Payments innovation runs at multiple speeds. Changes in how a payment is initiated happen almost every day. Payments infrastructure change is a lot slower. But it’s happening. Nudged forward by the Federal Reserve’s Faster Payments Task Force, we are seeing the launch of the first entirely new payments system in decades. Called Real Time Payments (RTP) the new system switched its first real-time payment on November 13, 2017.

Built entirely around the rich payment messaging standard ISO 20022, we have a system that can carry both payment instructions and meta-data about the payment. Data rich, essentially instant, bank-based account to account push transactions could be a game changer.

Join George and Steve Ledford, Senior Vice President, Product and Strategy, at The Clearing House (TCH) as they discuss the spread of real-time payments systems around the world and take a deep dive into RTP’s operation, rules, and use cases.

Once upon a time, text messaging systems didn’t interoperate. But when they did, usage skyrocketed. Many of the world’s mobile money payment systems still operate within that old “walled garden” model, limiting the ability of citizens in areas like Southern Africa to send money home to family, pay utility bills, and, most important, enjoy the benefits of an national economy that is payments enabled.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sees today’s limited interconnection of payment systems as a high barrier to the poor’s participation in that payment enabled economy. Fortunately, those barriers are beginning to come down.

In this Payments on Fire podcast, Kosta Peric, Deputy Director of Financial Services for the Poor at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation joins George in discussing Mojaloop, the foundation’s open source software initiative that provides interconnection capability between disparate payment systems. Informed by the foundation’s Level One Project, the goal is to encourage a lower cost deployment of this critical payments infrastructure as well as the active collaboration among the operators of mobile money services, financial institutions, each country’s central bank, and national regulators.

Listen for a view into how payments systems can improve the health and well being of millions of people as well as the nation’s they inhabit. This is very cool and important work.

The intersection of new tech, faster payments capabilities, and forward looking regulation is enabling significant innovation in B2B, and consumer, payment services in the UK and EU. Join Glenbrook’s George Peabody and Myles Stephenson, CEO of business payments platform provider Modulr, as they discuss how modern tech and updated rules have created opportunities for fintech service providers. The challenges to incumbent banks are only getting bigger.

Payments standards typically operate deep within a payment system, invisible to most of us. But before long a new standard for web browsers will touch us all. Known as the Payment Request API, it is one of the newer projects of the Word Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Supported by browser builders Mozilla, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and more, this new API should simplify web payments for consumers and merchants alike.

Join the W3C project leader Ian Jacobs and Glenbrook’s George Peabody as they discuss the effort’s goals, transaction flow, and status. It’s coming very soon.

If you’re planning on attending Money20/20 in October, the Glenbrook team will be there in force. This short, not entirely serious, podcast previews the sessions we are leading there on two of the hottest topics around: B2B payments and the faster or real-time payments systems coming to the U.S.

We all know that the evolution of payments systems in the U.S. is accelerating. That’s why Glenbrook has just published the third edition of our book, Payments Systems in the U.S. – Third Edition: A Guide for the Payments Professional, the definitive guide to the how and, in particular, the why of our multiple payments systems.

The third edition addresses that evolution through updated examples and, unique to this edition, a focus on payments innovation in all three payments phases: initiation, funding, and settlement.

Join Payments on Fire host George Peabody and Glenbrook’s Russ Jones as they talk about the new edition, what it covers, and the book’s relationship to Glenbrook’s Payments Boot Camp. Payments Systems in the U.S. – Third Edition is available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle format.

Interchange is fundamental to open loop card system economics and a mystery to many, especially to merchants who must pay it but don’t perceive any benefit from it. It’s a non-optional component of what the merchant pays to accept cards. It’s one element of the merchant discount fee. Despite the stubborn fact of it, there are ways for some merchants to make sure they pay as low a rate as possible.

Join Angelo Grecco of CardConnect (now a part of First Data) and Glenbrook’s George Peabody for a conversation about interchange optimization, an approach that certain B2B merchants can employ to lower their acceptance costs.

In this episode of Payments on Fire we decode the payments industry terms:

• Merchant discount fee
• Interchange
• Bundled pricing
• Interchange plus pricing
• Level II/III data

If you’re new to payments or just need a refresher on interchange, take a listen!

B2B payments are huge. Taken together, these supply chain payments exceed the gross domestic product. But supply chain payments remain an imperfect art. While consumers pay for one purchase at a time, a B2B payment may cover multiple invoices, each with different commercial terms. Given the amount of data about the payment that’s necessary to crisply communicate between a buyer’s accounts payable department and a seller’s receivables group, it’s no wonder paper checks are still in broad use.

While B2B payments have been resistant to “electronification,” the cloud, the mobile user interface, a new data standard (ISO 20022), and APIs into banks and payment schemes are enabling a renewed effort to streamline B2B payment transactions. B2B payments are hot.

Join Erin McCune, partner in charge of Glenbrook’s B2B practice, and George Peabody as they discuss:

• How B2B payments are different from consumer payments
• Why B2B is “hot” once again
• What market forces are pushing B2B forward
• Why Faster Payments in the U.S. and around the world could have a major impact on supply chain payments

The Faster Payments Task Force has brought together a broad constituency with the payments industry thoroughly represented. And thanks to participation by organizations like Consumers Union, the people who bring us Consumer Reports, the voice of the consumer has been well represented in determining important evaluation criteria.

Christina Tetreault, staff attorney at Consumers Union, joins Glenbrook’s George Peabody for this podcast discussion on faster payments, the consumer benefits these new approaches could offer, and what to hope for from their deployment in the U.S.

Merchant adoption of EMV capability isn’t a done deal in the U.S. Glenbrook’s own estimates show that we’re only halfway there. Few people have as much insight into merchant payment acceptance and the technology that enables it as Larry Godfrey of Global’s Heartland Payments business.

Take a listen to George and Larry’s discussion as they cover:

• The EMV terminal transition
• The chargebacks that many merchants have encountered (looking at you, LA)
• Contactless payments
• Security and encryption
• Payment acceptance