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• Jeanne DeWitt, Head of N.A. Revenue & Growth, • A discussion about processing payments for can-
Stripe nabis indicated that a combination of blockchain,
• Christopher Sweetland, Global Head of Operations, cross-border and real time payments would be of
Partnerships, Industry Relations, Square value.
• Rich Aberman, co-founder, WePay • Embedded payments will become more important,
for example, Lightspeed and Shopify, including
• Brian McManus, Senior Director, API and push payments, pay to card and B2B payments.
Developer Experience, Visa
I should also mention that one of the sponsors, the law
The moderators were prepared with relevant, timely firm of White and Case, provided an excellent handout:
questions and kept the sessions moving right along. (This a white paper titled SDNY Blocks OCC's Fintech Charter:
is not always the case at conferences like this, so we should Considerations for Fintech Companies. It includes a chart that
not take it for granted.) And it would not be possible to identifies six chartering options and the pros and cons of
discuss all of the interesting points made, but here are a each in the lens of the five bank regulators, which I found
few drawn from my notes: to be particularly valuable; it would have taken me a week
• In today's world, more SMB's are global from day- to put it together.
one. A time of upheaval
• We should be thinking about how the coming re-
cession will impact our industry, particularly as To state the obvious, this is a time of great change in
it affects the availability of credit and the cost of payments. I've heard comments like, "Real-time payments
capital. is the first new thing in the payment rails since the
• We have to focus on what data does that the mer- ACH came online in the 1970s." If you have attended
a Money20/20 event, you know payments is a popular
chant wants and needs. subject with investors, too.
• When designing a new product, ask, "Is there a net-
work effect?" Looking at the top 10 fintech deals of this year, the value of
• SMB merchants need to run their businesses and mergers among payments firms was an astonishing $94.2
serve customers, but ISVs need to have data to run billion. This was about 72 percent of the total valuation of
their business. Data should be made available via the entire top 10. This should get your attention. As Jimmy
APIs by ISVs in real time; ISVs should be the only Durante said, when it comes to payments, "Everybody
data providers because they own the data. wants to get into da act." Now you can't tell who the players
• SMBs need to drive more traffic to their stores, are without a scorecard.
convert shoppers into buyers, increase basket size, Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Silicon Valley
grow the basket margin, and drive loyalty and re- is its cultural diversity. Between 1995 and 2005, over
turn traffic. half of the startups there were founded by immigrants,
• SMBs want convenience of use, control, value, ser- engineers drawn from all over the world to a place where
vices and working capital. new ideas and innovation have triumphed. Their drive
• What is the role of machine-learning-as-a-service? for an excellent education (at Stanford, Berkeley, San Jose
State, etc.), intellectual curiosity, desire to innovate and
• Should you build or buy technology? Sometimes invent something, willingness to work together and be
partnering is inevitable. You have to ask, "What collaborative – all these things created Silicon Valley, one
differentiates us?" Some things are just hard to of the great success stories in the history of American
build, for example, an underwriting module or bill- business.
ing engine.
• One panelist asked, "Should you become a payfac, We can be grateful to them for their contributions to
or is this a red herring?" American business, and for the ETA for presenting a
• What opportunities does open banking offer? How forum for these innovative firms to share their thoughts
about the future of payments.
will you onboard new merchants and complete
contracts; how will you settle, and how will you
provide reporting to your merchants? Brandes Elitch, director of partner acquisition for CrossCheck Inc., has
been a cash management practitioner for several Fortune 500 compa-
• Payment ledgers are becoming more fragmented nies, sold cash management services for major banks and served as a
and interoperable (distributed ledger). consultant to bankcard acquirers. A certified cash manager and accred-
• Chase has developed a private blockchain for ac- ited ACH professional, Brandes has a Master's in Business Administration
count validation and global cross-border settle- from New York University and a Juris Doctor from Santa Clara University.
ment. It has100 banks signed on and another 350 He can be reached at brandese@cross-check.com.
banks in a letter of intent stage.

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