Leaders In Payments

Ran Grushkowsky, Co-Founder & CEO of MassPay | Episode 476

Most payments teams obsess over money in, then act surprised when slow payouts drive churn, support tickets, and lost growth. Greg Myers sits down with Ran Grushkowsky, Co-Founder and CEO of MassPay, to unpack why “time to money” is becoming a product feature and why the companies that treat payouts as strategy will outpace the ones that treat it as plumbing.We get into what MassPay actually does for corporate clients that need global payouts across multiple endpoints: local bank deposits, mobile wallets, cash pickup locations, push-to-card via Visa Direct, and even crypto. Ran explains the real challenge behind modern payout infrastructure: fragmentation. RTP, FedNow, wallets, and countless country-specific rails create a maze of integrations, compliance requirements, and operational risk. MassPay’s answer is a proprietary network with deep redundancy in every market plus smart routing that weighs speed, compliance fit, and total cost, not just the cheapest per-transaction quote.Ran also shares what’s reshaping the space right now: stablecoins as a cross-border speed and hedging tool, the shift toward embedded compliance that lets platforms control their own onboarding and payout experience, and how AI is already improving payout success rates through data normalization and faster reviews. We close with leadership lessons on where the real moat is headed in fintech and why payouts can move from cost center to profit center.

Cihan Duezguen, CEO & Co-Founder of Green Banana | Episode 475

Your BNPL strategy can’t be “pick one provider and hope.” When you sell across borders, buy now pay later becomes a payments infrastructure problem: different countries, different regulations, different checkout habits, and a constant pressure to keep conversion high without turning your team into an integration factory. We sit down with Cihan Duezguen, CEO and Co-Founder of Green Banana, to unpack a focused approach to payment orchestration built specifically for BNPL. We talk through why merchants and payment service providers are asking for a single, harmonized API that can connect to multiple BNPL providers while staying invisible to the shopper. Cihan explains what it means to be an agnostic infrastructure layer, why Green Banana doesn’t run its own risk or credit checks, and how neutrality creates flexibility for merchants that need to change providers as requirements shift. From there we zoom out to the bigger payments trends Cihan is watching: stablecoins as a back-end innovation that could unlock new value for PSPs, banks, and merchants, plus the rise of agentic commerce where AI agents buy products through voice prompts and automated flows. If those changes land the way he expects, the retailers and payment leaders who prepare now will win the next generation of checkout UX. 

The Signal: Embedded Finance - From Fragmented To Unified with Jaris Executives, Chris Aristides and Matt Thomas | Episode 474

Payments is full of noise: legacy processors, vendor sprawl, duplicate onboarding, and merchants who just want their money faster. We cut through it by showing a pragmatic path from point products to a unified embedded finance stack that actually scales. With Jaris founder and CEO Chris Aristides and VP of Platform Partnerships Matt Thomas, we unpack why “foundation first” beats bolt-on every time and how to make it work across multiprocessor portfolios without ripping out your core.We start with the playbook behind winners like Square and Stripe: remove complexity, unify the experience, and make multi-product adoption effortless. Then we translate that into the realities of processors and ISOs. Chris explains the banking backbone - independent RTN, sponsor bank alignment, and vertically integrated ledgers—that makes settlement reliable and compliant. Matt breaks down managed settlement as the key unlock: a dynamic funding layer that normalizes Fiserv, TSYS, Worldpay, and Elavon flows, enabling split settlement, instant payouts, and automated loan repayment without custom builds for each backend.From there we stack the products merchants actually use. Lending remains a high-margin anchor with powerful retention, while instant payouts reach a far larger share of the base with a clean pay-as-you-use model that works on weekends and holidays. High-yield savings ties it together for cash management, all delivered through one onboarding, one golden merchant record, and a white-labeled UI that honors sub-ISO relationships and trust. The result is tangible: fewer forms, faster activation, clearer visibility for ops, and a material lift in retention and revenue.If you lead partnerships, product, or operations at a processor or ISO, this conversation gives you a concrete framework to touch the other 95 percent of your merchants, modernize onboarding, and launch new revenue lines through a single integration. Subscribe, share this episode with your team, and leave a review to tell us which product you’d launch first.

The Signal: The Reality Behind Platform Fraud with Jess Kirkpatrick, Worldpay | Episode 473

Fraud doesn’t wait for your roadmap. We sat down with Jess Kirkpatrick, VP of Risk and Fraud at Worldpay now part of Global Payments, to unpack how platforms can move beyond checkbox KYC and build a living risk program that protects growth, strengthens brand trust, and prepares for Payfac readiness. With experience spanning community banking, 17 years at PayPal, and global risk leadership, Jess brings a clear, practical lens to what proactive actually looks like.We start by challenging the biggest myth in payments: set it and forget it. Jess outlines four risk vectors (identity, intent, business model, and financial stability) and shows why continuous monitoring across all four beats a one-time screen. She explains how shared liability works in embedded payments, why payment providers still own card brand and regulatory obligations, and how true partnerships pair education, tooling, and joint governance.From there, we go deep on good friction: enhanced onboarding for higher-risk profiles, step-up checks on unusual behavior, and periodic reviews that are framed as protection, not punishment. Jess shares how clear communication turns compliance into service, preventing the “why are you asking this now?” backlash that costs you trust and churn. To close, Jess gives three high-impact moves for this quarter: modernize KYC/KYB and tighten onboarding, ramp up ongoing monitoring with alerts for sudden shifts, and train frontline teams while explaining controls to merchants. Measure success beyond loss rates by tracking retention of your best merchants and brand health around trust and safety. 

Special Series: The Trust Advantage with David Edwards, SVP Information Security at Payroc | Episode 472

What does it actually take to secure a payments company in an era of sophisticated, well-funded cybercriminals? In this first episode of The Trust Advantage Series, brought to you by Payroc, host Greg Myers sits down with David Edwards, Payroc's Senior Vice President of Information Security, for a candid and eye-opening conversation about modern cybersecurity in the payments industry.With 30 years in technology — spanning private banking, retail, and payments — David brings hard-won perspective to the questions keeping payments executives up at night. Sparked by a real-world ransomware attack on a payments company, this episode cuts through the compliance checkbox mentality to explore what genuine, operational security actually looks like.David and Greg cover a wide range of critical topics: why passing audits doesn't equal being secure, how AI has radically changed the phishing threat landscape, the three pillars of identity and vulnerability management, and why resilience — not prevention — is the new gold standard. David also breaks down Payroc's layered approach to ransomware defense, how the company integrates acquired platforms without creating security gaps, and the right questions ISVs, ISOs, banks, and merchants should be asking their payment partners.Whether you're a developer, a risk officer, or a business owner processing transactions, this episode delivers a masterclass in why security isn't just an IT issue — it's everyone's job.