The Payments Experts Podcast
Expert payments attorneys discuss the electronic payments industry from a legal perspective.
The Payments Experts Podcast
The CPayO: Chief Payment Officer - The Role Which Doesn't Exist (but should!) | Book Talk | PEP090
The CPayO: Making Payments a First-Class Function (with Viktoria Soltesz)
Payments isn’t a line item. It’s the circulatory system of your business. In this episode, we sit down with Viktoria Soltesz (https://www.solteszinstitute.com/), author of The CPayO: Chief Payment Officer — the role that doesn’t exist (but should), to map why every serious merchant, ISO, PayFac, or ISV needs an executive who owns payments end-to-end: banking, risk, data, UX, contracts, and compliance. We move from first principles to field practice: how to negotiate bank and processor relationships, design checkout that doesn’t kill conversion, and plan for scale before your success trips a risk wire.
Why this conversation matters
Payments as strategy, not plumbing. Treat acceptance, disbursements, and data flows like an operating system, not a vendor invoice. That shift reduces cost, raises approval rates, and gives you leverage when something breaks.
The CPayO mandate. One executive accountable across finance, legal, product, risk, and engineering to set policy, pick vendors, and own KPIs (auth rates, cost to collect, dispute cycle time, days-cash-held).
Scale without surprises. When volume or business model changes outgrow your original merchant profile, renegotiate and re-paper before a processor “discovers” it for you.
UX meets settlement. Beautiful storefronts die at clunky checkouts; payment UX and processor choices must be designed together or you pay in declines and abandonment.
Global is different. Cross-border means new providers, fees, licensing expectations, and regulators. Education and governance beat gut feel every time.
What we get into
Money doesn’t just support your business—it shapes it. We sit down with Viktoria Soltez, author and payments strategist, to argue that payments deserve a seat at the executive table and outline why a Chief Payment Officer can be the difference between smooth scaling and daily firefighting. From clunky gateways that crush a luxury checkout to contracts that quietly handcuff your margins, we unpack where revenue really leaks and how to build systems that make payments feel invisible to customers and unbreakable for teams.
We dive into the literacy gap that plagues even sophisticated companies: finance understands banking but not acquiring, UX ships beautiful flows that fall apart at the pay wall, and legal treats merchant agreements like phone plans. Viktoria explains how to plan your payment flows before you launch new products or markets, how to renegotiate when your profile changes, and why measuring fees against profit—not revenue—reveals the true cost of “just 3 percent.” We also tackle cross-border expansion, scheme monitoring programs, and the rising importance of dispute management and data ownership.
If this conversation helped you see your money movement in a new way, follow the show, share it with a teammate who owns checkout, and leave a quick review—what’s the one payments question you want us to tackle next?
Renegotiation is a skill. You’re not the business you were 3–5 years ago; neither are your vendors. Go back to market for price, terms, data rights, and true support.
AI and “agentic” checkouts. Tomorrow’s buyer may be a bot acting for the customer. That demands machine-readable product, pricing, and payment flows your systems can actually satisfy.
Education gap = risk. Most teams don’t know what to ask. Build internal playbooks for boarding, changes in scope, chargeback ops, and incident response so success doesn’t trigger shutdowns.
The real cost of “3%.” Cost to collect must be measured against profit, not revenue; a “small” fee can erase margins if you aren’t optimizing routing and terms.
A usable CPayO playbook
Own the metrics. Track approval rates by BIN/region, cost to collect by rail, refund/chargeback ratios, dispute cycle time,
A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm
Author of the CPAO, Chief Payment Officer, the role which doesn't exist but should Victoria Soltez.
SPEAKER_00:But you just don't know what you don't know.
SPEAKER_01:If you I'm not much of a consumer, but what you just described, I think I see the amount of Amazon packages that show up at my house. So I I understand that people are. Me, I don't buy anything online, really, to be honest with you. Even though this is what I do, I'm like, I'm such not a consumer. But what you just said, I do think is important because most people's shopping experience is visual online these days. And with I AI, I think that's only gonna increase, right? I mean, it is gonna be like your AI is gonna be like, hey, I want this. And you know, do me a favor, go find this in five and then give me a presentation, right? And and in that presentation, I think is really gonna matter. Like, you know, if Brad Pitt's wearing my shirt, I automatically feel better about the shirt.
