The Payments Podcast

Our guest in this episode is Ernie Humphrey, the chief evangelist of The Finance Collective, who has over 20 years of experience in treasury leadership. Ernie will discuss the importance of soft skills in treasury, such as listening, building relationships, and communication, and how improving them can lead to better productivity.

VSE Corporation is a complex business with operations in multiple segments, including Aviation, Fleet, Energetics and Federal & Defense. Managing payments and cash visibility for such a diverse business can be a real challenge. Shaun Eaves, the assistant treasurer at VSE, is highly skilled in analyzing financial data, applying key accounting concepts, and utilizing his comprehensive knowledge of investment strategies. He speaks with us about tackling complex treasury and payment challenges in his role at VSE.

We use the opportunity of International Women’s Day to speak with three of Bottomline’s executive leadership team – Eve Aretakis, Mandy Miller, and Monica Kozak – about their career journeys, leadership lessons, expertise in their current roles and their advice and guidance for young women aspiring to leadership roles in fintech or tech industries.

The spotlight is on the treasury department. In this episode, we speak with Guillaume Jouvencel from Corporate Treasury 101 on the significance of the treasurer's role and how that's becoming far more strategic. We consider the challenges and advantages of technology changes, obstacles to overcome, and three key areas of focus for treasury teams going forward.

While 84% of typical accounts payable (AP) days are bogged down in administrative, manual, repetitive tasks, Mark Brousseau of Brousseau & Associates and representing IOFM, shares how the role of AP and AR leaders is undergoing significant transformation. Beyond driving efficiency and lowering costs with fully automated end-to-end AP and AR process, they’re now expected to elevate themselves to a far more strategic role, delivering more insight into the office of the CFO and the business.

The construction industry is a sector that has its hands full of paying suppliers, vendors, sub-contractors, and employees, all mixed in with complex and sensitive project timelines. SPI, a leader in the insulation and architectural space, has reinvented its accounts payable (AP) processes to match its considerable growth. And our guests, Karen Singleton and Candi Mooney, are at the heart of that change.

We chat with Kellie White, Head of User Experience at Bottomline, about the UX trends we’ll likely see in ’24 from a payment perspective. She covers why UX should matter to a CFO or bank, how AI will continue to intersect with user experience, the development of mobile interfaces in payments, why designing inclusive and accessible experiences will become more critical, as will the seamless interconnectedness of API interfaces.

In this episode, with Bottomline’s Jeff Feuerstein and Colin Swain, we talk about the urgency of B2B payment automation in 2024 and unpack Juniper’s analyst statement: “Businesses can no longer solely rely on legacy B2B payment methods and need to adapt to an ever-changing landscape very quickly, integrating newer technologies to reduce complexities [and] increase payment efficiencies.”

In this episode, we get to speak to one of the industry’s most influential people in fintech and the financial markets, Mr. Chris Skinner. Voted a foremost fintech observer by the Telegraph, and one of the most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal and Thompson Reuters, his opinion counts when it comes to what’s next for banks and the future of money... or rather a future where we don't think about money. Chris chats to us about incremental versus true digital transformation, a future of instant payments, the data behind payments, AI's influence, reigning in payment fraud, and thoughts to consider for 2024 strategic planning. Enjoy the listen.

Cross-border transactions and financial messaging involve exchanging information, instructions, and notifications between banks and their customers. In the coming year, this area of payments will undergo significant changes. Adapting to these changes will be crucial for financial institutions looking to compete globally. Bottomline's Frederic Viard and Edward Ireland share their outlook in the banking space for 2024.

Despite wishing it wasn’t so, reports across the globe show insider, occupational, or employee fraud is very prevalent and, against a tough economic climate, becoming more of a challenge. We chat with Ruud Grotens on what we’re likely to see in the year ahead as financial institutions and businesses tackle insider risk in real-time.

For banks, it’s likely to be a year of rising interest rates, making customers pickier about where they put their money, one where technology modernization continues to drive forward. Bottomline’s CRO for Digital Banking, Kevin Pettet, dives into the details behind these statements.

