April 21, 2025 • 22 mins
Dustin Siner, Chief Revenue Officer at Payarc, brings 27 years of payments industry expertise and a fascinating journey that began with a psychology degree and a brief stint as a rehabilitation counselor. His therapeutic background proved surprisingly valuable in navigating the complex payments landscape, where relationship building remains the cornerstone of success despite technological advances.
Fresh from Payarc's recognition as ISO of the Year at the Electronic Transactions Association (ETA), Dustin reveals the secret behind their meteoric rise - "The Payarc Way." This philosophy, built on integrity, empathy, courage, knowledge, and caring, guides how the company supports its network of 1,400+ independent agents, ISOs, and ISVs who generate an impressive 95% of their business.
While many competitors devalue the independent agent channel, Payarc doubles down on relationships with dedicated managers, responsive support teams, and proprietary technology platforms designed exclusively for partners. Their Partner Hub provides comprehensive tools for the entire sales process, from application to approval, while their suite of payment solutions offers partners competitive advantages in a crowded marketplace.
What truly distinguishes Payarc is their approach to artificial intelligence through their PIE AI program. Rather than replacing human interaction, they enhance it - helping partners analyze statements with PIE Agent Advisor, predict customer churn with PIE Churn, and enable merchants to gain business insights through natural language queries with PIE Merchant Advisor.
For agents, ISOs, and ISVs seeking a partner that values relationships as much as innovation in an increasingly consolidated market, Payarc offers a refreshing alternative where technology and humanity work together to drive mutual success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:19):
Thank you.
Scale their businesses onepayment at a time.
At Payark, ai is more than abuzzword.
It is integrated intoeverything they do, from
predicting merchant churn torisk assessments, to
self-service tools.
Join us for this special serieson AI in Payments.
Greg Myers (00:38):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andon today's show we have a very
special guest, dustin Siner, theChief Revenue Officer at Payark
.
But before we dive in, I wantedto mention a couple of things.
We've had several people fromPayark on the show, including
Zach Martinez, the CEO, the CTO,john Minitaglio, as well as
(01:00):
more recently, we had JaredRonski, the co-founder and
president, on the show.
So I suggest you go back andlisten to those episodes as well
.
But today we're going to focuson Dustin.
So, dustin, welcome to the show.
Thanks, greg, great being here,Great.
So, if you don't mind, tell ouraudience a little bit about
yourself, maybe where you grewup, where you went to school,
where you currently live, a fewthings like that, sure.
Dustin Siner (01:20):
Dustin Siner, chief Revenue Officer for PayArc
.
I grew up in the small town ofWhitefish, montana, where
there's snow on the ground ninemonths out of the year.
I no longer live in Montanabecause I don't like snow, so I
am now in the Dallas-Farwortharea.
I think we're pretty close toeach other, greg.
I went to school at theUniversity of Colorado in
Boulder, where Deion Sanders isgratefully turning around that
(01:40):
football program, which isfantastic for us.
I actually have a degree inpsychology.
I thought I wanted to be atherapist.
My first job out of school Iwas actually a counselor at a
detox facility for drug andalcohol rehabilitation.
After about six months Irealized I didn't have the thick
skin I thought I did.
But I realized I could take mytherapeutic skills into an arena
(02:01):
that really needed it and thatwas payments.
So I've been in payments for 27years.
I got my start at Bank Card Incthere in Boulder, which was
actually the first registeredISO for Chase Payment Tech way
back in the day, which was fun.
We were acquired by Nova, whichis now, of course, elevon, and
I made my array into sales kindof growing up through transfers
(02:22):
thesis ultimately became thesenior vice president running
the retail ISO agents andpayment facilitator programs,
and I now serve as the chiefrevenue officer here for Payark.
Greg Myers (02:33):
Awesome, awesome.
Well, let's dive in.
And, as you well know, andhopefully the audience knows and
if they don't, they're about tois that Payark was recognized
as the ISO of the year at ETA,which was just a couple of weeks
ago, and obviously that's areflection on the growth and the
commitment to your partnersthat you guys have and sort of
this partner first approachwhere you really focus on the
(02:56):
onboarding, the integration, thesupport that you provide agents
, isvs and ISOs.
So the question is, with yourfocus on this, how does this
partner-first approach help youdrive momentum and open new
revenue opportunities across theboard?
Dustin Siner (03:12):
Sure.
Well, first let me say what anhonor it is to be recognized as
the ISO of the year for the ETAand you probably know this, but
there's almost 10,000 registeredISOs in the United States alone
.
So to be selected as the topISO of the year is such an
amazing honor and we're just sograteful for it.
And we really couldn't do itwithout our Payark family, of
course, our employees, but,almost more importantly, our
(03:34):
third-party sales partners, andwe have over 1,400 independent
agents, isos and ISVs that wepartner with across the United
States and they represent 95% ofour business and we've really
enjoyed phenomenal growth overthe last several years and
that's thanks to therelationships that we've built
with these partners, and itreally is all about relationship
(03:55):
.
Business is about relationship.
I think we forget that, but forus, we really make sure our
employees are focused on thePayArc way.
As we deal with our partners,our agents in ISOs and ISVs,
they really are our top customerand we need to make sure that
we treat them accordingly.
So the PayArc way is reallykind of built around five main
(04:16):
pillars.
It is focused with integrity,empathy, courage, knowledge,
truth and caring, and those arethe really you know, know the
five pillars that we focus onwhen we're dealing with our
partners.
And it really starts withintegrity right.