SPEAKER_00:That's so true.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to the Payments Experts Podcast. A podcast of global legal offer. We hope you enjoyed this episode. We're really, really excited about this podcast today. We've got a remote podcast joining us in the studio is managing and founding partner of Global Legal Awfer, Christopher Dryden, as well as our special guest, Victoria Soltez of the Coltec Institute and author of the book, the CKO, which is a very payment officer. There it is, Beth.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like I'm on the prices right now. It's great.
SPEAKER_02:The position that doesn't exist but should. Victoria, I think this is your third time on our podcast. We're really excited that you're here. Welcome.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you so much for having uh having me back and giving me the opportunity to talk about what I love, which is payments and banking and how money moves. So thank you so much, guys, for having me back.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. I'm I'm I haven't had the opportunity to actually interface with you, which I've I was looking forward to because I wasn't aware of your book. And then Jeremy showed it to me when we were getting ready to do the podcast because we had to reschedule this. And for me, I looked at it and I looked at Jeremy's outline for it, and then I didn't have an opportunity to read it, and then we got delayed, and I did have an opportunity to read it before we did the podcast, which I was like, I I didn't want to just have to skim it. It was it was great. I I have a hard time explaining to people, Victoria, about what we do as lawyers. Like people in my life, people will say, Oh, what kind of an attorney are you? And I'm like, you know, I have to give them sort of a I'm I'm in fintech, but really I'm in payment processing. Like they have no idea what I'm talking about. And they and so it's interesting to me to have somebody bring something. There hasn't always been a lot of, I mean, there's industry publications, but those are for people who understand what's actually happening. There's not something that's like an introductory to digital payment or payment, and I felt like your book did a really awesome job of providing a reader a digestible way to kind of understand the payments infrastructure. Because look, I do training sessions with new employees all the time, and it takes three, four sessions of at least an hour or two to go through the architecture of the payments infrastructure and then kind of like the history of it to show people where it was, how it changed, what's still legacy that exists within it, but how technology's driven it forward. And we've even done some different outreach to local bar associations here in California to and put on webinars to discuss payments. Because I think every business attorney that represents a company that is unfamiliar with this should counsel with the payments council because once you get into a payment relationship, renegotiating is very difficult. And you already like, I don't think that some businesses understand their bargaining power. And when you when you just take it for granted as though it's this uh this commodity that's needed in order for you to run your business, well, look, when the percentage of sales have gotten to a place where it's like the supermajority of your sales are through this, and you've decided that you're willing to give away a substantial percentage of the overall revenue that cuts into your margin. I'm not sure how many attorneys are even looking at it that way. Uh unfortunately, our outreach was unsuccessful. So, but before we get started, um, I think it would be beneficial for everybody to know who you are and where you're from and you know how kind of how you've gotten to payments.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's a long story, right? Because no one wants to be a payment professional from kindergarten. You just somehow end up being a payment professional. So do the same thing with me as well. 20 years ago, I'm thinking about it, it's already too many years. Uh, but yeah, 20 years ago, Cyprus, which is a very small island in the Mediterranean in Europe, just joined the EU. So I was younger, uh, went there, and um, I got involved in setting up uh companies, optimizing the taxes. But you know, 20 years ago, banking was completely different. We just opened a bank account with a simple passport copyfaxed over to the bank. So there was not that much of a discussion about banking. Everything was about taxation, optimization, the whole world opened up. But a couple of years later, um, I realized that all my clients are suffering with how we move funds, what are the international banking regulations? Some payments go through, some providers cannot be paid. So, you know, Europe was actually a big melting pot of all these payments and banking problems, and they just started. So the client still had this my money, my rules, why the bank is asking questions kind of attitude. But of course, they had a problem, right? So who do you cope when you have a problem? Your accountant. And I was clueless that how comes that something is legal and everything is okay, but the bank has a completely different approach to it. And they do have the right to restrict transactions or, you know, give you a hard time. So that was a time when I um I was really curious about the whys. So I started to dig deeper, and you know how it is. You