Payments On Fire

In this episode, Chris Uriarte speaks with Blake Breathitt, Senior Vice President of Platforms and Financial Services at Adyen, about one of the biggest growth engines in the industry over the past few years - platform payments. Listen in as they discuss the nature of this interesting segment of the industry, the nuance behind platform payments, and just what's driving this platform payment phenomenon.

In this episode, Chris Uriarte welcomes Keith Briscoe, VP, Advocacy and Education at the Merchant Risk Council, and Allan Shearer, Executive Director, Head of TMT Relationship Management at J.P. Morgan, to focus on the evolution of card network fraud monitoring programs, and in particular, VAMP, Visa's Acquirer Monitoring Program, which combines fraud and dispute metrics to better manage risk at both merchant and acquirer levels. Listen in as the group discusses industry reactions, data transparency and reporting challenges, and implications for enforcement of new thresholds.   

Over the past several episodes, we've been building a conversation about how stablecoins are reshaping the global payments landscape. These conversations surfaced something important: this isn't just a technology story. It's a story about access. And there's another critical piece of the puzzle: the infrastructure that makes stablecoin payments actually work on the ground in emerging markets. In this episode, Chris Maurice, the CEO and co-founder of Yellow Card, joins Drew Edmond to explore how stablecoins are transforming global payments, especially in emerging markets, by addressing liquidity issues, reducing costs, improving compliance transparency, and enabling faster cross-border transactions. Listen in as they highlight the challenges of legacy infrastructure, regulatory evolution, interoperability, and the evolving role of banks and technology platforms in this ecosystem.

It's an auspicious year and month for us at Glenbrook as on March 1, 2026 we mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of our firm, celebrating a quarter-century of pushing forward the frontiers of payments knowledge and strategy and our continuing efforts to build the broader global payments community. A lot has happened in payments over the last 25 years and there could be no better way to celebrate the progress of the industry and the firm than to talk to the people who played such seminal roles in shaping both: In this episode, we speak with Glenbrook's three founding partners - Carol Coye Benson, Scott Loftesness, and Allen Weinberg.  Listen in as they recall the early days of the firm, discuss how Glenbrook's strategy work expanded to form our education and global practices, consider the evolution of the "payments professional", and reflect on payments industry shifts over their years both in and out of Glenbrook.  

Join Glenbrook's Russ Jones and Ashley Lannquist for a detailed discussion on the state of stablecoins, focusing on market developments, regulatory and policy impacts, usage patterns, and competition from other improved payments systems. Learn more about the stablecoin landscape in our 2-hour, self-paced course, Stablecoin Essentials. 

Trust is fundamental to payments. Gaining and maintaining trust in the payments ecosystem has always been challenging, but it becomes increasingly difficult as the industry rapidly advances and innovates. How does our trust model evolve when we move from a world where consumers are always virtually or physically present to make a purchase to a new world where robots are doing their bidding? In this episode of Payments on Fire, Chris Uriarte welcomes Jenny Hadlow, Chief Operating Officer, and Rory O'Neill, Chief Marketing Officer, from Checkout.com to discuss the findings from their recent report "Trust in the Digital Economy 2025" and explore the interesting dimensions of trust that merchants, consumers, and service providers need to be aware of in today's ever changing digital economy.

2026 is set to be another dynamic year in payments. Join our Glenbrook partners as they discuss their perspectives on industry trends and what they'll be keeping an eye on this year, including: Agentic Commerce Tokenization Stablecoins Fast Payments Cross-Border Payments Subscription and Recurring Payments Card Interchange and Surcharging Regulation and Banking Trends Risk and Fraud

If you missed our Advanced Payments workshop in San Francisco last month, tune in to this episode to hear Yvette Bohanan and Russ Jones discuss the key topics and conversations from the session, including card network updates, stablecoins, and agentic commerce.  Join us for a live, virtual Advanced Payments workshop on May 12-13 for more updates and insights into critical industry topics, or deep dive into stablecoins with our new self-paced module.   

In this episode, Yvette Bohanan and Ashley Lannquist welcome Scott Southall, Head of BaaS, and Will Artingstall, Head of Digital Assets Payments and e-Commerce at Citi, to dig into what recent stablecoin regulatory changes mean for the future of banking, how U.S. institutions are mobilizing behind digital dollars, why clients are asking about new forms of money, and what's next as stablecoins potentially go mainstream in the American financial system.

In this episode, Yvette Bohanan welcomes back Ran 'Goldi' Goldshtein, Senior VP of Payments and Networks at Fireblocks, to provide his perspective on the evolution of the digital currency space. Tune in as they break down a stablecoin transaction, discuss the current state and adoption of blockchain technology, and review various use cases for stablecoins. They define terms like TradFi, Defi, and smart contracts, and explore the impact of tokenized deposits and AI on the digital currency landscape.

In this episode, Bryan Derman, Russ Jones, and Chris Uriarte share their first-take analysis of last week's proposed settlement of the long-running antitrust litigation between Visa/Mastercard and a group of merchants regarding Payment Card Interchange and Merchant Discounts. The discussion covers the basic parameters of the settlement proposal and then investigates some of the possible reactions by merchants, issuers, and networks were the settlement to be approved the by judge.

