The Payments Podcast

It's crunch time and the ISO 20022 deadline is only six months away. Our host chats with Bottomline's payments expert, Frederic Viard, on this structured, machine-readable format and the global harmonization intention that sits behind it. All the big banks are ready for the deadline, but what does it mean for other financial institutions that aren't? What are the risks, the options, the penalties, and what needs doing? Fred also talks about what lies beyond this deadline in terms of value-add benefits in the global payments' ecosystem.

In the special edition of the Payments Podcast Paymode Series, Paul McMeekin chats with Katie Elliot about how companies can keep fraud at bay and protect their business payments, including mitigating against BEC and check fraud. She also shares tips on trends that businesses should prepare for from a fraud perspective.

In this episode, we chat with ACT's Naresh Aggarwal and Bottomline's Leo Gil about cash management strategies to gain executive buy-in, conflicting KPIs, cash management concepts and a tailored approach, and the critical importance of flexibility and resilience for treasurers. We also dive into the potential of AI and technology pitfalls to avoid.

On the back of recent payment fraud research, our host chats with Eliza Thompson of digital financial crime platform Themis, on how fraudsters exploit the interplay between insider access and external attack vectors with payment fraud. This issue is increasingly concerning, with over 45% of respondents identifying collusion as a primary threat. Eliza shares her insights on what banks and businesses can do to help identify and reduce potential fraud risks.

In this episode, we celebrate International Women's Day by acknowledging women's achievements and advocating for gender parity. Champions Julie Ashmore-Dann, Carrie White, and Zhenya Winter share their thoughts and experiences on positively accelerating action to support women's advancement.

ACH and same-day ACH payments are common in B2B, but the integration of digital banking with private B2B payment networks is a brand-new concept, giving businesses the chance to leverage advanced features from within one single, automated platform. Bottomline's Jessica Cheney explores what incorporating a B2B payments network into digital banking means for businesses.

Our host chats with Bottomline's Chief Technology Officer, Eve Aretakis, on some of the major tech advancements impacting B2B payments in 2025. In this episode, we cover top tech priorities in business payments, the advantages and perils of AI, the benefits of integrating and embedding payment technologies to drive added value, and the ever-present threat and prevention of fraud.

As we approach 2025, it's an excellent time for finance leaders to take stock, reassess, and plan for the upcoming year. Finance teams of all sizes will strive to achieve more with fewer resources while adapting to external technology advancements, economic shifts, payment regulations, and fraud prevention measures. In this episode, we interview BNY's Head of B2B Payments, Rhea Wagh, to gain her insights on the trends, themes, and innovations influencing B2B payments for 2025, including hyper-connected ecosystems.

As we look to 2025, Finance Teams–-from treasury to accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR)—look to take advantage of new payment innovations and automation, tightening fraud prevention measures, and driving greater efficiencies from their business payments lifecycle. In this episode we chat to two of Botttomline's corporate payments experts: Jamie DelMedico in the US and Richard Ransom in the UK to get their take on what to expect in the year ahead. Topics include payer verification and mitigating fraud, generative AI, the adoption of digital payment types, ISO20022 for corporates, real-time payments and more.

In this episode, we explore how AI-powered invoice ingestion and coding for billing and payments can revolutionize accounts payable (AP) teams, particularly in the real estate industry, which deals with high volumes and complex transactions. Podcast guest David Stifter, CEO and Founder of PredictAP, emphasizes the significance of using artificial intelligence to focus on the invoice capture stage when automating accounts payable processes.

In celebration of International Day of Banks, Bottomline's banking experts, Jessica Cheney and Frederic Viard, share their insights on payment trends and predictions for 2025. Amid significant innovation and disruption in the payments landscape, banks are striving to stay current, competitive, and compliant. In this episode, our experts discuss key topics such as real-time payments, fraud prevention, artificial intelligence (AI), and embedded finance.

International Fraud Awareness Week, a global initiative started by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), takes place every November. Shining a light on better fraud prevention across businesses and banks, podcast guest John Gill, President of the ACFE, chats to us about the landscape of payments fraud. He explores the role of AI and machine learning, the potential risks associated with faster payments processing, and the outlook for B2B financial crime in 2025.

