{
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    "topic": "payments",
    "generated_at": "2026-05-15T00:18:22.360Z",
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    "parent": "https://mtb.xyz/posts.json",
    "author": {
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      "name": "Matt Brown",
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    {
      "title": "Stablecoins in 1,000 words",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/stablecoins-1000-words",
      "year": "2025",
      "tags": [
        "fintech",
        "payments"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "series": "1000-words",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 6,
      "isPopular": true,
      "description": "What stablecoins are, how they work, and why they matter for payments",
      "summary": "A short explainer of stablecoins from a payments perspective: what they actually are technically, how they hold their peg, the major issuers and reserve models, and where they realistically slot into payment rails, particularly cross-border and B2B.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/stablecoins-1000-words.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Cross-border payments in ~1,000 words",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/cross-border-payments-1000-words",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "series": "1000-words",
      "description": "Why cross-border payments are slow and expensive, and what is starting to change",
      "summary": "A short explainer on the structure of cross-border payments: why they remain slow and expensive (correspondent banking, FX layering, settlement friction), what stablecoins and new rails are actually changing, and what isn't moving as fast as the narrative suggests.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/cross-border-payments-1000-words.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Pricing payments in vertical software",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/secrets-pricing-payments",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "vertical-software",
        "fintech",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "description": "How to price payments inside vertical software so margins survive",
      "summary": "A practical guide for vertical software companies pricing payments. Covers the difference between rebate-based and markup-based pricing, why the rebate side of the take-rate matters more than the gross interchange figure, and how to align payment pricing with customer segments without leaving margin on the table.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/secrets-pricing-payments.md"
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    {
      "title": "The future of interchange",
      "url": "https://sacra.com/research/the-future-of-interchange/",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech"
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      "primary_topic": "payments",
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      "description": "Where payment revenue moves when interchange runs out of room",
      "summary": "An analysis of where payment revenue concentrates as interchange continues its secular decline. Durable payment economics increasingly come from non-interchange sources like risk, lending, FX, and embedded finance, and the shift reshapes what fintech and vertical software builders should optimize for.",
      "platform": "sacra.com",
      "is_external": true
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    {
      "title": "Investing in Rainforest",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/rainforest",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "investing",
        "payments",
        "fintech",
        "vertical-software"
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      "primary_topic": "investing",
      "description": "Why Matrix invested in Rainforest, a payfac built for vertical software",
      "summary": "Matt's investment memo for Rainforest, a next-generation payment facilitator built for vertical software platforms. Explains why the legacy payfac stack is structurally inadequate for VERPs and how Rainforest's product-led approach repositions payfac infrastructure as a developer experience rather than a sales-driven SaaS sale.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/rainforest.md"
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    {
      "title": "Real-time payments in 1,000 words",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/real-time-payments-1000-words",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech"
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      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "series": "1000-words",
      "description": "How real-time payment rails work and why their adoption curve is uneven",
      "summary": "A short explainer on real-time payment rails: how they work technically, why adoption has been faster in some geographies and use cases than others, and what the slow parts of the curve reveal about the constraints (interchange substitution, fraud risk, business-model resistance) that block faster uptake.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/real-time-payments-1000-words.md"
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    {
      "title": "A chat with Toast's GM of Fintech",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/michel-rbeiz-toast",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "fintech",
        "vertical-software",
        "payments"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "fintech",
      "description": "An interview with Toast's fintech GM on building fintech inside vSaaS",
      "summary": "A conversation with Michel Rbeiz, GM of Fintech at Toast, on building a fintech business inside a vertical software company. Covers Toast Capital's underwriting model, the difference between launching payments and launching credit, and what operational muscles vSaaS companies need to build to win at fintech.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/michel-rbeiz-toast.md"
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    {