We want to make sure that weare the white hats of the
business, that we are followingthrough in our commitments, that
we do what we say we're goingto do, that we are transparent
(04:36):
with our pricing, our programsand that we just really follow
through on everything that we'vecommitted to our partners.
And we also want to make surewe're practicing empathy, that
we really understand andvocalize their perspective.
Business is always fraught withchallenges.
Obviously there's a lot ofrewarding opportunities that we
can follow through on.
But as those challenges arise,we need to make sure that we're
empathetic with our partners andthat we voice those concerns
(04:59):
and we follow those concernsthrough to resolution.
And then we have to make surewe're representing courage, that
we have to make sure we'rerepresenting courage, that we
have the courage to step up andlead.
So, as these challenges arise,that we are embracing the
challenge, that we are workingwith our partners to find
resolutions and just reallyfollowing through to see that
situation to its end.
We also want to make sure thateach employee has the knowledge
(05:20):
that they need to be successful,so we make sure each employee
goes through rigorous industrytraining in addition to,
obviously, the PayArc way andthe systems that we implement.
So we just want to make surethat we're giving our partners
the support that they need fromindividuals that really have the
knowledge to help them succeedthrough sales and through
support and all the otherdifferent things.
(05:40):
We also want to make sure thatwe're truthful in everything
that we do.
So if we make a mistake, wewant to make sure that we own
that mistake, that we're beingproactive and voicing that
mistake to our customers.
We want to be truthful in whatwe convey.
We also want to make sure thatwe get ahead of any bad news
that may transpire.
So we want to make sure thatwe're truthful, empathetic and
proactive to approach any issuethat may come up.
(06:00):
And, finally, we want to makesure that each employee
demonstrates caring for ourpartners.
Again, it's a relationshipbusiness Agents and ISOs
especially, and ISVs.
It's important that they knowthat we care about them, that we
care about their success,because their success is our
success.
So we want to make sure eachpay arc employee demonstrates
that caring in theirrelationship with those partners
(06:21):
.
Greg Myers (06:22):
Okay, great.
So this next question is kindof a two-part question.
So how are PayArc's in-housesolutions helping these agents
and ISVs and merchants fueltheir revenue growth?
And then the second part whatrole does innovation play in
giving those partners the toolsthey need to stay competitive?
Dustin Siner (06:42):
Yeah, it's a complicated market, right?
I mean the technology growth.
If we can't keep up with thetechnology growth then we can't
meet the growing demands of acomplicated audience with
business owners across a widearray of different vertical
markets.
So for us, again, the agentsISVs, isos being our core
audience it really starts withmaking sure that we make
business easy for them.
(07:02):
So it starts for us with whatwe call our partner hub.
So partner hub is where ourpartners live from the beginning
to the end of the sales process.
So we have our apply wizardwhich allows a partner to easily
go in to a very intuitiveinterface to complete an
application, submit it forelectronic signature for their
customers and then goes throughan automated boarding process on
(07:23):
our side so they can see everystep along the way.
What's happening with thatapplication.
Is it approved?
If it's pending, why is itpending?
And from a boarding process,where do we stand with
deployment and all that goodstuff.
It also has a wide array ofresources that they can leverage
so we can, through our resourcecenter, they're able to pull
down a wide variety of sales andmarketing assets.
We have a number of differenttraining curriculums.
(07:44):
They can take advantage ofassets.
We have a number of differenttraining curriculums they can
take advantage of.
It also has the ability to viewsupport tickets so as any issue
arises, they can submit asupport ticket directly through
there.
They can see the status ofthose tickets.
They can also see all the datarelated to their portfolio.
They can see their customers'transactions.
They can see chargebacks.
So if those partners want tointerface directly with those
customers with any issues thatmay transpire, they can be
(08:07):
proactive by viewing that data.
And then we're starting tobuild in some AI to really kind
of help those partners, throughnatural language, ask different
questions to the system and havethe system generate intuitive
answers on the backside.
Innovation also comes in the wayof what types of tools and
products can we arm our partnerswith for sales.
So we have a wide variety ofproprietary platforms that we
(08:29):
offer to those partners andthey're all fully integrated in
an omni-channel environment.
So we have a PayArc app thatresides through PAX Terminals,
any Android device.
We also have our PayArc appthat sits in an iOS environment.
We have our Curve POS platform,which serves the tall to the
small a fully integrated POSplatform which serves the tall
to the small.
A fully integrated POS solutionfor retail restaurant owners,
(08:50):
also mobile solutions that theycan take advantage of, and all
those feed into the PayArcgateway.
So the gateway itself is wherethe merchants can go online.
They can view their transactiondata, their statements.
They can also use that as avirtual terminal backup.
So, for any reason theirterminal's down, they can go
online at any time with anywherethat has access to the internet
and process payments.
So we offer that full, widevariety of products for our
(09:12):
partners.
And then, finally, because weare a financial technology
provider, we have access to awide variety of APIs that we can
use to customize paymentexperiences.
So, again, because it's a verycomplex market, we have sales
engineers that can work directlywith those third-party partners
of ours and create dynamicsolutions through integrated
gateway offerings, integratedPOS offerings or even payment
(09:35):
facilitator offerings that wouldsupport things like split
payments and things of thatnature.
So innovation is very importantand it's also important that we
make it simple for the partnersto be able to integrate, so we
give them a guided experiencethrough the whole process.
Greg Myers (09:48):
Okay, and next question again.
It's kind of a two-part thing.
Payarc's in-house tools areexclusively available to your
partners, so what specificadvantages does that unlock?
