Transaction Trends

Congratulations to Payarc, winner of this year's ETA prestigious ISO of the Year award!

In an industry obsessed with cutting-edge technology, Payarc's CEO reveals an unexpectedly simple approach that helped the company process $8B annually and land on the Inc 5000 list.

The human factor:

• Back to basics – "It's not very sexy, but we answer the phone," CEO Zach Martinez told ETA's John Losh, challenging the notion that technology alone drives fintech success.

• Surprising hiring priority – While technical skills matter, Martinez ranks "nice people" as his most crucial hiring criterion, revealing how interpersonal qualities affect scaling.

• Culture vs. automation – As companies grow, maintaining personal touch becomes harder, highlighting a tension point for all scaling fintechs.

What AI is actually revealing:

• Analysis of 3,000+ data points showed pricing matters far less than most companies think – less than 20% of customer churn relates to cost.

• The bigger challenge isn't predicting who will leave (they've achieved 80% accuracy) but figuring out what to do with that knowledge.

• AI is shifting from predictive models to actionable intervention strategies.

Industry evolution:

• B2B payments quietly transforming – new technologies like push-to-card and RTP payments seeing increased adoption.

• Behind-the-scenes enablement becoming as valuable as consumer-facing innovation.

• Traditional banks increasingly adopting Visa and Mastercard direct products.

Between the lines: The conversation reveals how the payments industry – despite its technical complexity – still struggles with basic customer service challenges that most industries faced decades ago.

🎧 Listen now: For the full conversation including Payarc's innovative AI approaches and deeper insights on embedded payment trends, check out the complete interview on the Transaction Trending Podcast with John Losh.