Marketplaces and Platforms
Marketplaces and platforms enable commerce, by connecting remote buyers and sellers. By embedding payment acceptance in their solutions, they make it easy for businesses to accept payments from their customers, often across a wide range of payment methods. These capabilities can come in different flavors: end user visibility, digital wallet capabilities, additional payments adjacent features, and multiple settlement and disbursement options are variations to consider. The three major capabilities that these solutions have to solve for are:
1. Onboarding (which includes regulatory compliance considerations)
2. Payment Acceptance
3. Payouts to End Users
Platforms and marketplaces also have to manage multiple types of risk compared to a traditional merchant, which requires decisions about risk sharing, fraud vendors, operational structure (in-source vs outsource) and how a risk control strategy should be developed.
This enabler role offers opportunities and challenges. To perform it well, marketplaces and platforms often come to us with questions like:
How do we respond to upcoming or newly implemented regulatory changes?
What strategic payments plays are our competitors doing?
What role are we obligated to play in fraud and risk management? What role should we play?
What could we do to make payments a source of revenue?
Are we working with the right partners? Do we have the right contracts in place?
How we can help
Assessments
of current operations, of partner performance, of market opportunities, and of regulatory environments
Research
qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method research and analysis
Strategic advisory
Education
Marketplace & Platforms Case Studies
Resources
Articles
Glenbrook shares our perspectives on activities in the industry.
We (Really) Can’t Stop Talking About Tokenization: A 2025 Update
Glenbrook’s Chris Uriarte unpacks network tokenization updates from Visa and Mastercard.
Celebrating the Expansion of Glenbrook’s Leadership Team
Glenbrook is celebrating the expansion of its leadership team by announcing the promotions of Simon Skinner and Joanna Wisniecka to Associate Partner.
On-Demand Learning Offers Knowledge and Value to Payments Industry Professionals
Learn how Glenbrook’s high-quality on-demand learning helps payments professionals expand their knowledge and hone their skills.
Podcasts
Glenbrook speaks with industry leaders to share a variety of perspectives on the latest payments trends and activities.
Episode 271 – Sufficiently Solving the Non-Sufficient Funds Puzzle with Chanan Lavi, Kipp
In this episode, Drew Edmond is joined by Chanan Lavi, CEO and Co-founder of Kipp, to discuss solutions to the major problem of non-sufficient funds declines, as well as the implications for merchants, issuers, and consumers.
Episode 270 – Fanning the Flames – Beyond “Behind”: Rethinking US Instant Payments
Join Russ Jones and Will Eisler at the Glenbrook water cooler as they debate a looser definition of fast payments, explore challenges for adoption of traditional fast payments systems in the US, and ponder if the US actually has a more advanced and widely adopted “fast” payments ecosystem when we consider how Americans are experiencing faster money movement.
Episode 269 – Designing Digital Financial Services for Women is Designing for All, with Sonja Kelly, Women’s World Banking Institute
In our third episode in a series to spotlight the latest in global developments in payment systems from a financial inclusion lens, Sonja Kelly, Global Head of Women’s World Banking Institute, joins Joanna Wisniecka to dive into design principles for inclusive digital financial systems and how all end users benefit when design considers the specific needs of women.
News
Glenbrook objectively curates the news to keep you abreast of important daily headlines in payments.
Banks Respond to CFPB’s Reopened Section 1033 Rulemaking
"The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today took a concrete step to comprehensively reexamine its prior 1033 rulemaking by issuing an advance notice of proposed rulemaking seeking input on particular issues related to implementation of Section 1033."
Australian Consumer Watchdog Moves to Empower Encryption Upgrade for Card Payments
"In a forward-looking proposal introduced last week, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has invited public submissions on a draft determination that would permit the payments industry to coordinate its migration to a more robust encryption...
Students Say Managing Bills Is the Hardest Part of Being an Adult at University [Visa A2A] [UK]
"More than a third (39%) of UK students find managing bills the hardest part of ‘adulting’ at university. Visa A2A, a new technology from Visa, is set to transform how students manage their recurring bill and subscription payments. Visa A2A technology, which is now...
Ready to see how Glenbrook can support your marketplaces and platform company to be as efficient and effective as possible?