And then how do these programshelp agents and ISVs and
merchants actually grow theirbusiness and gain a competitive
advantage in this crowded space?
Dustin Siner (10:08):
Yeah, it kind of comes back to what I was
speaking to for the lastquestion, Because these
solutions are unique to the PRaudience.
The first advantage is ourcompetitors can't step in and
reprogram it right so thatcustomer becomes engaged with a
platform that is very sticky.
It helps that merchant, thatbusiness owner, grow in a wide
variety of different areas.
It could be through making thatbusiness more efficient through
(10:30):
employee management, time clockmanagement.
It could be in allowing thatmerchant to reach a wider array
of consumers that want to meetthat merchant where they're
ready to buy, whether it beonline or in person or so on and
so forth.
And again, because we are afinancial technology provider
with in-house developers, we cancustomize any solutions through
a lot of unique engagementsthrough our sales engineering
(10:52):
team.
So it really kind of sets usapart from that standpoint.
Greg Myers (10:55):
Okay, well, what trends are you seeing
specifically in the agentchannel and what kind of
performance and growthdifferences are you noticing,
and sort of, what do you expectto see in the coming year?
Dustin Siner (11:07):
Yeah, you know it's interesting.
A lot of our competitors reallydevalue the independent agent
channel and I think a lot of usforget why ISOs and agents exist
in the first place.
You know, 40 plus years ago,financial institutions were the
only place where a businessowner could set up credit card
processing.
Those banks realized theydidn't have the market reach to
(11:27):
find all those differentbusiness owners, and so the ISO
program began.
That's how it was born, byleveraging third-party sales
partners that are reallyentrepreneurial in spirit and
are very relationship-driven.
Bankers are fantastic, butthey're not physically out on
the street visiting thesebusinesses at their locations,
where the agents especially areright there in front of those
customers every day, and theyare just absolutely phenomenal
(11:50):
at building relationships, andso relationship obviously is a
key word here that I kind ofkeep zeroing in on.
Business is all aboutrelationships, and so as the
market consolidates and as a lotof our competitors devalue that
channel, what that result lookslike is a lot of different
things.
To support dwindles, a lot ofthe competitors will initiate
(12:10):
price increases withoutconsulting their partners and
just to kind of boost theirstock price or whatnot.
A lot of times it means there'stechnologies that those
competitors will only sellthrough their direct channels
that they don't open up to thethird party channels.
And so for us, again, it's allabout relationship, because
agents are so entrepreneurialspirit, they are in the face of
the market every single up tothe third party channels.
And so for us, again, it's allabout relationship, because
agents are so entrepreneurial inspirit they are in the face of
(12:30):
the market every single day.
They're giving us feedback aboutwhat the market needs, what the
market demands, and we're ableto provide solutions that they
do such a phenomenal jobexpanding through the wide
market that is out there.
So we really hone in on makingsure we focus in on those
relationships.
We have a dedicatedrelationship management team, so
each of our 1400 third partypartners have dedicated
(12:53):
individuals that have decades ofindustry experience to help
guide them through a verycomplex market.
We also back them up throughour support team that answers
the phone in a minute or less.
So, again, if they ever have anissue, they pick up the phone
and somebody's there right awayto help service that particular
need.
And again, because we are amid-sized financial technology
player, we're very nimble.
(13:14):
So, as these more complexsolutions that are needed in the
market, we love the feedbackfrom our partners, and we love
working with them to design veryinnovative, complex solutions
for a complex audience.
So it's been just a fantasticrun for us.
Greg Myers (13:29):
Yeah, you mentioned a couple of things there.
I wanted to just get you maybeto double click on.
You talked about relationships,obviously incredibly important
in this business.
And then, as you and I, who'vebeen in this industry a while,
we've heard the death of the ISOright.
That's been talked about for along time, but ISOs and agents
still have a role in thisindustry and I think they always
(13:49):
will, and I feel like you'redifferentiating your business on
sort of that white gloveservice right, being there for
them at any time with thetechnology and the tools that
they need to succeed.
I mean, that sounds like theperfect formula, yeah.
Dustin Siner (14:03):
Yeah, I mean, obviously our industry has
evolved incredibly.
There's a lot of financialtechnology players that have
incredible innovative technologythat they take to market.
There's the integratedrestaurant management platforms
that we all know about.
There's the ISV-driven Stripesand Addiens and a lot of the
others the Toast platforms andthey have absolutely incredible
(14:23):
solutions.
But I think what thosecompanies miss really is making
sure that they develop thoserelationships.
So, while third-party ISVs andagents may love to take
advantage of those platforms,they can't pick up the phone and
call anyone.
They don't have any flexibilityin how they price their
customer base.
So, really, we approach themarket through partnership.
(14:45):
How do we win together?
How do we resolve the painpoints of the merchant base?
How do we make sure that theyknow that we care about their
business right?
And so it's really a huge focalpoint for us is to make sure
we're really honing on thatrelationship.
Greg Myers (14:58):
Yeah, absolutely Well, you mentioned AI earlier,
so let's double click on that alittle bit.
So in what ways does your Pi AIprogram directly drive sales
growth?
And maybe more specifically,how do the Pi churn, Pi agent
and Pi merchant tools help salesovercome some of their
persistent challenges inretaining merchants, closing
(15:20):
deals and boosting revenue?
Dustin Siner (15:22):
Yeah, isn't it amazing how far AI has come in
such a short amount of time?
I mean, I think every businessis engaged at some level of AI
and I know John Minitaglia wason your show recently, you know,
talking a lot about what we'redoing with Pi and, again, you
know, I think, the way we viewAI is AI is there and meant to
boost the human interaction.
