Year in Review: North American Bancard Claimed Multiple Honors in 2023

By Dave Galens

As these December days blur into a holiday haze and the year comes to a close, it’s time to look back on 2023’s memorable events for NAB. It was a very good year for the robots, as automation and AI became the big buzz for pundits and fearful copywriters. Both Elton John and Ozzy Osbourne retired from touring (no word on their rumored duets album, however). Willie Nelson turned 90, providing further proof that high-risk CBD endeavors really do pay off. “Barbenheimer” blew up the box office, vinyl outsold CDs for the first time since 1987, and the makers of Now and Later candy did a victory lap as the Buy Now Pay Later trend took off.

Newsworthy for sure, but we’re here to reflect on the exciting things that happened in the world of North American Bancard. Here’s the high notes for the fintech year that was.

JANUARY

North American Bancard is a Best Place To Work. We file this in the “we agree!” department, but it was incredibly cool being recognized by business tech giant Built In. They added our name to their prestigious Best Places to Work Awards. The annual honors include companies of all sizes based in large tech markets across the U.S. NAB nabbed spots on the lists for Best Large Places to Work in both the Los Angeles and New York areas.

 FEBRUARY

Payments Hub debuts Reputation Management. The mighty merchant portal got even mightier in early 2023, bringing business owners the power to manage their online reputations. With this service, they can get insights on ratings and review trends, email alerts when they get new reviews, and powerful ways to engage with their customers by replying directly to those reviews. That’s a pretty solid rep, if we do say so ourselves.

PayTrace welcomes new VP muscle. The B2B payments tech leader announced the addition of Lindsay Mowery, Senior Vice President of Sales, and Federica Melis, Vice President of ISV Sales, to its leadership team. Mowery and Melis upped PayTrace’s already impressive game with their B2B sales experience and vast expertise in building high-performing technology teams.

MARCH

Humboldt joins the fight against human crime. While high-risk businesses are their specialty, Humboldt is also committed to building a better world. A primary focus for the company is the eradication of scams, human trafficking, child exploitation, and elder abuse. That’s why they joined forces with the Knoble, a non-profit network that works with financial institutions and law enforcement to stamp out human crime.

NAB’s Kera Logan and Erick Weinstein are movers and shakers. The ETA (the Electronic Transaction Association) put out their 2023 Forty under 40 class — and there were Kera and Erick’s names among the honorees. The prestigious list recognizes the innovators and influencers who shape the payments industry. Kera is NAB’s Director of PCI Compliance and Enterprise Risk Communications, and Erick is a CWA VP — and they are definitely positive influences on our world.

 MAY

NAB is a triple threat on the Nilson list. Nilson’s ranking of Top U.S. Merchant Acquirers had our name on it for three different categories: Top 5 in Card Not Present (CNP) Acquiring; Top 6 in Purchase Transactions (nonbank); and Top 8 in Purchase Volume (nonbank). If we hadn’t already used the word four times, we’d say this is a “top” honor for us … um, let’s just go ahead and make that five times.

 JUNE

Acronyms assemble! NAB gets a TSG API Award. While we love the work, it’s always nice to be noticed for our fintech solutions. TSG, also known as “The Strawhecker Group,” named North American Bancard in its 2023 “Best of Breed” API Awards, which rank payment gateways’ overall application programming interface experience. BTW, why isn’t there an acronym for the word “acronym”?

Payments Hub Premium Plus arrives. Making our merchant portal even better, June brought a new Payments Hub plan to the mix. The addition of the Premium Plus Plan gave customers even more flexibility in choosing the features and pricing that best fit their business. Premium Plus joined its older siblings, the Free and Premium Plans, in the neverending quest to make payments processing better for all businesskind.

NAB’s Pawel Lee honored with the Analytics Practitioner of the Year Award. Dr. Lee earned this prestigious award for his work using advanced machine learning capabilities to manage and mitigate risk. The honor recognizes individual achievements in the data science industry. Take that, ChatGPT.

 AUGUST

North American Bancard Receives the Global Sustainability Award. Like Kermit says, “it’s not easy being green,” but we believe it’s worth the work. So we were tremendously honored to receive the Sustainability Leadership Award from the Business Intelligence Group. The award goes to organizations whose actions prove sustainability is a core business objective. Sustain? If it means living in a greener world, NAB will hold that note all day long.

 SEPTEMBER

North American Bancard named a diversity focused company. Corp! magazine held their Salute to Diversity Awards in September, and NAB was honored to be a part of it all. The ceremony put a spotlight on organizations that champion diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and achievements. It’s more delicious frosting on the cake to be awarded for something that brings such strength and benefit to NAB.

OCTOBER

Halloween shopping? Payanywhere hands out a real treat. In October, Payanywhere debuted Tap to Pay on iPhone for customers to accept contactless payments. With the Payanywhere iOS app, business owners can now accept all types of in-person, contactless payments right on their iPhone — with no extra terminals or hardware needed.

NOVEMBER

Thankful to be a Best Employer. NAB grabbed the Best Employer Award at the 2023 U.S. FinTech Awards. Seems that people love our people-focused initiatives like well-being, ZenSpend, and our leadership development and engagement initiatives. But let’s talk turkey: You can’t be a great employer without amazing employees.

 And those were just some of North American Bancard’s big events in 2023. Hard to believe we fit it all into a single year, but that’s the NAB way. And we’re not slowing down. The next 12 months are going to be full of surprises, innovations, and wow-worthy moments. If you want to know the direction for the future, just look North.