get into the rabbit hole, and then you really realize how PayPach is working and card processing, and then the fintech went through a whole boom, different payment methods, different regulations, different countries. So I kind of get sucked into it simply because I did not really understand how this payment and banking world works. And by understanding even just the bare minimum basics, I could help my clients so much better for the tax advisory as well, and then help them with the banking and payment setup and whatnot. So this led to um opening my own consultancy, which is right now dealing with payment and banking strategy building, which is, I think it's quite unique, just like your law firm is like legal advice on payments and banking while we do the strategy and the internal setup. And last year, I opened an institute because I realized that whoever is making decisions over payments and banking have no clue because there is no education. So that's the kind of mission that uh that we are fighting for today uh to create an ethical and transparent industry where everybody has the relevant education and the opportunity to optimize their payment and banking flows, not to get ripped off, have a knowledge about their rights, obligations. And as you said, it goes back to what is a bank, why they are giving you a heading, what is regulation, how did it evolve until what we have today. So it has a lot of different aspects to it, and that's what it makes it super interesting. Because today, payments and banking really affect every area of the organization, right? It has a bit of touch on the user experience, how you check out and pay for goods and services online, but it has risk, it has compliance, it has tech, because fintech is obviously a part of that is tech and the innovation and the data security. So, so many areas that right now no one is really no one has really the seniority to make the relevant decisions over all of these little interdependent kind of areas of the organization.
SPEAKER_01:Or or even to even to understand it, right? I mean, it it's um I everything that you just said, I feel like is very spot on to whatever business function for whatever business. And it's crazy because all of these businesses, even sophisticated ones, even law firms, they enter into these contracts that are just like your cell phone agreement these days. You just take it for granted. That's right. So, like an individual enters into an ATT agreement over here or a Verizon agreement, and they just don't, they don't read the fine print. It's just like, here, give me my service, what's my fee? Yada, yada, yada. They don't understand that there's a lot of terms and conditions that go with it. They don't review them, they just hit click the button. And I think that that happens even with sophisticated businesses over here, that merchant processing agreements are just something that is a part of what I have to do. Yeah, and there is no scrutiny on any of it, right? And what happens when your revenue gets so large? Like, you know, you're talking about banking, and you know, every CFO controller, they have a great background on banking, usually come from a CPA background. Our controller, she's had to learn payments and what we do, just period, right? And so I think, you know, one of the purposes of you writing this book was sort of to kind of put payments on the same scale as banking within the importance of an organization, you know, and how it gets structured, and that it should have, you know, the same importance as finance, product delivery, service delivery, uh, even legal. I think legal might have less of an impact depending on what industry you're in, right? I mean, or or or how you're delivering goods or service. Like, I think it's a part of it, but I think payments is just as important. Like, it is that um, you know, I it's kind of like payments operates invisibly, you know. Is that really kind of what you're trying to expand or expound in in this particular book and how you're presenting it to people? Like, what was the what was the purpose of the CPAO primarily for you?
SPEAKER_00:I think that there is a big shift in um how you're planning an organization today, because everybody's going abroad, you're targeting new markets with the help of the internet, you can actually start a new operation from your bedroom, right? But as soon as you go abroad, that's when you start realizing that uh-oh, these are different providers, different fees, different terms and conditions, different, you know, obligations. So the whole thing opens up a whole pardoner's box. So what I realized is that today you are not just having an idea, doing an MVP, going to new markets, or even starting out that new product or or or service in your local area, and then you just find a bank or a payment provider just to collect funds for it. It's no longer the case. First, you need to really understand that how you are gonna get paid. How are you going to pay your supplier and pay it all and obviously the shareholders for the profit? And once you have a clear understanding on those flows, then you build an operation around it. And with this approach, you can avoid so much of a headache and issues and high fees, and oh, I didn't know, and firefighting. So, what I see today is that there is a shift in the industry where banks have more say in your business than okay, I'm not coming from a paid payment angle, so obviously I was saying that, you know, uh, than any other area of your business.