It's not there to replace it.
(15:43):
So I know a lot of ourcompetitors.
I was talking to a competitorof ours.
I was at the Masters this lastweekend, which was an incredible
experience, by the way but Iwas talking to one of our
competitors who mentioned theyhave 50 developers that are
focused only on AI to be able toanswer the phone, so they want
to remove that human experienceand have a bot physically speak
(16:03):
directly with their customerbase.
We don't view it that way.
As awesome as AI is and howhuman-like it seems to be,
nothing will replace that humaninteraction and really being
able to express empathy andcarrying out all those other
things that we talked about.
And so, as we look at Pi, forus again, our agents, our
third-party sales partners beingour core focus, our core
(16:25):
customer base, it starts withthe PI agent advisor.
So what the PI agent advisordoes is it allows a sales
partner to be able to scan acopy of a merchant statement.
The bot itself will scan it.
It'll tell the agent this ishow that merchant is priced.
Here's some ideas of how youmight be able to save that
merchant money in differentavenues.
Eventually, we'll also be ableto advise that agent on
(16:49):
solutions that they could sellto that customer base, whether
it be something that PayArcoffers through our proprietary
platform or through any of thethird parties that we support.
It would tell that agent hey,maybe you should think about
cross-selling.
If they're using Toast, maybethey should check out Curve POS
as an example.
That PI agent advisor will alsoeventually be able to allow a
(17:09):
partner to ask, through anatural language, different
questions.
Hey, can you show me in myportfolio who are my top
customers and it would show,obviously, a breakdown of that.
Hey, in my portfolio do I haveany merchants that have
chargeback increases?
Is there anything that I shouldpay attention to?
Is there anything I couldeducate that merchant on how to
mitigate some of thosechargebacks?
So we can ask it throughnatural language and that bot
(17:35):
will give it feedback thatallows that human and enhances
that human to be able to furthereducate their customer.
So it's a huge focal point forus.
We also have our PyChurn wetalked about, so the churn
advisor.
What that does is it allows usto scan up to a thousand
different data elements thatbasically help us identify when
we might be at risk of losing acustomer.
We all know it's much harder tolose a customer it's much
(17:57):
harder to replace that customerthan it is to find a new one,
right.
So this tool will allow us toscan support tickets, anything
that might be happening within aregional demographic, and it
gives it a percentage of a riskthat that customer might leave
us.
And we've been able to drilldown up to 85% accuracy, that
different risk level.
And so, internally, what thatdoes is we're able to relay to
(18:18):
our sales partners hey, theseguys are at risk.
You might want to pick up thephone and give them a call.
You might want to stop by andsay hello, just make sure you're
again focusing on thatrelationship so that merchant
knows you care about them.
If they have pain, let's solvethat pain so we don't lose them.
It's extremely important to us.
We also leverage AI, obviously,to help us through risk
(18:40):
mitigation and loss prevention.
We're able to leverage AI toshow us when fraud might be
happening and we can reach outto that merchant and let them
know.
Maybe there was a data hack ormaybe they have an employee that
were doing some things thatwere unscrupulous.
We can also use it to predictpotential losses, so if a
merchant might be at risk of notbeing able to cover different
(19:00):
fees, it gives us an alert rightso we're able to help
dramatically proactivelyapproach potential losses, which
is a huge problem, I think, forall of us in this business.
It helps us through automatedunderwriting and a lot of other
different things.
Again, ai it's amazing how farit's come and what it does to
allow us to grow.
Finally, we leverage AI throughour high merchant advisor.
(19:22):
Again, merchants are able tolog into our platform and
they're able to ask, throughnatural language, different
questions hey, what are my topsales hours over the past month?
If they wanted to address timeswhen they might be able to put
on a special promotion to helpboost sales, they could ask
different questions.
To do that, they could also askyou know, what are my top SKUs,
what are my top products that Ican sell Just by typing in a
(19:44):
simple question into the system.
Greg Myers (19:53):
So Pi has really come a long way to really help
boost our business.
It's fascinating what AI isdoing.
I think what's interesting andimportant is that companies that
are embracing it, like you guys, are out there talking about it
.
You're not sort of hidingbehind it, not off doing things
and not talking to your partners.
In fact, you guys haveproductized it, which is amazing
, and you're out there talkingabout it.
I mean, that's part of whatthis whole series is about is
really how is AI and paymentsprogressing?
(20:14):
You know what are companiesdoing, how are they becoming
successful using AI?
So I think you know you guysout there talking about it and,
like I said, productizing it, Ithink is an amazing step and the
runway is huge for AI.
Dustin Siner (20:27):
It really is, and if you're not embracing AI, then
you're going to be way behindthe times, right?
So you know.
Again, I think it's importantthat we don't devalue the
importance of the humaninteraction and the relationship
, but how do we leverage AI tojust promote that experience?
So whether we're using AI togrow our knowledge base?
As a support rep is on thephone, they can ask a quick
(20:47):
question hey, I can't figure outthe troubleshooting on this and
a bot can very quickly spit outanswers so that merges on the
phone for minutes instead ofpotentially hours.
You know, to solve thoseproblems.
So amazing what AI can do.
Greg Myers (20:58):
Absolutely Well, dustin.
It's been a great conversation.
Dustin Siner (21:07):
I just wanted to thank the ETA again for
recognizing us as the ISO of theyear.
