In the fast-evolving world of fintech, few leaders bring the depth of experience and vision that Dave Glaser, CEO of Dwolla, offers. With a career spanning leadership roles at global payment giants such as Mastercard and Visa, Dave has transitioned to steering a high-growth fintech company on a mission to modernize account-to-account (A2A) payments and pioneer the future of open banking. Dave Glaser In this interview, he shares how his perspective on innovation in fintech and business payments has shifted since his time at Mastercard, the role AI is playing in transforming financial workflows, and the real-world challenges and opportunities shaping the future of real-time payments. Let's dive in. You've held leadership roles at giants like Mastercard and Visa before joining Dwolla. How did your perspective on payments and innovation evolve as you moved from established players to a high-growth fintech like Dwolla? When you're at a global network like Mastercard or Visa, you see payments at scale. But the pace of innovation is different, understandably so. There are layers of infrastructure, regulation, and decision-making. At Dwolla, we're able to move faster, listen to what businesses need today, and actually build for that. I've shifted from thinking about how to preserve legacy systems to how to modernize them, making payments easier, smarter, and more flexible for businesses that don't have time to wait. As CEO of Dwolla, you're deeply connected to how new payment experiences and products impact clients. Is there a surprising insight you've gained from these discussions? It still surprises me how many enterprise companies are using manual processes, ACH files, spreadsheets, and even checks. These aren't small shops.  They're large organizations handling a significant volume, but their payment workflows haven't kept pace. What's encouraging is how eager they are to modernize once they see it's possible. We don't just deliver a tech solution; we help them understand it, integrate it, and make it work for their teams. That part, the education and trust, has been more important than I expected. Dwolla's platform focuses on A2A payments via Automated Clearing House (ACH). In an era of real-time payments (RTP) and instant gratification, what makes ACH such a critical piece of the payments puzzle? ACH is the backbone of B2B payments in the U.S. In 2024, the ACH Network moved 33.6 billion payments valued at $86.2 trillion. Same‑day ACH is surging too – up 45% YoY to 1.24 billion payments totaling $3.2 trillion. ACH Network moved 33.6 billion payments valued at $86.2 trillion This proves ACH isn't going anywhere. What needs to change is how it's used. This proves ACH isn't going anywhere. What needs to change is how it's used. When you move from manual file uploads to API-driven ACH, you unlock increased speed and efficiency. It becomes part of a smarter system, one that can also use RTP or FedNow when real-time is needed. So, it's not about ACH vs. instant payments. It's about giving businesses the tools and rails to choose the right method at the right time. We often hear about "intelligent orchestration" in payments. What does that look like at Dwolla today, and how are you weaving AI into that strategy? To us, intelligent orchestration means the system figures out the best way to move a payment, without the user needing to think about it. Is RTP faster right now? Is FedNow more cost-effective? Should we fall back to ACH for reliability? That logic runs behind the scenes. AI plays a role in refining those decisions, analyzing trends, flagging risks, and helping optimize when and how payments are made. It's about making payments work smarter, not just faster. What's one underappreciated challenge about building reliable infrastructure for real-time payments? Everyone talks about speed, but very few talk about what happens after the payment is sent. Real-time means final; it can't be pulled back. Therefore, your fraud detection must occur before the money is transferred. your fraud detection must occur before the money is transferred. your fraud detection must occur before the money is transferred. Your support team needs to operate on a different schedule. Your internal systems need to reconcile in real-time. That's the hard part. Building the payment rail is just one piece. The infrastructure around it –that's where most of the effort goes. AI is often hyped in fraud prevention, but real-time payments mean real-time threats. How is Dwolla applying AI to stay ahead of that curve, and how do you think the broader fintech industry is grappling with this shift? It's a huge shift. According to the 2025 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report, 79% of organizations were victims of payment fraud attacks or attempts in 2024, with business email compromise (BEC) remaining a significant threat, cited by 63% of respondents as the primary avenue for fraud attempts. A 2025 merchant study revealed that 45% of merchants experienced RTP-related fraud in the past 12 months. 2025 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report 2025 merchant study Real-time payments don't give you a window to catch fraud after the fact, you need to catch it before the transaction happens. Real-time payments don't give you a window to catch fraud after the fact, you need to catch it before the transaction happens. We're using AI to monitor for anomalies and patterns that might indicate risk. It's not magic. It takes training, data, and the right thresholds. But when it works, it gives us, and our clients, more confidence to move money quickly. Industry-wide, I believe many fintechs are still playing catch-up in this area. AI What's one under-discussed risk or opportunity you're seeing in the real-time payments space that more fintech leaders should be paying attention to? The operational load. Everyone's focused on the tech—how fast it is, how it integrates—but not enough people talk about what it means to process payments 24/7. The operational load The operational load If you're offering real-time, your systems and your people have to be ready for real-time, too. If you're offering real-time, your systems and your people have to be ready for real-time, too. If you're offering real-time, your systems and your people have to be ready for real-time, too. That includes error