SPEAKER_01:No, we we we had a podcast about this yesterday, really. Like it's it's interesting you say this, but yeah, I I think I I think you're spot on. Um, payments is kind of like in the background, and even your bank doesn't necessarily understand acquiring either.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Chris, you said something before. You said payments is the center of the universe in terms of running a business, and I think that's kind of something what Victoria's getting at as well.
unknown:That's right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I like I I think what you said, not to like filibuster, but what you were talking about with actually I uh the cross-border thing is one thing, and I we could spend an hour on that. And I don't want to get lost down that rabbit hole because to me that's fascinating. You start getting cross-border and you're in a whole new world because everything just really it makes it. I I think from that perspective, having a really strong payments person isn't just a plus, it's a need, right? I mean, but the thing about payments is it kind of sits in, like I said when I started, it's like this it's this given, you know? And what you just described was here, let me figure out how my business is supposed to flow and then build the payment around it, which I think is great because if you're gonna have a banking partner, I think it's better that you have one that actually understands payment processing.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. And I personally put payment and banking under the same umbrella simply because I'm looking at a business like um a human body. And the payment and banking is the circulation. So you need um a specialist in cardiology to be able to make sure that all the veins are are flowing, everything is unclogged, everything is healthy, it's expendable, scalable, it it fulfills all the needs from every other organs in the body. It works exactly with the payments and banking. And of course, yeah, banking are the part of the of the payment, which is taking care of the settlement and acquiring and whatnot. Obviously, you can get into the details. If you see things from this perspective, anything which has to do with moving money from A to B, that could be considered under the same importance. So, therefore, banking and payment should be planned for, should be taken care of. And that's what I'm trying to advocate for that those days are long gone when you just walk into a bank, open a whatever financial product, and that is going to support you for 20 years. No, no, no, fintech is always changing. There's new technological innovations, there's new regulation, there is new things, there are changes in the price, in the terms and conditions, and good luck for someone to figure out because you don't know what you don't know. It's not just the fine print, it's about even asking the question that hey, what about if, what happens when? Then we are talking about, for example, scalability. I mean, when you're a startup, you just try to get out as soon as possible, fix it. Okay, it works more or less, let's roll. But then the real problem hits you when you want to scale up. Now your local bank is not supporting you. Now your gateway, which you integrated, you know, three years ago on a friendly advice, and you develop something internally which makes it made it okay, is no longer supporting your business when you have 10,000 clicks and clients are queuing up to pay you. So those are the little areas that now we are talking about, it makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:But we talked about it, yeah. We talked about this yesterday on the podcast. Like one of the things that's missing in America with payments is between the people here and the users, yes, there's not a good communication module. And so I think even before you get to what you just described, if it when you said the quite what questions to ask, look, if my payment goes down, right? Can I pick up the phone and actually get a hold of somebody who can do something? If you have a negotiated agreement and you're just dealing with a reseller, even though there's limitations on customer service even there, right? And how do you like or chargebacks? If you're in a high volume car not present business, right? How do I manage or create a uh uh or or does my provider offer me something that has a very easy flow back and forth to be able to contest chargebacks, issue refunds? Like, I don't know how much you're experiencing this in Europe, but in America, we just went through some changes on it's in Visa's uh its monitoring program and how it deals with thresholds, it's called VAMP. Yes, and they changed the way that they calculate the acceptable thresholds for returns and chargebacks. And where previously, whereas I mean, friendly fraud can be considerable, when merchants were able to get in front of it, now they're actually tightening and clamping down on the ability to get in front of it and refund people. And so there's gonna be a huge squeeze related to that, and I guarantee you they don't have anybody to really call and talk to about it. I mean, trying to get hold of the card brands is ridiculous. But having a good banking partner, I think having an executive or an executive position would really change maybe the perception that the bank even looks at the merchant with, right? I mean, I'm gonna negotiate on the front end, I'm gonna ask the right questions, and then I'm gonna go ahead from there and have like some sort of connection point to my bank when something goes wrong.