I really want to make sureeverybody knows PayArc is 100%
focused on third-party sales Anyagents, isos, isvs that are
looking for a quality partner,especially in a time where the
market continues to consolidate.
There's obviously big newstoday about a couple of major
players that emerged hererecently and you know a lot of.
(21:30):
There aren't many players outthere that are focused on that
independent agent ISO market andso we're here.
If you guys are interested inlooking for a new home, please
give us a call.
Greg Myers (21:38):
Okay, well, dustin, thank you so much for being on
the show.
I know your time's veryvaluable, so again, thanks for
being on today.
Thank you, greg, I appreciateit, and to all your listeners
out there, I thank you for yourtime as well.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And until the next story.
Thank you for joining us todayas we discussed how Payark is
leveraging AI to transformpayments.
To learn more about Payark,visit wwwpayarkcom.
Thank you.
Scale their businesses onepayment at a time.
At Payark, ai is more than abuzzword.
It is integrated intoeverything they do, from
predicting merchant churn torisk assessments, to
self-service tools.
Join us for this special serieson AI in Payments.
Greg Myers (00:38):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andon today's show we have a very
special guest, dustin Siner, theChief Revenue Officer at Payark
.
But before we dive in, I wantedto mention a couple of things.
We've had several people fromPayark on the show, including
Zach Martinez, the CEO, the CTO,john Minitaglio, as well as
(01:00):
more recently, we had JaredRonski, the co-founder and
president, on the show.
So I suggest you go back andlisten to those episodes as well
.
But today we're going to focuson Dustin.
So, dustin, welcome to the show.
Thanks, greg, great being here,Great.
So, if you don't mind, tell ouraudience a little bit about
yourself, maybe where you grewup, where you went to school,
where you currently live, a fewthings like that, sure.
Dustin Siner (01:20):
Dustin Siner, chief Revenue Officer for PayArc
.
I grew up in the small town ofWhitefish, montana, where
there's snow on the ground ninemonths out of the year.
I no longer live in Montanabecause I don't like snow, so I
am now in the Dallas-Farwortharea.
I think we're pretty close toeach other, greg.
I went to school at theUniversity of Colorado in
Boulder, where Deion Sanders isgratefully turning around that
(01:40):
football program, which isfantastic for us.
I actually have a degree inpsychology.
I thought I wanted to be atherapist.
My first job out of school Iwas actually a counselor at a
detox facility for drug andalcohol rehabilitation.
After about six months Irealized I didn't have the thick
skin I thought I did.
But I realized I could take mytherapeutic skills into an arena
(02:01):
that really needed it and thatwas payments.
So I've been in payments for 27years.
I got my start at Bank Card Incthere in Boulder, which was
actually the first registeredISO for Chase Payment Tech way
back in the day, which was fun.
We were acquired by Nova, whichis now, of course, elevon, and
I made my array into sales kindof growing up through transfers
(02:22):
thesis ultimately became thesenior vice president running
the retail ISO agents andpayment facilitator programs,
and I now serve as the chiefrevenue officer here for Payark.
Greg Myers (02:33):
Awesome, awesome.
Well, let's dive in.
And, as you well know, andhopefully the audience knows and
if they don't, they're about tois that Payark was recognized
as the ISO of the year at ETA,which was just a couple of weeks
ago, and obviously that's areflection on the growth and the
commitment to your partnersthat you guys have and sort of
this partner first approachwhere you really focus on the
(02:56):
onboarding, the integration, thesupport that you provide agents
, isvs and ISOs.
So the question is, with yourfocus on this, how does this
partner-first approach help youdrive momentum and open new
revenue opportunities across theboard?
Dustin Siner (03:12):
Sure.
Well, first let me say what anhonor it is to be recognized as
the ISO of the year for the ETAand you probably know this, but
there's almost 10,000 registeredISOs in the United States alone
.
So to be selected as the topISO of the year is such an
amazing honor and we're just sograteful for it.
And we really couldn't do itwithout our Payark family, of
course, our employees, but,almost more importantly, our
(03:34):
third-party sales partners, andwe have over 1,400 independent
agents, isos and ISVs that wepartner with across the United
States and they represent 95% ofour business and we've really
enjoyed phenomenal growth overthe last several years and
that's thanks to therelationships that we've built
with these partners, and itreally is all about relationship
(03:55):
.
Business is about relationship.
I think we forget that, but forus, we really make sure our
employees are focused on thePayArc way.
As we deal with our partners,our agents in ISOs and ISVs,
they really are our top customerand we need to make sure that
we treat them accordingly.
So the PayArc way is reallykind of built around five main
(04:16):
pillars.
It is focused with integrity,empathy, courage, knowledge,
truth and caring, and those arethe really you know, know the
five pillars that we focus onwhen we're dealing with our
partners.
And it really starts withintegrity right.
We want to make sure that weare the white hats of the
business, that we are followingthrough in our commitments, that
we do what we say we're goingto do, that we are transparent
(04:36):
with our pricing, our programsand that we just really follow
through on everything that we'vecommitted to our partners.
And we also want to make surewe're practicing empathy, that
we really understand andvocalize their perspective.
Business is always fraught withchallenges.
Obviously there's a lot ofrewarding opportunities that we
can follow through on.
But as those challenges arise,we need to make sure that we're
empathetic with our partners andthat we voice those concerns
(04:59):
and we follow those concernsthrough to resolution.
And then we have to make surewe're representing courage, that
we have to make sure we'rerepresenting courage, that we
have the courage to step up andlead.
So, as these challenges arise,that we are embracing the
challenge, that we are workingwith our partners to find
resolutions and just reallyfollowing through to see that
situation to its end.
