Leaders In Payments and FinTech - The EDC Podcast

This week we meet up with Ed Harries, VP Strategic Partners and Payments at Visual Soft, a leading e-commerce platform in the UK. I think in this episode we get to the very core of what is already and will continue to drive the next wave of innovation and value in payments and FinTech.

We discuss how Visual Soft created their own payment solution in partnership with Stripe. And combining issuing and acceptance solutions, traditionally very separate worlds to create fundamentally new value creating opportunities. And when we say value, yes, we are referring to monetisation, but it's more than that.

These innovations are transforming the customer experience on the pay inside which translates into happier, more loyal and returning customers, and in turn is triggering a step change in uplift in customer lifetime value, which of course is huge. And then transforming finance operations on the pay-out side through faster and more flexible access to funds. That's why there continues to be so much excitement around this space, more frequently referred to as embedded finance, but I think it's helpful to avoid some of the jargon and explain it as it is.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

In todays episode, we meet up with Olu Akanmu, President and CEO of Nigeria’s OPay whiich is one of Nigeria’s leading fintech companies. With a growing population of more than 200 million, almost twice as large as Ethiopia and Egypt the next 2 largest African countries by population size, not only is Nigeria Africa’s largest economy, but it is also the most important Fintech centre on the continent. It is estimated that there are at least 250 fintech companies in Nigeria, and Opay sits right at the top of this list alongside other well-known Nigerian fintech’s such as Flutterwave and Chippercash. In our conversation, Olu provides his perspective on how technology driven financial services are driving financial inclusion and spreading prosperity across Nigeria’s urban and rural communities. This is a fascinating insight into the power of fintech and how modern digital payments  infrastructure can underpin, enable and catalyse economic growth and transform lives.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

This week we are discussing orchestration with Oliver Rajic - Chief Growth Officer at PPRO. PPRO is a leading fintech most well-known for enabling businesses to easily accept alternative payments methods across the globe. The acquisition of Alpha Fintech in 2022 where Oliver was CEO, strengthens PPRO’s position as both a global payments technology leader and trusted infrastructure partner to PSPs, banks and corporates. In our conversation we deep dive into the various orchestration concepts and start off with a helpful definition of the difference between payment, service and product orchestration.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

This week, we are continuing with the theme of financial inclusion. This time in Africa, I'm speaking with Meabh Maguire, who is the Global Head of Commercial at CR2 which is a world-leading vendor within the digital banking platform market. Headquartered in Ireland, CR2 has established a market leadership position in Africa, and enable over a hundred banks in 60 countries. Having spent more than a decade in the African region in our conversation, Meabh shares her perspective on the huge social and economic impact that the growth in digital payments and more broadly technology enabled financial services have had on the region.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

In today’s episode,  I have the privilege to speak with Akash Sinha, co-founder and CEO of Cashfree - a leading payments platform in India. Founded in 2015, Cashfree has rapidly ascended from start up to become one of India’s most successful fintechs. Akash explains how he and co-founder Reeju Datta built Cashfree to provide a full stack payments solution enabling businesses in India to collect payments and make payouts via all available methods with a single integration. The company now has more than 50% market share of payment disbursals in India. We discuss how huge the Indian market has become. The volumes involved are quite staggering, and even more so when you consider that online payment volumes are set to grow by a further 3x over the next 5 years. This is an incredible story of growth in a super-sized market. We cover a lot of ground in this in depth and frank discussion, so I do hope you enjoy this conversation with Akash Sinha from Cashfree.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

This week we are speaking with Gregoire Toussaint who is a Director in the EDC Paris office and leads the B2B payments practice. In our conversation, we talk about insights from recent research carried out by EDC into B2B payments including regional differences, key pain points, and emerging best practices.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

In today’s episode, Martin chats with Bernhard Reiterer CEO and founder of SignD Identity, the Vienna based RegTech provider. The SignD Platform provides end to end onboarding solutions with KYC / KYB and AML compliance across multiple jurisdictions built in. In our conversation, we discuss the increasing complexity and burden of compliance especially for companies operating across multiple jurisdictions. Bernhard explains what it took for him to successfully convince large incumbent financial institutions to trust his start up with their compliance obligations, develop domestic market leadership and expand internationally into other markets. No mean feat. And plenty of start up lessons and tips.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

In today’s episode, Martin speaks to week we are speaking with Eline Blomme, who is VP of products at Truelayer. Founded in 2016, Truelayer is a fast growing UK fintech that has become one of Europe’s leading open banking payment platforms. In our conversation, we discuss variable recurring payments, or VRPs for short, which are an important new way to initiate recurring payments via new open banking technology. VRPs offer significant economic as well as social benefits to all stakeholders. VRPs can be used in two different ways — sweeping and non-sweeping. Sweeping enables customers to automatically move money between bank accounts in their name and arrange recurring payments — for example to repay a loan or move funds to a savings account. Non-sweeping use cases include fixed and variable subscriptions, allowing businesses to take payments for things such as energy bills, rental payments and streaming services. Eline explains why VRPs are considered important and what Truelayer is doing to advocate for their wider use. 

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

In today’s episode, Martin speaks to Wilco Slabbekoorn who is SVP of Revenue Growth and Head of Commercial Europe for Checkout.com. As most of you payment insiders no doubt know, Checkout.com is another incredible FinTech success story. Started back in 2012 by founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz, it has grown and grown and now has over 1,700 employees across 19 global offices. The Checkout.com growth story really is a testament to the global boom in modern payment technology able to satisfy our appetite for digital payments experiences. In our conversation, we discuss the relentless growth and pace of change in the digital payments and FinTech space. Wilco shares his insights based on many years of experience, partnering with merchants to help leverage modern payments technology, drive growth and transform end to end customer journeys.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

In today’s episode, Martin speaks to Pascal Burg who is an EDC Director and leads are travel practice. Based out of Paris, Pascal has many years of experience in this space. In our conversation Pascal shares his perspective and views on this complicated yet fascinating area of payments. We cover the complexity of payment processing along the travel value chain, important trends in travel payments, the impact of the economic downturn on travel providers such as airlines and hotels, shifting risk appetite of acquiring banks, M&A activity and lots besides. It’s a really interesting conversation actually recorded late last year, so I do hope you enjoy this conversation with Pascal Burg.

Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast

Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch