Podcasts

Episode 300 – Reflecting on 12 Years of Payments on Fire

2026 is a milestone year for Glenbrook as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the firm. We also find ourselves airing the 300th episode of our Payments on Fire podcast – founded by George Peabody in 2014, nurtured by Yvette Bohanan, and now continued on through the hosting efforts of most of the team.

We thought there would be no better way to mark the 12 year achievement – and pay respect to what George and Yvette built – than to revisit the journey with clips from the first 299 episodes. From early episodes on digital currency and AI, to fast payments evolution and financial inclusion efforts (and how could we leave out tokenization), listen in as Bryan Derman and Jill Wurst guide you through significant moments in the podcast’s history.

Episode 128 – How a NextGen Payments Company Builds on the Cloud – Eric Rosenthal, Rapyd

Take a listen to Rapyd‘s Eric Rosenthal and Glenbrook‘s George Peabody as they discuss Rapyd’s swift global expansion, its ability to quickly build new capabilities, and the firm’s cloud-based tech stack. It uses its “white label PayPal” model to payment-enable a wide range of companies and use cases.

Episode 127 – The Hot Topics in Digital Payments – Russ Jones, Glenbrook Partners

The transition away from paper to an all digital payments world has been underway for decades. But in the last few years the pace has accelerated. Global tech availability and focused development talent is letting software eat the payments world. Other enablers include business models such as payments facilitation and the focus on commerce, not just payments, for merchants.

Episode 126 – New Tech, New Models: ACH at the POS – Craig McDonald, Trustly

Take a listen to Craig McDonald, Chief Business Officer of Trustly and George as they discuss how Trustly makes its proposition possible. While Trustly is ramping up its U.S. presence, it does have timing on its side. In this pandemic-constrained age, merchants will be looking for lower cost payments and certainty. Trustly appears to have attributes to meet those concerns.

Episode 124 – Ground Truth: COVID-19’s Payments Impact – Glynn Frechette, PSCU

There’s no clearer indicator of COVID-19’s economic impact than payment metrics. In this Payments on Fire® episode, we speak with Bryan Derman, Glenbrook’s managing partner, and Glynn Frechette, SVP of PSCU’s Advisors Plus division, in a discussion of PSCU’s payment trends analysis. Glynn provides an exceptionally detailed view into the pain, and some real gains, that the pandemic has brought to U.S. payments activity.

Episode 123 – A Trip into the Nigerian Payments Ecosystem – Charles Ifedi, eBanqo

It is super instructive to hear about payments evolution. So, it’s time to take a trip. In this Payments on Fire® episode we speak with Charles Ifedi, one of the founders of Interswitch, one of the leading digital payments providers in Nigeria, and founder of customer engagement platform company eBanqo.

Episode 122 – Maximizing Authorization Rates and More – Jeanne DeWitt, Stripe

Payment authorization rates are a theme we return to regularly on Payments on Fire® because they matter so much to merchants, issuers, and the payment providers in between. If an issuer declines more transactions than its peers, the merchant and the issuer, in fact, leave money on the table. The merchant loses sales. The issuer loses interchange revenue.

Episode 121 – Acquiring the E-commerce Cross-Border Merchant – Moshe Selfin, Credorax

In Glenbrook’s Payments Boot Camp® and in our payments consulting work, we use our Domains of Payments framework to subdivide the major use cases and payment contexts into a half dozen categories or domains. The Remote Domain contains cross-border e-commerce, a particularly challenging use case where the buyer and seller are separated by distance and, in the case of cards, credentials are presented without the cardholder present.

Episode 120 – Deep Dive into Real-time Payments in Developing Markets – Elizabeth McQuerry, Glenbrook Partners

In this special episode of Payments on Fire®, Glenbrook partner Elizabeth McQuerry, partner in charge of Glenbrook’s Global payments consulting practice, leads a conversation on the development and adoption of realtime payments in developing markets.

Episode 119 – The API to Streamline and Secure Account Access – Don Cardinal, GM, Financial Data Exchange

Take a listen to Don Cardinal, GM of the Financial Data Exchange and Glenbrook’s George Peabody as they discuss the FDX API and its importance to the fintech and financial services community. It’s important to end users. And it’s a great example of how comprehensive standards can be developed swiftly.