Can AI transform payments without sacrificing trust, compliance, or human judgment?

In this episode of the SEAA Podcast, host Bill Glass sits down with Leo Patching, founder of Kompliant (now part of LegitScript), and Tom Lineen, President of WestTown Payments to explore one of the most important shifts happening in financial services today: the evolution of AI-powered underwriting, merchant risk, and compliance. Together, they break down what agentic AI actually means in regulated payment environments, why "human-in-the-loop" decision-making remains essential, and how banks, ISOs, PayFacs, and fintechs can leverage AI to improve operational efficiency without creating unnecessary regulatory risk. The conversation dives into the industry's transition from traditional point-in-time underwriting to continuous merchant intelligence, discussing how organizations can better detect fraud, automate onboarding, strengthen ongoing monitoring, and build compliance programs that scale. The episode also explores why explainability, auditability, and defensible decision-making will become the defining characteristics of next-generation payment platforms and why simply deploying AI isn't enough.