Joining the global effort to promote International Fraud Awareness Week, we’re joined by two industry experts from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners: President, John Gill, and Andi McNeal, Vice President of Education. In this discussion we get a sense of the bad actors that have brought occupational fraud to the forefront and look at the critical proactive approaches that banks and businesses can take to detect and protect against it.

Peter Davey has extensive experience in the banking and payments industry across all payment types, services and networks. After several years at The Clearing House driving product innovation and real-time payments, he’s recently teamed up with Alloy Labs to bring technology within reach of smaller financial institutions. We’re delighted to chat with Peter, an accomplished executive, thought leader, influencer, futurist, and corporate strategist, about his thoughts on real-time in the context of its momentum, B2B adoption, cross-border instant payments, APIs, financial fraud and open banking.

Chatting about the 6 Pillars of AP Automation, APA founder Jamie Radford leads the charge on transforming the Accounts Payable industry. He shares his thoughts on creating an effective payments process through people development, continuous improvement, winning technology, and best practice.

Sibos 2023 is behind us and the results of this year’s banking survey, which is all about financial institutions maintaining a competitive advantage, are now in. On the back of this, we spent time chatting with Zhenya Winter, author of the report, to get her take on key Sibos takeaways and how some of its content aligned with the 2023 survey findings.

Joining us to discuss real-time payments, from a truly global perspective, is the founder and CEO of Lipis Advisors, Leo Lipis. With over 25 years of experience in payment systems consulting and research on all six continents, Leo shares his in-depth knowledge about how this initiative is being implemented globally.

At a time when traditional banking infrastructures are strained, there’s a drive for FIs to find more scalable, reliable, and efficient systems. Is cloud computing and SaaS-based service models the future for financial institutions? To address this, we chat to two experts in global banking and financial messaging from Bottomline: Edward Ireland (London) and Frederic Viard (Switzerland).

With the Association of Finance Professionals conference approaching, it seemed the perfect time to chat with seasoned treasury professional Tom Hunt, who’s in charge of AFP’s Treasury Advisory Group. He shares his insight about how the role of corporate treasury is morphing into one that has truly elevated to embrace, initiate, and inform strategic input.

Managing and executing corporate liquidity throughout its entire lifecycle is a focus for every CFO and Treasury professional. In this episode, financial and treasury expert Craig Jeffery of Strategic Treasurer unpacks the world of Enterprise Liquidity Management (ELM) for us.

An overhaul of the UK's payment architecture is underway - from a more open environment, like Open Banking, to new payment rails and value-add overlay services. Industry expert Richard Ransom explores how prepared companies are for the change and what they can do to take advantage of the opportunities.

While the economy is turbulent, fraud levels are rising, and the payments landscape is constantly changing, companies on both sides of the pond seem quite resilient when managing their cash. They feel optimistic about experimenting with new payment types, changing payment terms and looking for ways to better protect their business payments. Gunita Bindra and Charles Bennett share their thoughts on the findings and the expectations of financial decision-makers over the next couple of years.

Our annual Business Payments Barometer Report offers insight into fraud statistics across Great Britain and North America. Our fraud panel discusses the findings and offers companies practical tips on how to safeguard against potential threats.

Having researched 1,600 corporate financial decision-makers from across the US and Great Britain, we chat through the findings from this year’s 2023 Business Payments Barometer such as what’s influencing change in payments – both present and future – such as the focus on adopting innovative technologies, new payment initiatives and tackling the relentless rise of fraud and financial crimes.

We chat with Bob Cohen of Ardent Partners on AP Automation and how it’s changed from a back-office function to a vital core process within a business – something the pandemic highlighted. He touches on the advances in technology, the opportunities, the challenges, what good looks like, and the journey from mere integration to ongoing evolution.