SPEAKER_00:That's so true. I think it's time that people start to realize that payment is not just something like, hmm, this is the this is life, this is what we need to deal with. Well, that's given and we are gonna manage. No, no, no. You've got a lot of opportunity, as you said, to renegotiate, to understand, to change. Like in this time and age, there are so many other providers out there. But if you just pick any business owner, I can guarantee that the majority of them won't be able to understand what the payment data shows. Or, for example, what is a gateway, right? So even the basic understanding common knowledge is missing. And if your accountant is making a decision on your user experience or risk or tech integration, like you are in trouble. And I think this is the time when we need to um need to put things in perspective that yes, payments, how you collect money from your clients is just as important and need to be strategized for, like a marketing plan, like a go-to-market sales plan. You need to plan for these things. You need to understand your opportunities, your options, as you said, the prices, the terms. And the whole industry needs to have supporting uh experts. For example, you guys advising on the legal part, me building the strategy, or other people who are also explaining these things to you. So it is it is more important now than ever before. And to be honest with you, I think it's only gonna get more complicated because now we have to.
SPEAKER_01:I agree with you. You know, you said something in your book that I find interesting. You said, you know, the way that payments, like how you believe it operates and then how it like actually is managed, these are two different things. And and you you You know, you had some specific examples. Could you kind of give a background of like, I mean, I we've sort of been talking about it, but you know, how like I and I and I agree with you, what you just described with you know, not having a CPA make some uncertain decisions on the subject matter you were just stating. I I think a a a real real world example of that would be beneficial.
SPEAKER_00:Easiest example. I was talking to um uh a CFO in a big conference, and you know, when we are like queuing up, having coffee, and we started to talk about the most important thing that I like, obviously, payments and banking. And um, I just casually mentioned to him that, you know, that all the banks and the payment providers that you started to work with 20 years ago when you started the business now are in a whole different light. So you can actually go back and renegotiate your fees, and you could see the person's face was like changing. Oh my God, I didn't even know that. And I'm bad that I saved him at that moment like hundreds of thousands of dollars just because now we are talking about it. Yes, of course I can go back. I'm not the same business as I was 20 years ago. The bank is not the same as they were 20 years ago. Let's see what else is out there for me. But just because you're not talking about it, it's not taught in the university. It's not, no one knows the best practices and standards. You don't know. Oh, for example, there was a um there was another client of mine who was uh dealing with luxury products. It was a beautiful face creams, so everything was about user experience, how the journey goes, the client goes on the website, picks the beautiful creams and uh and the color coordination and the font and the design and animation. And then they had a payment processor who's absolutely killing the whole user experience because it was this monochrome, dodgy-looking, put your car details here. So, whatever you built and spent a lot of money on the user experience before could be broken at the last minute on the checkout. Why? Because the UX person has no clue about the technology, has no clue about payment terms and conditions, and maybe finance said that, hey guys, these payment providers charging us half a percent less. Let's integrate that, right? But now we are talking about it. Now it's a funny story, but you just don't know what you don't know.
SPEAKER_01:If you are I'm not much of a consumer, but what you just described, I think I see the amount of Amazon packages that show up at my house. So I I understand that people are. Um, me, I don't buy anything online, really, to be honest with you. But even though this is what I do, I'm like, I'm such not a consumer. But what you just said, I do think is important because most people's shopping experience is visual online these days. And with I AI, I think that's only gonna increase, right? I mean, it is gonna be like your AI is gonna be like, hey, I want this, and you know, do me a favor, go find this in five and then give me a presentation, right? And and that presentation, I think, is really gonna matter. Like, you know, if Brad Pitt's wearing my shirt, I automatically feel better about the shirt.
