Stablecoins are moving into a formal regulatory era, but the real test is whether issuers, banks, fintechs, and platforms can prove their controls actually work.

AI agents are starting to initiate commerce and payments, but platforms still need clear authorization, controls, dispute paths, monitoring, and accountability when something goes wrong.

Payments consolidation is reshaping the industry as processors, gateways, fintechs, and software companies race to own more of the stack, more of the data, and more of the customer relationship.

State-level fights over interchange, taxes, tips, and card-fee economics are turning payment pricing into a product, legal, finance, and customer experience problem for software platforms.

Embedded payments are not just a checkout feature for software platforms. They are a business model decision that reshapes revenue, risk, customer experience, compliance, and operational responsibility.

Becoming a PayFac can unlock payments revenue, tighter customer relationships, and more control, but the model also brings underwriting, risk monitoring, disputes, reserves, sponsor oversight, support complexity, and operational accountability.

Marketplace payments are not just checkout. They are trust infrastructure involving seller onboarding, funds flow, payouts, refunds, chargebacks, ledgering, compliance, and customer confidence.

Payments revenue share can look simple in a term sheet, but the real deal lives in definitions, deductions, support expectations, risk obligations, reporting, data rights, portability, and contract details.

AI can help payments compliance teams move faster, spot patterns, summarize cases, and prioritize alerts, but it cannot replace human judgment, accountability, governance, or defensible decision-making.

Payments are not one integration or one vendor. They are a stack of product experience, gateways, processors, acquirers, underwriting, risk, fraud controls, ledgering, reconciliation, disputes, compliance, reporting, payouts, support, and ownership.

Jason and Hayden discuss the continuing Wirecard fallout, why open banking standards matter, and why Uber may be better off focusing on rideshare and food delivery instead of financial services.

Jason and Hayden discuss the Wirecard accounting scandal, the push for cashless casinos, and the Federal Reserve’s FedNow Community kickoff.

Jason and Hayden discuss open banking security, rising reserve requirements for struggling merchants, and the future of contactless payments with guest Sesie Bonsi of Bleu.

Jason and Hayden discuss whether financial institutions will need fintech partnerships, how mobile wallets are moving mainstream, and why Qualpay’s FTC settlement matters for payment processor oversight.