Paul Kent is Co-founder and Managing Director of Sureswipe, a South African payments solutions startup dedicated to making card payment acceptance easy and accessible for small and medium-sized retailers and service providers.

Sureswipe started out as a business division of the cloud-based clinical and billing practice management software firm, Healthbridge, before it evolved into the Point-Of-Sale (POS) product driven startup it is today. Since 2008, Paul has helped to grow Sureswipe into one of the more recognisable brands in South Africa's crowded payments market. The business currently services over 9,000 merchants and employs more than 100 people.

In this conversation with Andile Masuku, Paul sheds light on Sureswipe's growth strategy and provides pragmatic insight about the market intelligence and business partnerships required to succeed in South Africa's competitive payments industry.