Nacha, the institution that governs the ACH Network in the United States, recently hosted their annual payments conference in Las Vegas. Attended by banks and corporates from across the globe, the theme for this year’s Nacha event was Smarter, Faster Payments. In this podcast episode, Bottomline’s Michelle Pasquerillo and Brian Hall chat to us about conversations around the room and some key take aways from the event.

Now all the ISO20022 deadlines and milestones are out of the way, what’s next? Payments expert, Edward Ireland, chats with us about how those that have migrated are getting on, what new services will it enable, what’s the next exciting phase for becoming ISO native and what will this enable?

Just out, is this year’s Treasury Fraud and Controls Report from Strategic Treasurer. In this episode Craig Jeffery, Managing Partner at Strategic Treasurer, and Bottomline’s payment fraud expert, Chris Gerda, chat about the report findings and delves into the wish list from banks of their corporate customers when it comes to preventing fraud.

Without doubt simplicity wins in the chess match against fraudsters. It takes an army. But a consolidated approach, across fraud teams, will unite prevention efforts and create efficiencies when it comes to outsmarting criminals in their next potential move. Fraud expert, Ruud Grotens, talks with us about how fraud investigators and analysts can easily manage and track all fraud cases from cross-functional areas in a single place. What's your next move?

Following the adoption of Confirmation of Payee (CoP) by financial institutions across the UK to prevent Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, Bottomline now brings this fraud prevention measure to businesses across the UK. In this episode we chat to Mark Bish, Product Manager and expert on CoP, to get some insight into how it differs from the bank offering, the use cases, benefits and we get a sense of urgency on adoption.

In celebration of International Women’s Day (#IWD), we speak with two inspirational women in fintech: Women of Fintech’s founder, Gemma Young and TechPassport’s CEO and founder, Layla White. In this episode, we spotlight women in the Fintech industry and look at how we can collectively achieve better equity – from empowerment, collaboration and mentorship to progression and overcoming challenges.

Industry expert Mike Chambers chats with Bottomline’s Richard Ransom on what changes corporates can expect from NPA and how it might impact their business. Hear what it means for Bacs and ISO20022, faster payments, direct debits, account-to-account payments, and the new overlay services it brings. Companies will need advice and guidance on design, infrastructure, and deployment, so they must start getting up to speed sooner rather than later.

Technologies continue to shape our digital world. Alongside that, consumer expectations for speed and efficiency keep shooting ahead. From a business standpoint and to stay competitive, companies are under pressure to deliver similar experiences with the same ease. We chat with Kellie White and Jon Grassis from Bottomline’s UX team to get their take on the UX trends shaping 2023 and how technology can enable a better experience for financial service customers.

This episode is full of expert insight into the business payment trends likely to shape the year ahead for banks and businesses. Against a back-drop of much regulatory change, economic and geopolitical uncertainty we’re likely to see organisations looking to do more with less, finding smarter ways to create efficiencies, keeping a step ahead of fraudsters, and meeting regulatory demands. Our industry experts share their thoughts.

Just how heavily has the current economic climate impacted businesses? How well are you using your data to inform your business, and is there a secret KPI you could be tracking to help? Data analyst, Vinay Khosla, uncovers the insightful story behind Direct Debit failure rates in the UK and what this means for companies.

A couple of months ago, the European Commission announced proposed changes to the instant payments regulation across the EU. In summary, the changes would force banks to offer instant payments in euros at no extra cost and should include fraud prevention checks on bank accounts. In this episode, which closes out Banking Week, industry expert Fred Viard discusses the implications for banks.

To celebrate Banking Week, we teed up two industry experts to chat about real-time payments in the US and the EU. In this episode, Jessica Cheney discusses balancing caution with tremendous opportunity in the context of real-time payment adoption in the US, sharing her views on how banks that are too cautious and slow to pull the trigger face becoming laggards and losing their competitive advantage. In a follow-on episode next week, Fred Viard continues the topic of real-time payment adoption but looks at it in the context of the EU.