      "title": "Payfac in 1,000 words",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/payfac-1000-words",
      "year": "2024",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech"
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      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "series": "1000-words",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 4,
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      "description": "What payfacs actually do, how they make money, and when to build one",
      "summary": "A short explainer of the payment-facilitator model: what a payfac is, how it differs from a traditional merchant-acquirer setup, the economics of payfac aggregation, and the decision framework for when a vertical software company should build its own payfac vs partner with one.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/payfac-1000-words.md"
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    {
      "title": "B2B payments aren't payments, they're workflows",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/b2b-payments-workflows",
      "year": "2023",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "vertical-software",
        "frameworks",
        "fintech"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 2,
      "description": "The real money in B2B payments is in the workflow, not the transaction",
      "summary": "B2B payments are workflow problems, not transaction-routing problems. The value capture (and the reason vertical software wins) lives in the approval, reconciliation, and AP/AR workflows surrounding a transaction, not in the rails themselves.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/b2b-payments-workflows.md"
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    {
      "title": "Interchange is a burning platform",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/interchange-is-a-burning-platform",
      "year": "2023",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "description": "Interchange revenue is in secular decline. Build with that in mind",
      "summary": "A call to fintech and vertical software builders to stop treating interchange as a permanent revenue stream. The piece lays out the structural forces driving interchange compression and argues that any business model whose unit economics depend on current interchange rates is on a burning platform.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/interchange-is-a-burning-platform.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Interchange in 1,000 words",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/interchange-in-1000-words",
      "year": "2023",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "fintech"
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      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "series": "1000-words",
      "featured": true,
      "featured_order": 3,
      "isPopular": true,
      "description": "How card fees work, who keeps what, and why margins keep compressing",
      "summary": "A high-level walkthrough of card-payment economics: who the issuer, acquirer, and scheme are, how interchange and acquirer markup split the gross fee, and how software-led acquiring (payfacs, BaaS) and issuing fit into the modern payment stack. Concludes that interchange revenue alone is structurally fragile; smart fintechs use it as a foundation for higher-margin business models, not as the destination.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/interchange-in-1000-words.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "The power of point-of-sale products",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/the-power-of-point-of-sale-products",
      "year": "2022",
      "tags": [
        "payments",
        "vertical-software",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "payments",
      "description": "Why the point of sale is the most underrated wedge in vertical software",
      "summary": "An argument that the point of sale is the most under-priced wedge into vertical workflows. The post explains why owning the POS moment yields outsized data, payment, and workflow integration leverage compared to other entry points, and walks through how vertical software companies should think about POS as a category-defining lever.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/the-power-of-point-of-sale-products.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "VERP product strategy",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/verp-product-strategy-vertical-software-payments",
      "year": "2022",
      "tags": [
        "vertical-software",
        "frameworks",
        "payments",
        "fintech"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "vertical-software",
      "isPopular": true,
      "description": "Product strategy for vertical-software companies that monetize via payments",
      "summary": "Matt's foundational VERP (Vertical Software + Payments) framework. The post defines the VERP category, lays out the product-strategy decisions that distinguish strong from weak VERPs, and connects the framework to broader patterns in how vertical software companies should sequence feature, payment, and lending launches.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/verp-product-strategy-vertical-software-payments.md"
    },
    {
      "title": "Building category-defining VERPs",
      "url": "https://notes.mtb.xyz/p/how-to-build-a-category-defining-verp",
      "year": "2022",
      "tags": [
        "vertical-software",
        "payments",
        "fintech",
        "frameworks"
      ],
      "primary_topic": "vertical-software",
      "description": "What it takes to build a category-defining VERP",
      "summary": "A step-through of what it takes to build a category-defining vertical ERP (VERP), from product strategy through fintech monetization. The post extends the VERP framework with the playbook details that distinguish category-defining VERPs from solid-but-mediocre ones, focusing on the sequencing of feature, payment, and lending product launches.",
      "platform": "notes.mtb.xyz",
      "is_external": false,
      "markdown_url": "/posts/how-to-build-a-category-defining-verp.md"
    }
  ]
}