In this episode, Yvette Bohanan welcomes back David Maimon, Head of Fraud Insights at SentiLink, for the final episode of this year's fraud series.  Listen in as Yvette and David reflect on state of fraud as 2025 comes to a close. They discuss rising identity theft reports, the persistent challenges of measuring fraud losses, and the alarming trends associated with synthetic identities, stolen identities, and insider fraud. The conversation explores issues around various payment systems, agentic AI tools, and the regulatory gaps that contribute to escalating fraud incidents. 

Chris Uriarte and Drew Edmond are back from Money 20/20 and join Yvette Bohanan on this episode to provide their insights on the prevailing themes and standout announcements.  Tune in to also hear tips for navigating the conference and overall thoughts on the evolution of Money 20/20 and other industry events.  

We've seen a big push in recent years to improve cross-border payments. And yet, cross-border payments remain problematic for consumers and businesses, particularly in emerging markets or parts of the world with volatile currencies or limited availability of correspondent banks. At the center of this challenge is a concept called liquidity. In this episode, Yvette Bohanan and Ashley Lannquist welcome Mouloukou Sanoh, CEO and Co-Founder of MANSA, to explore liquidity challenges in cross-border payments, the transformative potential of stablecoins in emerging markets, and the strategic role of fintechs and banks in evolving global payment infrastructures. Listen in as they discuss practical solutions to these complex issues, aiming to unlock liquidity and scale payments efficiently across borders.

We joke that all conversations should be recorded at Glenbrook because they often lead to some interesting podcast episodes. If you have 15 mins, tune in for a fly-on-the-wall perspective in this bonus Fanning the Flames on recent developments in agent protocols.  Russ Jones and Yvette Bohanan reflect on the history of the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) protocol and how it compares to modern protocols being developed for agentic commerce by companies like Google, Stripe, and Basis Theory.  They explore why protocols and standards are important, what makes them take hold or "get off the ground like a lead balloon", and how recent announcements in this space are shaping our current view on agentic payments.   

The three major takeaways from stablecoins are that they are fast, global, and low cost. But why are they low cost? Thus began our quest to dive into the economic ecosystem of stablecoins. When creating material for our workshops or roundtable meetings, we’re always thinking about how to give slides the “Glenbrook treatment” - how do we get past the headlines and down to fundamentals? In this Fanning the Flames episode, Russ Jones and Yvette Bohanan take you behind the scenes to show the "making of" our new stablecoin economics slide. Listen in as they discuss the points of monetization and key revenue streams in the stablecoin value chain, and address questions around practical usage and the evolving landscape. Take a deeper look at stablecoins (and other industry trends) at our upcoming 1-day Advanced Payments workshop on December 4th in San Francisco. Space is limited - enroll today! 

In this episode of Payments on Fire, Chris Uriarte welcomes Anne Hay, Chief Marketing Officer, and Mike Kaplan, Chief Revenue Officer, from PayNearMe to discuss the evolution and optimization of the payments experience. They explore the broader concept of payments optimization and how improvements and customization in all aspects of the payments journey can lead to organizations getting paid faster and with a lower total cost of acceptance. Listen in as they highlight the challenges faced by billers in sectors like healthcare and utilities, and provide insights on the growing importance of alternative payment methods and meeting customers where they are.

In this episode, Bryan Derman welcomes two highly respected members of the investment community who represent the two sides of that business: Tim Chiodo, Managing Director and Lead Analyst for Payments, Processors and Fintech at the global investment bank UBS, and Chris Kim, a public and private market investor who leads payments and fintech activities for Capital International, one of Capital Group’s three equity units. Tune in as we discuss what’s happening in the market with publicly traded companies, digital wallets, the merchant acquiring space, and private equity. We’ll consider what investors look for in a payments company, explore new flows, and debate the impacts of regulation, stablecoins, and M&A deals before closing out the episode with an investment perspective lightning round.

“97.0% for those whose full personal information was freely available on the darknet” experienced identity theft attempts, according to a key finding in SentiLink’s recent report on the probability of loss.  In part three of our series on payments fraud trends and tactics, we welcome back David Maimon, Head of Fraud Insights at SentiLink, to dive into how David and his team use a “data-driven” approach in their investigations and how they have applied their research to predict the fraudulent use of identity information.  Tune in to hear how an evidence-based approach can help your team engage in effective fraud prevention.  

In our 2024 Wrap Up episode, we looked into our crystal ball to predict how different payments  themes may evolve in the coming year; however, this industry delivers headlines at a rapid-fire pace (by the way, are you subscribed to Payments News?) and it can be hard to keep up.  To help you read the tea leaves in the mountains of publications, Yvette Bohanan rounded up Chris Uriarte and Drew Edmond for this mid-year update on payments industry trends. Tune in to hear updates and perspectives on the following topics: Regulation, including the Durbin Amendment, CCCA, and Click-to-Cancel Stablecoins Agentic Commerce Tokenization Fraud and Risk, including Visa's VAMP and passkeys