Paying invoices and moving funds aross borders for small and medium business (SMB) is expensive and full of uncertainties. How much does the recipient actually get once the transaction is finished? (Hint: it's not always what was sent.)  How long does it take a San Francisco firm to pay an invoice to a contractor in Berlin or Hyderabad? (Hint: it's hard to know exactly when it gets there).

Since there's no such thing as an international wire, entrepreneurs in the virtual currency space have been looking at how these new math-based "rails" can move money faster at lower cost across borders. In this Payments on Fire episode, Marwan Forzley, CEO of Align Commerce, talks with Glenbrook's George Peabody about how his firm moves value for its SMB customers from the sender's currency to the receiver's over bitcoin rails.

Direct download: PoF_17_-_Align_COMP.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:07pm EDT

EMV and its moving parts presents a far more complex payments method for merchants, ISVs, payment processors, and financial institutions than the good old magstripe. It continues to have ramifications throughout the payments ecosystem. 

As Executive Director of the Smart Card Alliance and director of the EMV Migration Forum, Randy Vanderhoof has shepherded a sometimes fractious payments industry as well as encouraged a a skeptical merchant community toward EMV adoption. Now that the US EMV deployment is a certainty, Randy and Glenbrook’s George Peabody discuss what got us here, where the challenges are, and how EMV will evolve in the US. 

Direct download: PoF_16_-_RV_COMP.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:30am EDT

It’s always intriguing to watch how a good idea evolves into new areas. Such evolution often happens when designers find new applications for their ideas. Brian Merritt and Ryan Hildebrand were part of the early team at Simple that was subsequently sold to BBVA. In mid-February, they announced the formation of Seed, a Y Combinator firm, designed to bring small business banking into the mobile and SaaS-based worlds. Listen to this conversation between Glenbrook’s George Peabody and Seed CEO Brian Merritt. While very early in the company’s development, Brian’s description of the company’s “API first” approach banking makes clear what’s possible when legacy technology and processes are in the rearview mirror.

Direct download: PoF_15_v_2__COMP.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:15pm EDT

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