DCA Commerce Code

This week on Commerce Code, we speak with Keith Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Payouts Network [https://payoutsnetwork.com/]. Payouts Network’s PayNow Platform [https://payoutsnetwork.com/platform] executes instant payouts, digital credits, and pay with points - and as the name suggests, PayNow executes immediately. Today, we talk with Keith about Points as Programmable Currency. We have lived in a long period in which people, Americans especially, never questioned or even really thought much about what currency is, how it works or whether it might change. A big-picture view suggests that currency can be lots of things - and it’s not ridiculous to think that the next step in currency evolution could come out of the points/rewards/loyalty landscape.

EPISODE 186C: This is the third installment in our three-part series on intelligent shopping agents - an extended conversation with Shawn Conahan, Chief Revenue Officer at Wildfire Systems [https://www.wildfire-corp.com]. In the first episode, Shawn laid out what ISAs are, and in the second episode we talked about how ISAs will affect payments, consumers and merchants. At the end of that episode, Dan had just asked Shawn how they would affect loyalty programs - and since Wildfire Systems is a key player in the loyalty market, Shawn’s answer won’t disappoint you - he’s thought about this a lot, and his answer is thoroughly researched. Let’s pick up the conversation where we left off. Shawn - what does this all mean for loyalty programs?

EPISODE 186B: This is the second installment in our three-part series on intelligent shopping agents - an extended conversation with Shawn Conahan, Chief Revenue Officer at Wildfire Systems [https://www.wildfire-corp.com]. In Monday’s episode, Shawn laid out what ISAs are, and when we concluded Dan had just asked him how shopping (search, selection, and payment) fully integrated into AI platforms like Perplexity or Chat GPT would affect the payments industry. Let’s pick up the conversation where we left off. Shawn - what does this all mean for the payments industry?

EPISODE 186A This week on Commerce Code, we have a first-of-its kind, three-episode Commerce Code Deep Dive on AI Shopping Agents. For all three episodes, we speak with Shawn Conahan, Chief Revenue Officer at Wildfire Systems [https://www.wildfire-corp.com/]. Wildfire provides white-label shopping rewards and cashback platforms to companies like Microsoft, Visa, Citi, and RBC. By the end of this first episode, you will see how huge the implications are of AI shopping agents - and you will probably be out playing with them if you haven’t already. Wednesday’s episode will unpack what AI Shopping Agents mean for Payments, Consumers and Merchants. We don’t want to spoil it for you, but in that conversation, we might conclude that when the dust has settled, payments will still exist, consumers will still exist, and merchants … might or might not still exist, depending. And in the third episode, we’ll take a look at how AI shopping agents will affect Loyalty and Marketing, Google, Amazon, and other fundamental things we take for granted today. Stay tuned for our first of three episodes in this week’s series: Intelligent Shopping Agents Attack! What Are They, and What Are They Doing?

This week on Commerce Code, we speak with Chrissy Maitland, General Manager of Rakuten Card Linked Offers. Rakuten is a longstanding leader in DCA-CardLinx, and powers the card-linked offer programs for leading financial services companies, mobile app providers and loyalty rewards programs. They provide merchants with a scalable pay-for-performance channel that efficiently drives traffic and sales in-Store and online. Today we are talking about: * The changed consumer environment in 2025 * The importance of value to consumers now * What that looks like in light of a very fast-moving political and economic situation globally * What merchants, financial services companies and other digital commerce professionals need to do to adapt and grow during what is already a complicated year