handling, support, and reporting. The opportunity is clear—better liquidity and a better customer experience—but the readiness gap is something many companies overlook. While real-time payments are still in the adoption stage, a report by ACI Worldwide found global real-time payment volumes have increased by approximately 40% year-over-year. Fintech leaders should use this data to prepare for an increase in real-time payments in the future. ACI Worldwide With so many new entrants and regulatory shifts, what do you think will separate winning fintechs from the rest in the next 3–5 years? The companies that balance innovation with reliability are going to win. You can have the best user experience in the world, but if the system isn't secure or can't scale, enterprise clients won't stick around. Fintech isn't just about new ideas; it's about building trust. Fintech isn't just about new ideas; it's about building trust. Fintech isn't just about new ideas; it's about building trust. At Dwolla, we focus a lot on helping clients modernize without losing control. That balance between progress and predictability is going to define who lasts. When you think about the future of business payments, where does AI make the biggest impact: personalization, automation, or prediction? Why? Prediction. AI can certainly automate and personalize, but predicting when to move money, which rail to use, or how to avoid a failed transaction is where it gets powerful. Businesses want to be proactive, especially when it comes to cash flow. If we can help them anticipate what's coming and make smarter decisions before problems happen, that's a game-changer. Prediction Prediction FedNow is shaking up the U.S. real-time payments landscape. How is Dwolla positioning itself to support businesses as this new rail rolls out? We support both RTP and FedNow, and we've built our system to make it easy for businesses to use either without having to worry about which one is better at the moment. We handle that complexity for them. The businesses we work with want reliable infrastructure that just works. FedNow adds more options, which is great, but it has to be implemented in a way that doesn't increase the operational burden. That's what we focus on. Open banking is gaining traction in the U.S. How do you see that shaping the future of B2B and B2C financial experiences, and how does Dwolla's approach align with these open banking trends? Open banking is going to reshape expectations around payments. Consumers and businesses want more control and visibility, and open banking enables that. We've leaned into this by offering pay by bank and integrating with partners like Plaid. It enables us to offer a more seamless experience without compromising security. For businesses, it means faster onboarding, fewer errors, and better end-user experiences. That's the direction the market's moving, and we're ready for it. How are enterprise clients using your platform in ways that even surprise your team, and how do those use cases reflect broader fintech innovation? We've seen clients in industries like insurance and real estate start using Dwolla to move money instantly for tasks like claim payouts or rent distributions. These aren't use cases people always associate with innovation, but they're incredibly impactful. One client reduced a multi-day payout process to just minutes. That's a real result. It shows how modern payment infrastructure can quietly but fundamentally transform how a business operates. It shows how modern payment infrastructure can quietly but fundamentally transform how a business operates. It shows how modern payment infrastructure can quietly but fundamentally transform how a business operates. Dwolla partners with a lot of businesses that embed payments in their workflows. Can you share an example of how one of these partnerships is transforming an industry? In lending, we work with a partner who uses Dwolla to disburse loans instantly through FedNow. That's changed how fast they can serve borrowers and improve the customer experience. The whole process, from approval to disbursement, happens in near real-time. That kind of speed used to be impossible in lending. Embedding payments directly into the workflow unlocks real business value. Beyond payments, what's the fintech trend you personally find most exciting to watch right now? I'm really interested in how financial infrastructure is becoming more modular. Businesses don't want a black box, they want building blocks they can plug into their own systems. Businesses don't want a black box, they want building blocks they can plug into their own systems. Businesses don't want a black box, they want building blocks they can plug into their own systems. That's how we've approached our platform: flexible, API-first, and easy to integrate. It's exciting to see the industry shift in that direction. It gives companies more control and opens the door to a lot more innovation. We hear a lot about faster payments and better data, but where do you think the real breakthroughs will come from in combining these two worlds—both at Dwolla and across the fintech ecosystem? The magic happens when payments aren't just fast, but also rich in data. If you can send a payment and include all the details needed for reconciliation, reporting, or customer service in the same flow, that's a real breakthrough. At Dwolla, we're focused on making payments more informative, not just faster. That helps businesses reduce errors, get real-time visibility, and act on the data as it's happening. Finally, what's one piece of advice you'd give to fintech founders building in this environment of rapid change and growing regulatory attention? Focus on resilience. It's easy to chase shiny features, but if your infrastructure can't scale or your compliance is shaky, you won't last. Build something that people can rely on. It might not feel exciting in the early days, but in the long run, reliability is what builds trust, and trust is what fuels growth in this industry. Focus on resilience Focus on resilience

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Ex-Mastercard Exec Says Legacy Thinking Is the Real Bottleneck in Business Payments

Ex-Mastercard Exec Says Legacy Thinking Is the Real Bottleneck in Business Payments

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