Real Talk Payments

What the Payments Industry Keeps Getting Wrong About Innovation The payments industry is constantly chasing the next big thing. But how much of that innovation is actually delivering value, and how much is simply hype? In this episode of Real Talk Payments, powered by Pagos, host Kapil Mokhat and Pagos Co-founder Albert Drouart welcome Steve Klebe, a payments industry veteran with more than 40 years of experience at companies including VeriFone, CyberSource, Google, and Stripe. Known for chal...

Payments has changed dramatically over the past decade, but some of its biggest challenges have remained surprisingly consistent. In this episode of Real Talk Payments, Kapil Mokhat is joined by Brian Wey, Senior Director of Commercial Growth at Oura Ring and Adam Hollenberg, Director, Payments Strategy and Operations at Discord, two payments leaders who have worked on both sides of the table, buying, building, managing, and optimizing payments at companies including Airbnb, PayPal, Adobe, Di...

In this episode of Real Talk Payments, Kapil Mokhat is joined by Julie Ferguson, co-founder of the Merchant Risk Council, along with Pagos co-founders Klas Bäck and Albert Drouart, for a timely conversation about what it means to operate payments and fraud in the AI era. The discussion explores how AI is already changing the work of payments and fraud professionals, not by replacing people outright, but by reshaping the skills, workflows, and expectations required to succeed. Julie shares her...

In this episode of Real Talk Payments, Kapil Mokhat is joined by Pagos co-founders Klas Bäck and Albert Drouart for a candid conversation about one of the most overlooked areas in payments: cost optimization. The episode focuses on four common myths that keep merchants from truly understanding and improving their payment costs. First, they address the belief that lowering costs is simply about negotiating a better processor rate. Kapil, Klas, and Albert explain why that approach only scratche...

In this episode of Real Talk Payments, host Kapil Mokhat is joined by Albert Drouart, CTO of Pagos, along with Colin Luce, CEO and Co-founder of Basis Theory, and James Armstead, CTO of Basis Theory, for a lively conversation about where payments infrastructure is headed next. What starts as a discussion about bundled versus unbundled payments quickly turns into a bigger look at merchant control, data ownership, orchestration, vaulting, and the role AI may play in the future of commerce. ...