Bottomline’s Nick Berents, Director of Solutions Marketing in Banking, shares his thoughts about last month’s Association for Finance Professional conference in Philly. Attended by a mix of corporate treasurers and banking professionals, Nick touches on the hot topics for discussion, the panel session with the Business Payments Coalition, the availability of end-to-end cash forecasting solutions from banks, and his outlook on payments for 2023.

In this episode, we interview Bottomline’s fraud and security experts, Ruud Grotens and Erick Choltus, on the intersection between payments modernization and payment fraud prevention. In this discussion, we dive into whether fraud measures are managing to keep pace with the latest in payments innovations such as ISO20022, cross-border payments, and real-time payments. Grab a cuppa and listen in.

With this year’s Sibos event wrapped up, Zhenya Winter shares her thoughts on the key takeaways from the show and where banks should focus given already-busy roadmaps. This episode covers ISO20022’s deadlines, SWIFT as a cooperative player, instant payments as a deal-breaker, how the Swiss are handling payments modernization and, in closing, several critical points for financial institutions to action next. Enjoy the listen!

Marcus Hughes, Head of Strategic Business Development Bottomline, gives us a brief insight into his new whitepaper on the AP and AR automation landscape. Give a listen if you want to understand more about working capital management, what it is and how it works, the use of smart data and technology to better aid the process, and overall how to have the best working team in the organization.

How can small-to-medium-sized businesses navigate the post-pandemic economy? Daryn Park, Senior Policy Advisor for the Federation of Small Businesses, and Amy Bassett, from the United States Small Business Administration answer the question to the ever-changing place of the financial relationship between SMBs in that economy

MRI Software has very simply taken an analog business and dragged it into the digital era. Sean Slack, VP of Partnerships at MRI, and Tom Dolan, General Manager of Bottomline's Paymode-X division chat on the characteristics of the real-estate business and how MRI has elevated the field with new technology.

Marcus Hughes, Head of strategic business development from Bottomline, and Richard Ransom, Strategic Customer Success Manager from Bottomline discuss the structure and plans of the new payments architecture (NPA). This episode covers basics like what's happened in the re-design of NPA, the new timetable, the exciting prospect it will bring along, etc.

Our payments podcast this week covers the results of our exclusive survey with anti-fraud specialist Themis. Join Eliza Thompson, Financial Crime Researcher from Themis, and Mohammad Al-Zraiqat, Global Senior Product Manager from Bottomline as they discuss the importance of detecting and preventing fraud episodes and develop aggressive case management practices to investigate and resolve different kinds of fraud threats.

In this episode, industry expert James Richardson, Head of Market Development Risk and Fraud for Bottomline, talks about the rise in fraud and financial crime based on the findings of the latest 2022 Global Business Payments Barometer covering topics like fraud defences, insider fraud, multifactor authentication and more.

Did you know that 52% of organizations in the UK agree that there is an increase in insider fraud and collusion? This is one of many topics covered in this podcast episode. Listen to detailed insights from Marion King - Chair, Payments Association Advisory Board, Charlotte Crosswell - The chair and trustee of Open Banking along with James Richardson - Head of Market Development Risk and Fraud from Bottomline, and Ed Adshead-Grant - Director of Strategic Business Development from Bottomline as they chat through the findings of the '22 Business Payments Barometer.

The 2022 Business Payments Barometer is finally here, and our two incredible subject matter experts, Curt Raffi, Chief Product and Innovation Officer, and Colin Swain, Global Head of Platform and Product Transformation, discussing key findings from the report from a UK and US perspective. You can read the full report on our website: https://www.bottomline.com/uk/2022-business-payments-barometer

Following the foundation on protection needs for cryptocurrency laid out by Marcus Hughes, Head of Strategic Business Development. In part 2, he explains the regulator's approach to blockchain globally, their supervision of crypto-assets, work done to mitigate its risks, and much more.

Blockchain and its assets have made their way into the financial services industry and are a topic that everyone wants to know more about. In this part 1 of our 2-part series Marcus Hughes, Head of Strategic Business Development at Bottomline, lays out the foundation of essential cryptocurrencies such as consumer protection, data protection, and fraud protection.