Why what's in the cards for the CFPB isn’t just another bureaucratic reshuffling. While a lot of people aren't shedding tears over an end to the Rohit Chopra-style of running the CFPB, @amiasmg said that a CFPB-sized hole means financial services entities will be trying to make their best guesses, and “‘Do your best’ is not a great way to run a financial services company.” That’s why he is advising his portfolio companies to stay the course. It’s a really interesting conversation on the means to the end, the importance of “shalls” and what’s likely to happen next:

60% of consumers browse merchant websites on their phones multiple times per week, and they make a purchase nearly half of those times. Mobile is now retail’s anywhere storefront, so what does the rise of the mobile window shopper mean for payments? Everything. This week we launched the 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index, a collaboration with @VisaAcceptance. This is a global study of 18,468 consumers and 3,464 merchants across eight countries. Here’s a little preview of our findings: 1. Nearly half of global shoppers used a mobile phone the last time they purchased a retail or grocery product 2. The mobile window shopper has become retail’s best customers, as they typically purchase higher-margin products 3. Parents are the everyday buyer 4. Shoppers want to pay without the pain 5. There are 5 key digital features that drive sales 6. These mobile-first shoppers have traded bricks for clicks: 7. Nearly 60% of merchants told us their payment technology cannot support the needs of mobile-first shoppers For the entire picture, you'll have to download the full report. And I highly recommend you do

“We’re finally seeing what I would consider to be the real washout.” To avoid going being pulled into the undertow, Jim McCarthy said it’s all about the business model. In a freewheeling conversation about all things FinTech, Jim said that what will separate the FinTech wheat from the chaff in 2025 is business model innovation. And that’s not just what’s next but it is also increasingly what’s now since interchange models in the US may be on borrowed time. He says U.S. FinTechs can learn from the EU where many of FinTechs have already shifted away from banking on interchange to “selling on the value of the app or the service they provide.” Watch our full conversation for Jim’s POV on the “seismic shift” that will define FinTech’s future, and what meme coins may have in common with The Franklin Mint. Now that was funny, and totally unexpected:

Time for a trade in. David Khuat-Duy tells me that he happily traded his CEO title for a firm he founded for the title of Chief Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer. He says that there's "nothing more strategic for the company, or even for humanity, than what is happening with AI" and "that focusing 100% of [his] time and driving investment energy of the company on this topic is very critical.” Worth a listen to the full convo. Then, tell me  - is he a pioneer? Or a trend setter? If you have the CAIO title, give us a shout out. We’d love to hear more. Watch our full conversation for more on David's blueprint for AI-led organizations:

Hey DC! On February 11th I’ll be coming through @BAFT’s Trade and Payments Conference to talk about where digital assets & DLT fit into the future of payments. I’m really looking forward to my conversation with @Citi’s @RyanRRugg on the future of tokenized deposits, why trade finance on the blockchain didn’t take off, whether interoperability across private, permissioned blockchains is even possible, and how blockchains can get to scale (and how long that might take). So if you’re in town I hope to see you all in person!

Excited to announce that today I’m kicking off Washington Week, with @amiasmg ! You may know him from his current position as partner at @QEDInvestors , or his prior role as a Treasury Department official in the President Obama administration. Today we break down what’s next as Musk’s #DOGE takes over the federal payments system. Listen to the preview and catch the full conversation on PYMNTS:

Are you a replacement or a complement to the POS environment that exists today? is the question I asked @Salesforce's Nitin Mangtani as part of a long conversation about the reinvention of the checkout experience at the point of sale. And not just a replacement, but a whole new operating system built around GenAI. Here’s him telling me about how a GenAI-powered POS will transform "the entire shopping experience from discovery to checkout."

A new type of intelligence: bank account intelligence. @Validi_FI CEO John Gordon tells me about the granular details that give insight into an account’s behavior and payment performance, and why they are critical in improving the financial ecosystem. Watch the rest of our convo for where the blind spots are, and more nuggets like why the fraud prevention business is also the facts and information business:

TikTok: It was here, then it was gone, now it's back (for now). We all know that story, so let's talk about something that not really being told but a huge problem: the age verification angle. You need to be 13 years-old to use the TikTok platform. So how do you verify the age of someone who's not yet old enough to carry a U.S. driver's license? And why does it take so long to verify someone’s identity. Those are two of the questions that I asked @IDNIntellicheck CEO Bryan Lewis who knows a thing or three about identify verification. Watch the TikTok-length clip, and catch the rest of our conversation here:

I love a good framework and the PYMNTS Intelligence team absolutely delivered with this one This framework redefines what Money Mobility really means, breaking it down into four essential elements: 1️⃣ Payments 2️⃣ Accounts 3️⃣ Funding mechanics (money in, money out) 4️⃣ Clearing, settlement and reconciliation of fund flows Download the first in our new Framework Series here: For business leaders navigating complexity, this is must-read!