We also want to make sure thateach employee has the knowledge
(05:20):
that they need to be successful,so we make sure each employee
goes through rigorous industrytraining in addition to,
obviously, the PayArc way andthe systems that we implement.
So we just want to make surethat we're giving our partners
the support that they need fromindividuals that really have the
knowledge to help them succeedthrough sales and through
support and all the otherdifferent things.
(05:40):
We also want to make sure thatwe're truthful in everything
that we do.
So if we make a mistake, wewant to make sure that we own
that mistake, that we're beingproactive and voicing that
mistake to our customers.
We want to be truthful in whatwe convey.
We also want to make sure thatwe get ahead of any bad news
that may transpire.
So we want to make sure thatwe're truthful, empathetic and
proactive to approach any issuethat may come up.
(06:00):
And, finally, we want to makesure that each employee
demonstrates caring for ourpartners.
Again, it's a relationshipbusiness Agents and ISOs
especially, and ISVs.
It's important that they knowthat we care about them, that we
care about their success,because their success is our
success.
So we want to make sure eachpay arc employee demonstrates
that caring in theirrelationship with those partners
(06:21):
.
Greg Myers (06:22):
Okay, great.
So this next question is kindof a two-part question.
So how are PayArc's in-housesolutions helping these agents
and ISVs and merchants fueltheir revenue growth?
And then the second part whatrole does innovation play in
giving those partners the toolsthey need to stay competitive?
Dustin Siner (06:42):
Yeah, it's a complicated market, right?
I mean the technology growth.
If we can't keep up with thetechnology growth then we can't
meet the growing demands of acomplicated audience with
business owners across a widearray of different vertical
markets.
So for us, again, the agentsISVs, isos being our core
audience it really starts withmaking sure that we make
business easy for them.
(07:02):
So it starts for us with whatwe call our partner hub.
So partner hub is where ourpartners live from the beginning
to the end of the sales process.
So we have our apply wizardwhich allows a partner to easily
go in to a very intuitiveinterface to complete an
application, submit it forelectronic signature for their
customers and then goes throughan automated boarding process on
(07:23):
our side so they can see everystep along the way.
What's happening with thatapplication.
Is it approved?
If it's pending, why is itpending?
And from a boarding process,where do we stand with
deployment and all that goodstuff.
It also has a wide array ofresources that they can leverage
so we can, through our resourcecenter, they're able to pull
down a wide variety of sales andmarketing assets.
We have a number of differenttraining curriculums.
(07:44):
They can take advantage ofassets.
We have a number of differenttraining curriculums they can
take advantage of.
It also has the ability to viewsupport tickets so as any issue
arises, they can submit asupport ticket directly through
there.
They can see the status ofthose tickets.
They can also see all the datarelated to their portfolio.
They can see their customers'transactions.
They can see chargebacks.
So if those partners want tointerface directly with those
customers with any issues thatmay transpire, they can be
(08:07):
proactive by viewing that data.
And then we're starting tobuild in some AI to really kind
of help those partners, throughnatural language, ask different
questions to the system and havethe system generate intuitive
answers on the backside.
Innovation also comes in the wayof what types of tools and
products can we arm our partnerswith for sales.
So we have a wide variety ofproprietary platforms that we
(08:29):
offer to those partners andthey're all fully integrated in
an omni-channel environment.
So we have a PayArc app thatresides through PAX Terminals,
any Android device.
We also have our PayArc appthat sits in an iOS environment.
We have our Curve POS platform,which serves the tall to the
small a fully integrated POSplatform which serves the tall
to the small.
A fully integrated POS solutionfor retail restaurant owners,
(08:50):
also mobile solutions that theycan take advantage of, and all
those feed into the PayArcgateway.
So the gateway itself is wherethe merchants can go online.
They can view their transactiondata, their statements.
They can also use that as avirtual terminal backup.
So, for any reason theirterminal's down, they can go
online at any time with anywherethat has access to the internet
and process payments.
So we offer that full, widevariety of products for our
(09:12):
partners.
And then, finally, because weare a financial technology
provider, we have access to awide variety of APIs that we can
use to customize paymentexperiences.
So, again, because it's a verycomplex market, we have sales
engineers that can work directlywith those third-party partners
of ours and create dynamicsolutions through integrated
gateway offerings, integratedPOS offerings or even payment
(09:35):
facilitator offerings that wouldsupport things like split
payments and things of thatnature.
So innovation is very importantand it's also important that we
make it simple for the partnersto be able to integrate, so we
give them a guided experiencethrough the whole process.
Greg Myers (09:48):
Okay, and next question again.
It's kind of a two-part thing.
Payarc's in-house tools areexclusively available to your
partners, so what specificadvantages does that unlock?
And then how do these programshelp agents and ISVs and
merchants actually grow theirbusiness and gain a competitive
advantage in this crowded space?
Dustin Siner (10:08):
Yeah, it kind of comes back to what I was
speaking to for the lastquestion, Because these
solutions are unique to the PRaudience.
The first advantage is ourcompetitors can't step in and
reprogram it right so thatcustomer becomes engaged with a
platform that is very sticky.
It helps that merchant, thatbusiness owner, grow in a wide
variety of different areas.
It could be through making thatbusiness more efficient through
(10:30):
employee management, time clockmanagement.
It could be in allowing thatmerchant to reach a wider array
of consumers that want to meetthat merchant where they're
ready to buy, whether it beonline or in person or so on and
so forth.