SPEAKER_00:That's so true. But I think I think here you mention a very important part, which is the agentic payment. And I think everybody is dreading that, and no one really understands what's going on. Because now UX is going to be completely changing. It's no more human UX. You need to satisfy the AI. How the AI is going to find you, click data security, checkout on your page, taking care of all the payment processes. So good luck to you if you're an e-commerce business.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that's a whole nother podcast, too, right? I mean, like, yeah, like AI and how it's gonna interact with payments. We've done it in spurts and we've talked about it here, but I think it's just still too early. I think there's gonna be a lot of bumps in the road as they try to implement different concepts with it. Um but that that just adds a whole other layer, like of can you can you sell to my robot? Like, you know, like what world are we living in all of a sudden? You know, another thing you say in your book, which I thought was interesting, is you say the CPAO is invisible. And I like a really good CPAO is invisible. And I think you're I I happen to agree with that statement, but tell people why the good CPAO is invisible.
SPEAKER_00:It's the same way how a good policeman should be invisible. Why? Because they only turn off when there is a problem, right? Or a good firefighter. I don't see firefighters because they are doing a good job that my house is not on fire. It's exactly the same for the CPAO. If everything goes well, that means that somebody's taking care of it. As soon as you see the cracks and the fire coming up, then you know that wow, we should have, we could have, we would have. And that's when the problem starts. So the good CPAO should be taking care of the heart and the and the flow of the of the business from the from the beginning. And it doesn't matter how big is your company or what life cycle it is, the CPAO has function in every single step of the way. You are in trouble when you're a startup for different reasons why you're in trouble with your payments when you're a large international organization. But that's the beauty of it that a senior figure who knows a bit of compliance, a bit of UX, a bit of tech, a bit of finance is the only person who will be able to advise you what's the best and optimal way as of today in this ever-changing fintech environment.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, I think the same thing. Like, you know, I talked to our controller about it's not just about um tracking, it's about management, right? And I tell her, look, you know, our AR team, it's important that they understand their importance, right? I mean, we produce the the work that creates the invoices, but we still got to get the money. And so it every everybody has to understand how they they fit into the revenue and expense scheme of the business to some degree. And I what you just said about the CPA, uh, and and something that I appreciate that I think I want to highlight is that businesses like if you change your processing profile from your merchant processing application, it it flags in risk management, right? But when you're a startup and you start to gain volume and you really have something that's working, people don't know to go back. And they also, and I'm not just talking about for renegotiation because I think that's on the table too. I agree with you wholeheartedly. All of a sudden there's bargaining power. Yeah, I'm just talking about for compliance. Like the minute that you get out of the scope of the parameters of your initial application, you better go back because you don't want something happening. And I think somebody who understands payments will be able to tell the business, hey, as you get successful, and and look, I will tell you, here we use ISOs and sales agents, and that's our our bread and butter client. And as I've been in this industry, that used to be who could fog a mirror to now today, the people that are in the industry, they're good at what they do and they understand payments. Many times I go to our clients when I have something that comes across my desk that I don't understand operationally, and I will go to them and I will say, is there a way around this? Like, is there is there something? Have you experienced the same issue and what have you done with it? Because some of our clients, their knowledge of payments is off the charts. I mean, it is crazy. But that's not everybody that signs a business. And so your immediate contact might not even know, like your immediate contact may not even be in the business anymore. And but they need, you know, they they would need to know, like, hey, you guys are really finding some success. I will say that that is one of the things that really is missing in the payment processing world here is customer service. It's kind of like the legal world and the medical world. I don't know if this is just a problem endemic to America, but it's only when there's a problem, right? There's there's nothing that is really building customer service in a way to build relationships, right? And and the really good salespeople that I see have kind of morphed themselves into really good service people too, because they are actually paying attention, not to just what they're paid, but to things going on with their clients, staying in contact. I'd rather have 10 clients that make me a shitload of money than a thousand clients that make me a little bit, and I got to keep replenishing. Like, and that mindset just doesn't really happen here. And I don't know why. And I think that this this you know, CPAO is somebody that could really like for a business that is actually doing volume, that's something that you know they could build.