The great fire of San Francisco in 1906 destroyed 85% to 90% of San Francisco. Nine years later, San Francisco rebuilt as a different city. Population centers shifted, and so did building codes and firefighting techniques. That served as the backdrop of my conversation with @OneIncSystems CEO Ian Drysdale about the devastation we see unfolding in LA, and how that could change how and who rebuilds, in the same what that it did nearly 100 years ago in San Francisco. It’s an interesting conversation, insightful, about a world with climate change that could make certain parts of our country unhabitable because they will be uninsurable. And how insurance companies and those that provide services to them, are trying to help. Give it a listen. Now streaming on PYMNTS TV:

Workers generally think GenAI is more of a help than a hurt, but the hurt is more likely to happen “to the other guy.” Here’s a deep dive into how 2,881 U.S. consumers answered the question … will GenAI help workers or hurt workers? And how the answer depends on if you work, where you work, and if GenAI is already part of your routine. Now your turn … Will it help or hurt? And why? A Generational Look At AI Usage And Attitudes:

It is said the average adult can read 1000 words in 4 minutes. So, you might want to savor each of the five trends I write about this my piece in 4 minute doses. After all, microlearning is a 2025 trend. My hope that each of those 4 minute investments will start new thinking about the not so obvious things that will impact the digital economy in 2025. Yes, regulation is on the list. But so are four others that you might not be in your line of sight, until they are already disrupting your business. Or that you might want to use to disrupt others. Either way, I hope it starts a different conversation about how to make the most of 2025. Let me know what you think, and thank you for taking the time to dig in:

When I think about payments references to NASCAR, I think of a cluttered up checkout page, and references to a logo-ed to the extreme payments buttons all over the like, like a NASCAR race car. Don’t you? @HelloThredd's Jim McCarthy gave NASCAR and payments a much more interesting and relevant analogy the last time we chatted. He says that NASCAR drivers are trained to drive right through crashes to get to the other side and keep on racing around the track. He thinks that payments execs could take a cue from those drivers – since there will always be crashes. And stopping isn’t a strategy. But that was just one of the many things we chatted about. It’s amazing how we went from NASCAR and crashes to some of the things that could cause them in 2025:

Monday, Monday. For more years than I care to count, but I think someone did that for me, I’ve published a piece of content focused on a topic or an issue that I believed to be important to the future of payments, commerce, and the digital economy. Most of them were long – some really long. My thanks and gratitude to everyone who hung in there to the very end when reading them! In 2024, I wrote 15 of those pieces, about 45k words, give or take. I picked fewer topics with deeper impact, at least that was the goal. My aim with my writing is to start conversations, and hopefully a more thoughtful and respectful dialogue on issues of real importance to business leaders and innovators. This fancy looking eBook organizes all 45k of my words in 15 easy chapters. There are some pictures in it, too. 😊 It’s one of those things that is easy to skim or save for a rainy day: As always, thank you for reading, for commenting and for inspiring my thoughts. All the best for 2025 – I think it is going to be amazing!

Done the homework. U.S. eCommerce merchants are looking for a helping hand from their PSPs when it comes to the shortest path to the highest conversion. A new PYMNTS Intelligence report that we collaborated on w/ @Mastercard found 3/4 of merchants have asked their PSPs to enable new features at checkout, with one-click solutions and secure cards on file being the most frequent requests. More scoop here:

Instant non-recurring (aka ad hoc) payments are having more than a moment, and as the restaurant, hospitality and gaming industry now shows. Payments that happen outside of regular invoicing and payroll now take the form of instant payouts to any endpoint, as we examine in the latest and greatest Money Mobility Tracker (our collab w/ @IngoMoney)

Wednesday brain teaser: What does Oxford Dictionary's word of the year and (what should be) payments' word of the year have in common? The concept of too much. And for more, you will have to tune into my convo with @jpmorgan's Rhonda Green who oh so artfully makes the connection in the context of friction and the frictionless commerce ecosystem that businesses in the emerging middle market want from their payments providers:

Congrats to @DeeChoubey and @MoneyLion on joining up with @GenDigitalInc. A couple weeks ago Dee talked to me about how MoneyLion’s pivot from neobank to the Amazon of financial has managed to turn competitors into marketplace customers, who want the chance to be seen when 90M consumers show up at their virtual doorstep every quarter. Watch the rest of our conversation where we discuss other Amazon-esque innovations that are turning what Dee describes as the current financial services “flea market” model to a financial services marketplace for the masses: 

Are you a “Yes, and” kind of person or a “No, because” kind of person? @DuncanJWardle, @Disney’s former head of innovation and creativity says that too many of the latter will kill innovation in business, or slow it down to a mere crawl. I chatted with Duncan about his new book, "The Imagination Emporium", which he says will be a huge failure if it sits on a bookshelf as a trophy collecting dust. It’s a workbook, that I predict will be dog-eared and highlighted – an innovation resource for business leaders and their teams.  It also busts the myth that you don’t have to be Disney to think and act like a business with innovation and creativity as their DNA. He put me thru a few of his exercises as part of our conversation. It was fun, refreshing and energizing. In fact, that was the whole point. I hope you’ll tune in – and then let me know if you’re as inspired as I am to put his practices into action: