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.
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.
Payments Post #18: The Year of the Anti-Regulator?
In this Payments Post, we’re thinking about the tension that’s emerged in the regulatory space as a result of the recent change in government with an eye on the controversial CFPB. Read our (not legal advice!) thoughts on what we see playing out in Washington, and what it might mean for the payments industry.
Podcasts
Glenbrook speaks with industry leaders to share a variety of perspectives on the latest payments trends and activities.
Episode 268 – Rethinking Payment Optimization Through the Merchant of Record Model, with Rehman Baig, FlexFactor
In this episode, Rehman Baig, Chief Product Officer at FlexFactor joins Drew to talk about how FlexFactor is rethinking payments optimization through a Merchant of Record model. For most people in the industry, “Merchant of Record” is usually associated with global tax compliance and marketplaces, not optimization. But FlexFactor is using it to directly address failed payments and auth rate challenges in a way that merchants simply can’t do on their own.
Episode 267 – Fanning the Flames: Agentic Commerce
Russ Jones and Drew Edmond spent some time at the Glenbrook water cooler this week to consider the rapidly emerging topic of agentic commerce and agentic payments. Tune in as they explore different industry perspectives in order to understand the implications of this new technology in the payments ecosystem.
Episode 266 – Innovating Inclusive Financial Systems on the African Continent, with Sabine Mensah, AfricaNenda
In this episode, Joanna Wisniecka welcomes Sabine Mensah, Deputy CEO of AfricaNenda, a leader in financial inclusion, to explore Africa’s dynamic path towards inclusive instant payment systems and the need for continued innovation and collaboration to enable access to financial services for all Africans on the continent by 2030.
News
Glenbrook objectively curates the news to keep you abreast of important daily headlines in payments.
Nacha Supports Executive Order to Eliminate Federal Check Payments, Citing Cost Savings and Fraud Reduction
"Nacha submitted formal comments in support of Executive Order 14247, 'Modernizing Payments To and From America’s Bank Account,' applauding the Treasury Department’s efforts to eliminate paper checks for federal disbursements and collections. The executive order,...
The Yuan’s Digital Leap: Betting on China’s Stablecoin Ambitions in a Dollar-Dominated World
"The global financial system is on the cusp of a seismic shift as China accelerates its push to tokenize the yuan through digital currency initiatives. With the U.S. dollar still dominating 80% of global payments, Beijing's efforts to internationalize the yuan via its...
Hokkoku, Soft Space to Unveil SoftPOS Supporting Stablecoin Payments [Japan]
"Hokkoku Financial, in collaboration with fintech firm Soft Space, has revealed plans to launch a SoftPOS solution. The solution enables merchants to process contactless card payments and regulated stablecoin transactions using mobile devices."
Ready to see how Glenbrook can support your marketplaces and platform company to be as efficient and effective as possible?