Payments on Fire™

Drew Edmond and Chris Uriarte chat with Nikhil Konduru, Chief Commercial Officer at Lithic, to discuss modern card issuing infrastructure and where the market is headed.
They break down the issuing stack and discuss issuer-side tools to improve authorization outcomes, reduce fraud and servicing costs, and increase transparency. The conversation also covers cross-border approval and economics, and explores agentic commerce via Nikhil's "Intent Toll Booth" thesis: liability drives control, issuers may demand intent data, and regulatory and network rules may need to evolve.

Going global with your payments strategy requires far more than choosing a single payment provider: companies must weigh local acquiring versus cross-border acquiring, country-by-country payment preferences, entity structure, tax implications, compliance requirements, authorization performance, currency handling, and provider coverage.
In this episode, Chris Uriarte joins Glenbrook colleagues Samantha Gordon, Simon Skinner, and Drew Edmond to explore the complexities and potential benefits for merchants and platforms to consider when expanding payments globally.

The Glenbrook team is taking stock in June 2026 to see how the predictions from our January episode are holding up. Tune in for updates on trending topics in payments, including agentic commerce, stablecoins, cross-border and instant payments, risk and fraud, and the regulatory landscape. We also share insights on the "hot off the presses" news on tokenized deposits and the Visa/Mastercard interchange settlement.

In this episode, Russ Jones welcomes Preston McCaskill, Chief Operating Officer for Zelle, an open loop fast payments network owned and operated by Early Warning Services that moves money directly between two bank accounts in the US.
Listen in as they discuss network's growth into small business payments, the onboarding process for financial institutions, and Zelle's settlement process and alias directory. They also cover expanding use cases like pilots in the bill pay domain, and Early Warning's intent to bring the same trust, speed, and convenience of Zelle to consumer cross-border payments with stablecoins.

In this episode, Drew Edmond is joined by João Del Valle, CEO and co-founder of EBANX, to talk about the origin story of EBANX, why Brazil has historically been such a difficult market for non-Brazilian merchants, and what João has learned as the company has expanded into new regions.
Listen in as they cover some of the biggest topics shaping the next phase of global payments, including Pix and Pix Automático in Brazil, payment optimization when looking at local payment methods, and perspectives on agentic commerce and stablecoins.