And again, because we are afinancial technology provider
with in-house developers, we cancustomize any solutions through
a lot of unique engagementsthrough our sales engineering
(10:52):
team.
So it really kind of sets usapart from that standpoint.
Greg Myers (10:55):
Okay, well, what trends are you seeing
specifically in the agentchannel and what kind of
performance and growthdifferences are you noticing,
and sort of, what do you expectto see in the coming year?
Dustin Siner (11:07):
Yeah, you know it's interesting.
A lot of our competitors reallydevalue the independent agent
channel and I think a lot of usforget why ISOs and agents exist
in the first place.
You know, 40 plus years ago,financial institutions were the
only place where a businessowner could set up credit card
processing.
Those banks realized theydidn't have the market reach to
(11:27):
find all those differentbusiness owners, and so the ISO
program began.
That's how it was born, byleveraging third-party sales
partners that are reallyentrepreneurial in spirit and
are very relationship-driven.
Bankers are fantastic, butthey're not physically out on
the street visiting thesebusinesses at their locations,
where the agents especially areright there in front of those
customers every day, and theyare just absolutely phenomenal
(11:50):
at building relationships, andso relationship obviously is a
key word here that I kind ofkeep zeroing in on.
Business is all aboutrelationships, and so as the
market consolidates and as a lotof our competitors devalue that
channel, what that result lookslike is a lot of different
things.
To support dwindles, a lot ofthe competitors will initiate
(12:10):
price increases withoutconsulting their partners and
just to kind of boost theirstock price or whatnot.
A lot of times it means there'stechnologies that those
competitors will only sellthrough their direct channels
that they don't open up to thethird party channels.
And so for us, again, it's allabout relationship, because
agents are so entrepreneurialspirit, they are in the face of
the market every single up tothe third party channels.
And so for us, again, it's allabout relationship, because
agents are so entrepreneurial inspirit they are in the face of
(12:30):
the market every single day.
They're giving us feedback aboutwhat the market needs, what the
market demands, and we're ableto provide solutions that they
do such a phenomenal jobexpanding through the wide
market that is out there.
So we really hone in on makingsure we focus in on those
relationships.
We have a dedicatedrelationship management team, so
each of our 1400 third partypartners have dedicated
(12:53):
individuals that have decades ofindustry experience to help
guide them through a verycomplex market.
We also back them up throughour support team that answers
the phone in a minute or less.
So, again, if they ever have anissue, they pick up the phone
and somebody's there right awayto help service that particular
need.
And again, because we are amid-sized financial technology
player, we're very nimble.
(13:14):
So, as these more complexsolutions that are needed in the
market, we love the feedbackfrom our partners, and we love
working with them to design veryinnovative, complex solutions
for a complex audience.
So it's been just a fantasticrun for us.
Greg Myers (13:29):
Yeah, you mentioned a couple of things there.
I wanted to just get you maybeto double click on.
You talked about relationships,obviously incredibly important
in this business.
And then, as you and I, who'vebeen in this industry a while,
we've heard the death of the ISOright.
That's been talked about for along time, but ISOs and agents
still have a role in thisindustry and I think they always
(13:49):
will, and I feel like you'redifferentiating your business on
sort of that white gloveservice right, being there for
them at any time with thetechnology and the tools that
they need to succeed.
I mean, that sounds like theperfect formula, yeah.
Dustin Siner (14:03):
Yeah, I mean, obviously our industry has
evolved incredibly.
There's a lot of financialtechnology players that have
incredible innovative technologythat they take to market.
There's the integratedrestaurant management platforms
that we all know about.
There's the ISV-driven Stripesand Addiens and a lot of the
others the Toast platforms andthey have absolutely incredible
(14:23):
solutions.
But I think what thosecompanies miss really is making
sure that they develop thoserelationships.
So, while third-party ISVs andagents may love to take
advantage of those platforms,they can't pick up the phone and
call anyone.
They don't have any flexibilityin how they price their
customer base.
So, really, we approach themarket through partnership.
(14:45):
How do we win together?
How do we resolve the painpoints of the merchant base?
How do we make sure that theyknow that we care about their
business right?
And so it's really a huge focalpoint for us is to make sure
we're really honing on thatrelationship.
Greg Myers (14:58):
Yeah, absolutely Well, you mentioned AI earlier,
so let's double click on that alittle bit.
So in what ways does your Pi AIprogram directly drive sales
growth?
And maybe more specifically,how do the Pi churn, Pi agent
and Pi merchant tools help salesovercome some of their
persistent challenges inretaining merchants, closing
(15:20):
deals and boosting revenue?
Dustin Siner (15:22):
Yeah, isn't it amazing how far AI has come in
such a short amount of time?
I mean, I think every businessis engaged at some level of AI
and I know John Minitaglia wason your show recently, you know,
talking a lot about what we'redoing with Pi and, again, you
know, I think, the way we viewAI is AI is there and meant to
boost the human interaction.
It's not there to replace it.
(15:43):
So I know a lot of ourcompetitors.
I was talking to a competitorof ours.
I was at the Masters this lastweekend, which was an incredible
experience, by the way but Iwas talking to one of our
competitors who mentioned theyhave 50 developers that are
focused only on AI to be able toanswer the phone, so they want
to remove that human experienceand have a bot physically speak
(16:03):
directly with their customerbase.
We don't view it that way.
As awesome as AI is and howhuman-like it seems to be,
nothing will replace that humaninteraction and really being
able to express empathy andcarrying out all those other
things that we talked about.