SPEAKER_00:I agree with you. And I think I think the the problem is not just in the states, it's everywhere, is education and the lack of it. Why? Because I did that, I have experience, I saw someone did that and it was working. So I assume that's gonna help in the future. Where are the benchmarks? Where are the standards? Where are the commonly agreed practices and the frameworks and things what leads the industry? I mean, the whole industry right now is running on gut feeling, and we are talking about money. So, can we just put things in perspective, acknowledge the importance of this, and then build some kind of either certification, education, commonly accepted practices. Just put things in perspective that yes, this is a thing which you cannot avoid as of today, running your business. You have to do payments.
SPEAKER_01:So no way, and you know, it's interesting. What little cross-border I've actually experienced, it's got to be an education in the EU because you do have all of these different countries with different philosophies. The central bank is way more of a player, like in my opinion. Like the way we've architected in America, payments has actually gotten a pass on regulation in quite a bit, uh quite a bit of it. Like we bump into statutory frameworks, but overall, there's nothing that directly regulates us, and there's very little oversight from our our Fed. Whereas, like I see in other countries, really Asia is where I've seen it the most. It's like the central bank runs everything, you know, like Middle East, Asia. And I'm sure there's just all these different philosophies about how to do banking in Europe. It's it's gotta just be overwhelming at times. Like if you want to do, I mean, I guess that's a question. In the EU, has there been a standardization of payment?
SPEAKER_00:Well, in Europe we like to regulate things and maybe over-regulate sometimes. But um, as you said, um, you have to have some kind of disaster to be able to trigger the regulation, unfortunately, because that's how how the world works, right? Something needs to go bad, so there is a regulation around it, so it doesn't happen again in the future. Um, but I think before we are regulating, we just need to at least educate the users. Because if you're regulating without education, you're just not really helping anyone, right? You're putting more penalties on someone who didn't know what to do to start with. So I think that's where you're overreacting.
SPEAKER_01:Or you're overreacting in your approach to respond to whatever the fire was, right?
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And and I think the biggest problem now is like uh there are so many different financial licenses, there's a massive discrepancy on how regulators even think about the same problem in states, in Europe, in Asia, in Africa. Like it is a big soup. It's a mass. And if you are the one who needs to move funds around, then you need to adhere to all of these regulations. Like, good luck doing it on a gut feeling without a proper professional help. And that's that's exactly what uh what we are talking about. That that at least you need to acknowledge that this is a problem and I need help, right?
SPEAKER_01:Totally. So, you know, and go back to your book in chapter five, you talk a lot about fees, right? I mean, you you discuss fees associated, and I and I and I think that this is something that people don't understand everything that actually goes into their payment processing. Why don't you elaborate on that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think uh if people would understand how expensive is payment processing, they would think twice before uh ignoring it. So I have a really easy-to-follow calculation which puts things in perspective. So let's say that you've got a product which you're selling for$100, right? So then you're going to your friendly payment process. Um let's say the average fee on that is 3%. So you think 3% is not gonna hurt me, right? This is okay, it's significant, but it's not that bad. Now, if you're putting this 3% in perspective of not your revenue but your profit, meaning to create that 100 euro,$100 volume of product, you need to spend$80 costs on that, and you put that$3 cost as opposed to the 20%, which is your profit now, it is a significant cost. And sometimes it can be even more.
SPEAKER_01:It's great that you said it's great that you said it that way. But thank you for coming on. It's been a great conversation, and thank you very much for sharing your book with us. It's been great. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Victoria is wonderful. Chris, if you can hold up the book again, we've had our special guest, author of the CPO, Chief Payment Officer, The Role Which Doesn't Exist but Should, Victoria Soltez from the Vic the Soltez Institute. You can find her over at Soltez Institute.com. Victoria, as always, a real pleasure. Chris, thank you so much. All right, and we'll see you on the next one. Bye, Victoria.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Payments Expert Podcast, a podcast of Global Legal Affirm. Visit us online today at Global Legalaw.com. Matters discussed are all opinions that do not constitute legal advice. All events are likeness to real people, and events is a coincidence.