation rev...