In payments, as it is in life, a simple question is often wrapped in complexity. The complexity of the payments acceptance landscape, with an increasing number of stakeholders and technology providers, changing regulations and rules, and Issuers implementing new authentication and authorization mechanisms - any one or a combination of these could lead to major and minor impacts to the operational and financial performance of a business. And while this has been the case for several decades, we find ourselves in a macroeconomic environment that requires us to find operational efficiencies, which places the payments team under increasing pressure to maximize the number of successful payments, lower the cost of accepting payments, and support customer acquisition to drive incremental revenue. Long story short, these “simple questions” are being asked more often and at higher organizational levels. Why are simple questions hard to answer? Yvette Bohanan talks with Klas Bäck, Founder and CEO of Pagos Solutions, and Glenbrook’s Drew Edmond.  

Episode 205 - Why Simple Questions Can Be Hard To Answer, with Klas Bäck, Founder and CEO of Pagos Solutions

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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.

Episode 238 - Will Pay by Bank Really Compete with Cards? Trevor Nies, Adyen

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.

Episode 237 - Is Orchestration the New Normal In Payment Operations? A conversation with John Lunn, Gr4vy

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.

Episode 236 - How to Make Money in Payments with Russ Jones, Glenbrook Partners

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.

Episode 235 - Taking Stock in Fast Payments with Gregor Dobbie, CEO of TFPA and former CEO of Vocalink

Have you ever wished for a “payments sherpa”? Someone who would share their experiences, opinions, and advice about this industry - the uncut, “real real” of what can happen and what to remember as you move along your payments journey. In this episode, we sit down with one of our favorite payments industry sherpas - Steve Klebe.  No stranger to our podcasts, this time Steve talks about payments partnerships. This is a topic Steve is passionate about - and for good reasons. Partnerships - the successful ones - make this industry go around. The right partnerships can make the industry better, bring novel and differentiated offerings to the market, and make the payment transaction easier, more secure, and more valuable to consumers and businesses.  Steve has invested about half his career creating successful strategic partnerships for Verifone, CyberSource, Google, and more (frequently going out on a limb to do it), and he survives to tell his tale. We hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed recording it.  

Episode 205 - Why Simple Questions Can Be Hard To Answer, with Klas Bäck, Founder and CEO of Pagos Solutions

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