Restoring the Promise of the
Eighth Amendment.
The right to bail is constitutional. The ability to pay it — in a world where almost no one carries cash — should not be a structural barrier. 8A Payments was founded to close that gap.
"Excessive bail shall not be required."
— Eighth Amendment, U.S. ConstitutionWhen cash is the only payment option, bail becomes excessive by default — not because of the amount, but because of the friction. 8A Payments is built to restore the Eighth Amendment's original promise.
Restoring the promise of the Eighth Amendment, one payment at a time.
The right to bail is constitutional. The ability to pay it, in a world where almost no one carries cash, should not be a structural barrier. 8A Payments was founded to close that gap — not with a workaround, but with purpose-built infrastructure that works for jails, for detainees, and for the legal framework that governs both.
The problem didn't have a real solution. So we built one.
When we looked at the bail payment landscape, we found a market where the technology solutions that existed were either wrong by design — using the wrong payment classification, wrong merchant model, or wrong compliance framework — or simply absent. Every other sector of government payment had modernized. Bail hadn't.
The reason wasn't that the problem was hard to see. It was that solving it correctly required understanding three intersecting domains simultaneously: payment processing architecture, criminal justice compliance, and government finance law. 8A Payments was built by people who do.
Payment Architecture
The PayFac model, MCC classification, and chargeback self-insurance structure required deep expertise in enterprise payments — not off-the-shelf solutions.
Criminal Justice Compliance
CJIS compliance isn't a checkbox. It shaped every architectural decision — from data handling to third-party vendor selection.
Government Finance Law
The government-as-merchant model requires a specific understanding of how government entities interact with payment networks legally and financially.
Founder & CEO
David Forbes is the CEO and majority shareholder of 8A Payments LLC, which he co-founded with a team of three executives. He is a senior executive and entrepreneur with more than 30 years of experience across digital strategy, payments, telecommunications, and large-scale operational transformation.
David spent more than a decade at AT&T in successive executive roles — including VP of Corporate Strategy and Executive Director of Digital Strategy, reporting to the Chief Digital Officer — where he led platform strategy, enterprise IT transformation, and the development of new business models for digital products and services. He subsequently served as VP/GM of TheDataSherpas.com, a cloud, data, and analytics consultancy, and has held advisory and consulting roles spanning Fortune 500 enterprises and the U.S. Department of Defense.
David brings an uncommon combination of enterprise technology expertise and direct operational familiarity with the corrections environment. As a volunteer CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) member with the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, he developed firsthand insight into how jails operate, the pressures sheriffs face, and the specific friction points in the booking and release process that 8A Payments is designed to resolve.
He holds an MBA from Emory University's Goizueta Business School and a BA from Hampden-Sydney College.
About 8A Payments LLC
8A Payments LLC is a payments technology company purpose-built to serve the cash bail market in the United States. The company is privately held and founder-led. 8A Payments is incorporated and headquartered in Georgia, with operations serving jails and correctional facilities across cash-bail states.
The company name references the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits excessive bail — a right the company was founded to make functionally meaningful in a digital economy.
- Founded and headquartered in Georgia
- Privately held, founder-led
- Focused exclusively on the cash bail payment market
- Payment processing partnership with Worldpay (a Global Payments company)
- CJIS compliant and PCI DSS certified
- Contact: info@8A-Payments.com | (404) 590-4180
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