Suggestions
Dwayne Gefferie
The Payments Strategist | Helping Payments Companies Scale. Sharing Research, Strategy & Tactics.
Dwayne Gefferie is a multifaceted professional with extensive experience in the payments industry. He is currently a Writer at Payments Strategy Breakdown, where he shares strategic breakdowns of payment companies and insights into how enterprise merchants develop strategies around payments on a weekly basis.23
Professional Background
Gefferie has established himself as an:
- Entrepreneur
- Speaker
- Author
- Scholar
- Data scientist
- Payments consultant1
He has over 20 years of experience in Payments, Data Science, and Analytics.6 Throughout his career, Gefferie has provided insights to major companies including ING Bank, Spotify, Facebook, and Uber.6
Current Roles and Expertise
Payments Strategist:: Gefferie identifies himself as a payments strategist, focusing on helping payment businesses strategize to improve their revenues, profits, and scale.5 His expertise spans across commercial, strategy, operations, and foreign exchange aspects of payments advisory.5
Writer and Analyst:: Through his Substack newsletter "Payments Strategy Breakdown," Gefferie regularly shares:
- Strategic breakdowns of payment companies
- Insights into enterprise merchants' payment strategies
- Analysis of industry trends, such as the "Embeddification of Payments"4
Thought Leadership
Gefferie is known for his insights on data-driven strategies and the importance of embracing data in organizational culture. He advocates for:
- Making someone responsible for data within organizations
- Aligning organizational aspirations with the Data Value Chain
- Developing strategies in line with data-driven goals
- Attracting talent to fulfill data strategies1
Dwayne Gefferie's LinkedIn username is indeed dwaynegefferie, as mentioned in the query.45
Highlights
Why Getting Hired In Payments Becomes More Difficult, the More Experienced You Are.
Payments are quite the conundrum.
While there are new startups created every single day who are looking to help merchants make their processing easier, there is already an industry that has been thriving for over 30 years.
Because of that, I am noticing how experienced professionals, are struggling to get hired by these fast-growing startups and scale-ups.
On one side, you have experienced payment professionals, often referring to themselves as payment geeks or nerds, who have essentially laid the foundation of this industry.
Professionals who started at companies that have gone through mergers, acquisitions, listings, and de-listings.
The kind of professionals I just ask questions, and eagerly soak up all of their knowledge and stories.
But on the other side, we now have payments startups, who are literally changing the game.
Either by embracing the Blockchain, developing payment features for AI Agents to pay by themselves, or redesigning entire payments infrastructures.
The challenge I see is that most of these new startups view decades of payments experience as a "Bad Thing."
A lot of them think that just because someone spends 20 years in the trenches at Fiserv, or Worldpay, or PayPal, they can't add value because they have to explain to them what an AI Agent is or how the Blockchain works.
And to me, that is the biggest mistake they can make.
Let me explain...
While the way people interact with payments is changing, most new startups are just further extractions or innovations built on top of the core systems and platforms.
Any startup needs an experienced person around who understands this and what it takes to succeed.
Explaining to them what this new innovative technology is going to, is just a small price to pay.
So, if you are an experienced payments professional who is struggling to get hired, which is causing you to stay at your company longer than you would like, or being forced to branch out into consulting, I would recommend trying this.
Embrace your experiences, but also stay on top of what is changing and what is coming.
It's not about being stuck or feeling overqualified—it’s about recognizing the unique value your experience brings to a constantly evolving industry.
For veterans, the depth of your expertise is an asset, not a barrier.
For the younger generation, your eagerness is the foundation of innovation.
The real magic happens when these two forces collaborate.
I’ve seen it time and time again—those who lean into their strengths and adapt to the market dynamics find growth, no matter where they are in their career.
Payments is a space where evolution meets expertise.
There’s room for both.
P.S. Check out my newsletter https://buff.ly/3RXzt7Z
Why 8-digit BINs Actually Help Merchants Achieve Higher Payment Acceptance.
In the last few weeks, I have spent dozens of hours discussing payments optimization with PSPs, Acquirers, and Merchants.
While there are many topics I could address, the one that continues to stick out to me is BIN Data.
Especially how most merchants still rely on incomplete or inaccurate card data, which leads to more failed transactions and lost sales.
And the big issue about it is that most of them don't even know this is a problem.
If a merchant still relies solely on 6-digit BIN lookups, they often get incomplete or sometimes even inaccurate card data, which, if their logic is built on it, can lead to incorrect routing decisions.
However, handling sensitive card information like the full PAN (Primary Account Number) comes with significant PCI DSS compliance burdens that most merchants would rather not have to deal with, as managing it themselves would mean substantial investments in security.
However, as the shift from 6-digit to 8-digit BINs is happening across the industry, the truth of the matter is that most merchants are still unprepared for it. Risking transaction declines and dissatisfied customers, as their transactions are getting declined with no good reason.
So what should merchants do instead?
Luckily, 8-digit BINs haven't just been announced; it has actually been a transition for more than half a decade.
The best way merchants should resolve the issues of low acceptance performance due to 8-digit BINs is to...
Start utilizing 8-digit BINs!
By updating internal systems and or ensuring that their providers are providing this data to them, merchants can import the 8-digit BINs and receive more accurate card attribute identifications, such as Card Type, Card Category, Funding Type, Issuer Country, and more.
This creates new levels of data collecting that can help with improving routing precision, and reducing failed transactions.
But what about the PCI-DSS issues?
The best way to leverage Full PANs is by using Tokenization.
By having a third-party Vault that provides Tokenization, merchants can access the full PAN's rich data without taking on direct PCI compliance risks, which enables them to make better decisions and improve their customer experience.
To me, utilizing BIN data is a no-brainer; I have worked on both Issuing and Acquiring, where I have had full transparency on this data and have utilized it to build internal solutions and services.
As merchants take more ownership of their own Payments stack, utilizing as much data as possible, especially 8-digit BIN data, becomes a necessity to ensure that their business is future-proof and can remain competitive and compliant.
Let me know what you think, have 8-digit BINs helped your merchants get better authorization rates?
P.S. Check out my newsletter https://buff.ly/3RXzt7Z
People also viewed
Related People
Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.