And so, as we look at Pi, forus again, our agents, our
third-party sales partners beingour core focus, our core
(16:25):
customer base, it starts withthe PI agent advisor.
So what the PI agent advisordoes is it allows a sales
partner to be able to scan acopy of a merchant statement.
The bot itself will scan it.
It'll tell the agent this ishow that merchant is priced.
Here's some ideas of how youmight be able to save that
merchant money in differentavenues.
Eventually, we'll also be ableto advise that agent on
(16:49):
solutions that they could sellto that customer base, whether
it be something that PayArcoffers through our proprietary
platform or through any of thethird parties that we support.
It would tell that agent hey,maybe you should think about
cross-selling.
If they're using Toast, maybethey should check out Curve POS
as an example.
That PI agent advisor will alsoeventually be able to allow a
(17:09):
partner to ask, through anatural language, different
questions.
Hey, can you show me in myportfolio who are my top
customers and it would show,obviously, a breakdown of that.
Hey, in my portfolio do I haveany merchants that have
chargeback increases?
Is there anything that I shouldpay attention to?
Is there anything I couldeducate that merchant on how to
mitigate some of thosechargebacks?
So we can ask it throughnatural language and that bot
(17:35):
will give it feedback thatallows that human and enhances
that human to be able to furthereducate their customer.
So it's a huge focal point forus.
We also have our PyChurn wetalked about, so the churn
advisor.
What that does is it allows usto scan up to a thousand
different data elements thatbasically help us identify when
we might be at risk of losing acustomer.
We all know it's much harder tolose a customer it's much
(17:57):
harder to replace that customerthan it is to find a new one,
right.
So this tool will allow us toscan support tickets, anything
that might be happening within aregional demographic, and it
gives it a percentage of a riskthat that customer might leave
us.
And we've been able to drilldown up to 85% accuracy, that
different risk level.
And so, internally, what thatdoes is we're able to relay to
(18:18):
our sales partners hey, theseguys are at risk.
You might want to pick up thephone and give them a call.
You might want to stop by andsay hello, just make sure you're
again focusing on thatrelationship so that merchant
knows you care about them.
If they have pain, let's solvethat pain so we don't lose them.
It's extremely important to us.
We also leverage AI, obviously,to help us through risk
(18:40):
mitigation and loss prevention.
We're able to leverage AI toshow us when fraud might be
happening and we can reach outto that merchant and let them
know.
Maybe there was a data hack ormaybe they have an employee that
were doing some things thatwere unscrupulous.
We can also use it to predictpotential losses, so if a
merchant might be at risk of notbeing able to cover different
(19:00):
fees, it gives us an alert rightso we're able to help
dramatically proactivelyapproach potential losses, which
is a huge problem, I think, forall of us in this business.
It helps us through automatedunderwriting and a lot of other
different things.
Again, ai it's amazing how farit's come and what it does to
allow us to grow.
Finally, we leverage AI throughour high merchant advisor.
(19:22):
Again, merchants are able tolog into our platform and
they're able to ask, throughnatural language, different
questions hey, what are my topsales hours over the past month?
If they wanted to address timeswhen they might be able to put
on a special promotion to helpboost sales, they could ask
different questions.
To do that, they could also askyou know, what are my top SKUs,
what are my top products that Ican sell Just by typing in a
(19:44):
simple question into the system.
Greg Myers (19:53):
So Pi has really come a long way to really help
boost our business.
It's fascinating what AI isdoing.
I think what's interesting andimportant is that companies that
are embracing it, like you guys, are out there talking about it
.
You're not sort of hidingbehind it, not off doing things
and not talking to your partners.
In fact, you guys haveproductized it, which is amazing
, and you're out there talkingabout it.
I mean, that's part of whatthis whole series is about is
really how is AI and paymentsprogressing?
(20:14):
You know what are companiesdoing, how are they becoming
successful using AI?
So I think you know you guysout there talking about it and,
like I said, productizing it, Ithink is an amazing step and the
runway is huge for AI.
Dustin Siner (20:27):
It really is, and if you're not embracing AI, then
you're going to be way behindthe times, right?
So you know.
Again, I think it's importantthat we don't devalue the
importance of the humaninteraction and the relationship
, but how do we leverage AI tojust promote that experience?
So whether we're using AI togrow our knowledge base?
As a support rep is on thephone, they can ask a quick
(20:47):
question hey, I can't figure outthe troubleshooting on this and
a bot can very quickly spit outanswers so that merges on the
phone for minutes instead ofpotentially hours.
You know, to solve thoseproblems.
So amazing what AI can do.
Greg Myers (20:58):
Absolutely Well, dustin.
It's been a great conversation.
Dustin Siner (21:07):
I just wanted to thank the ETA again for
recognizing us as the ISO of theyear.
I really want to make sureeverybody knows PayArc is 100%
focused on third-party sales Anyagents, isos, isvs that are
looking for a quality partner,especially in a time where the
market continues to consolidate.
There's obviously big newstoday about a couple of major
players that emerged hererecently and you know a lot of.
(21:30):
There aren't many players outthere that are focused on that
independent agent ISO market andso we're here.
If you guys are interested inlooking for a new home, please
give us a call.
Greg Myers (21:38):
Okay, well, dustin, thank you so much for being on
the show.
I know your time's veryvaluable, so again, thanks for
being on today.
Thank you, greg, I appreciateit, and to all your listeners
out there, I thank you for yourtime as well.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
And until the next story.
Thank you for joining us todayas we discussed how Payark is
leveraging AI to transformpayments.
To learn more about Payark,visit wwwpayarkcom.
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