Ruston Miles, Founder, Chief Strategy & Development Officer at Bluefin | Episode 437

Ruston Miles, Founder and Chief Strategy and Development Officer at Bluefin and I start with the origin story: telecom roots, fiber‑rich Tulsa, and the overlooked reality of call centers that needed real‑time authorizations long before shopping carts ruled the web. Ruston explains why Bluefin moved into security early - serving higher ed, nonprofits, and faith‑based media where brand trust is everything and how that path led to P2PE. Then comes the turning point: a decision to decouple encryption from acquiring, offer P2PE as a service, and even power competitors. That platform approach now supports around 150 devices across 17 manufacturers and underpins airlines, transport systems, fuel networks, and more, often quietly and often by requirement.

From there, we look ahead. Network tokens are rising, wallets are changing, and AI is pushing commerce from clicks to intent. Ruston separates hype from reality, showing how today’s “agentic” automation schedules deliveries and completes checkouts, while tomorrow’s agents will present payment credentials securely without platforms ever seeing raw card data. That shift demands virtual P2PE, inter‑agent boundary mediation, and standards that let authentication and encryption travel with the transaction. We also get practical: how Bluefin’s P2PE‑as‑Proxy reduces integration pain, why security must keep pace with innovation, and what skills newcomers need as software continues to digest payments.

If you care about payments security, PCI, P2PE, tokenization, gateways, ISVs, and the future of agentic commerce, you’ll find plenty to take back to your roadmap.