This episode dives into how accounts payable (AP) automation optimizes working capital and achieves cost savings. Our guest, Mark Brousseau from Brousseau & Associates, who collaborates closely with the Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM), shares his insights on leveraging AP automation to reduce overhead costs, enhance visibility into cash flow and spending, rationalize the Days Payable Outstanding (DPO) metric, and highlight the benefits that companies miss out on by not automating their AP processes.

We're joined by Luke Sculthorp from The Chartered Institute of Credit Management (CICM) to talk about the trends they're seeing in Accounts Receivable (AR) automation, credit risk management, the future of B2B direct debits, and getting the most from your inbound business payments.

Technology improves the ability of treasurers to see and manage their cash, as well as to optimize their working capital. From a B2B payments perspective, this modernization involves changes in policies, products, and processes. So, what are the implications for treasurers looking to advance their setup? In this episode of The Payments Podcast, Kevin Grant, the Managing Director of Treasury Management at Bottomline, talks about important considerations for implementing change in a balanced way.

Often, employee financial crime gets discovered post-fact. Better late than never, right? But that doesn't solve the problem. Certainly not when banks and businesses can access technology and human experts to help them identify unusual behaviour or catch potential crimes. We spoke with Albert Leino, a Certified Financial Crime Specialist, who shares his insights on proactive--rather than reactive--monitoring in the fight against insider fraud.

Despite advances in threat detection, uncovering insider fraud threats continues to be a challenge for banks and businesses. Undetected, insider threats often result in financial, reputational, and operational damage. In this episode, Nick Griffin discusses the tough task behind identifying and addressing malicious individuals within organizations. Nick also covers seven essential capabilities of an effective Insider Threat Management (ITM) solution, as outlined in the latest SPARK Matrix™ Insider Risk Management report.

In this episode, we interview Darrell Riekena from Bottomline about the transformation of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) role. We discuss how it has evolved to encompass a mix of C-Suite responsibilities, focusing on data and systems. Topics include the timeline for digital transformation 2.0, the impact of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) buzz, the importance of first-party data, and the wide-ranging remit of today's CIO to support the goals of the business.

In this episode, we chat with Jodie Kelley, CEO of Electronic Transactions Association (ETA). As the leading advocate for business payments in the US and Canada, ETA is heavily involved in lobbying for and educating on payments legislation and policy frameworks, fraud prevention measures, and shaping the future of payments. Sharing her insights, Jodie discusses the key trends impacting business payments.

It's been said that real-time payments have spurred financial institutions to modernize their operations to keep up with where their customers and their customers' customers have already gotten to. In this podcast, we talk to Jessica Chaney to get her take on adoption rates in the US market and the interoperability between the Clearing House's RTP and FedNow's Instant Payments offerings.

Since our last update on instant payments, FedNow's Instant Payments has become readily available in the US market, India and China are showing a strong upswing, and the EU's Instant Payments Regulation mandates that any euro payments across EU member states be completed within seconds, 24/7. We chatted with Lipis Advisor's founder, Leo Lipis, to get an update on instant payments in the current landscape and future trends.

Banks will forever consider the diverse needs of their retail and commercial customers. But does that always extend to the digital banking platform they offer? While the functional complexities of a more extensive corporate solution may deem it unsuitable for small business usage, the deficiencies of a consumer offering for a business may not deliver the insights, efficiencies and benefits needed. In this episode, we explore why a one-size-fits-all approach is not likely to meet the distinct requirements of these customer segments.

To ensure financial stability in the UK, banks and other financial service firms operating in the UK must be ready to handle unexpected disruptions to their services. Our guest, Richard Ransom, discusses the UK's new legislation (SS1/21) and the responsibility firms have to mitigate any risk, minimize impact, and continue providing essential services regardless of the cause of the disruption.

In this episode, we speak with highly regarded accounts payable (AP) speaker, trainer, and consultant Debra R Richardson about avoiding fraud, potential fines, and bad vendor data in the AP vendor space. Given her extensive experience and interaction with AP professionals, Debra shares the loopholes she sees, precautions to take, and valuable advice for flagging potential fraud. Enjoy the listen.

While ISO 20022 is not new, it will soon become the de facto standard for sending financial messages between financial institutions and businesses. The drive and industry development behind upgrading payment infrastructures, instant payments and cross-border payment capabilities make adopting ISO20022 paramount in its importance and urgency. Only with it can true interoperability be achieved. We gain more insight from payments industry expert Mike Chambers and Bottomline's Frederic Viard.

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. 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.