Leaders In Payments and FinTech - The EDC Podcast

This week, we meet up with Caleb Avery, founder of Tilled which is a US based Payfac-as-a-Service provider. The company enables its customers to enjoy all the benefits of a fully registered payment facilitator program without the upfront cost, hassle, or liability. This model allows companies like software vendors, marketplaces, and SaaS providers to generate new revenue from accepting credit cards. In our conversation, we cover Caleb’s start up journey and discuss the state of the payment market and the increasing growth of the Payfac model and how it differs in the US and Europe

This week, we meet up with Uku Tomikas CEO of Messente Communications – a fats growing business messaging service provider based on Estonia. Messente helps businesses communicate with their customers securely and at scale, without worrying about the complexity of global messaging or the risks of fraud. Its customer base includes banks and insurance companies and other message-heavy industries that need a reliable way of contacting their customers. In our conversation, we discuss why business messaging has become business critical to banks. For example sending OTPs for payment authentication and secure account log in. Uku also expands on how Messente is at the forefront of fighting fraud by detecting and preventing scam messages which have become a key part of the criminals tool kit.

This week to mark the 30th episode of the EDC podcast, I’m joined by 2 special guests: Mark Beresford (Director and head of the EDC retailer practice) and Mark McMurtrie (EDC Associate Consultant). We also decided to go all out and record our first episode face to face in a London studio with video as well as audio. So look out for the video version which will follow this audio only podcast. We will place a link to the video on this page once ready. In this episode we are returning to the topic of payment orchestration which remains a super important trend in the payments industry, with a lot of activity to stay abreast of. In our conversation we covered the following topics which we have timestamped for convenience: - Setting the scene: 1min 45sec - Definitions: 3min 50sec - Merchant perspective: 9min 35sec - Build or Buy: 18min 48sec - Payment orchestration provider landscape: 26min 51sec - Future of payment orchestration: 40min 42sec - EDC guide to payment orchestration: 48min 21sec EDC recently published a Guide to Payment Orchestration which is based on a growing database of 50+ Payment Orchestration Providers. The guide is free and available to download here. ‍

This week, we meet up with Hans Puvogel COO of Parkopedia. This is a natural follow up to a previous episode on in car payment with Mercedes Pay. I find the transformation of the automotive industry totally fascinating. Its quite incredible how fast things are moving both in terms of migration from fossil fuel to EV vehicles but also in terms of the emergence of highly connected cars capable of supporting all kinds of in car commerce use cases. Founded in 2007, Parkopedia has become a key player in this emerging market. It is the world's leading connected car services provider used by millions of drivers, car manufactures and other organisations. And its not just parking as the name implies, today, Parkopedia helps drivers find and pay for petrol, fuel, EV charging stations, road tolls and other connected car services in over 20,000 cities across 90 countries. In our conversation, Hans expands on Parkopedia’s journey and we discuss how important and integral Parkopedia’s in house developed payment processing platform has become to the Parkopedia solution and proposition to its B2B customers. In particular I was struck by how much back end complexity the Parkopedia team have managed to solve for, providing technical, operational and contractual aggregation of all stakeholders across connected car value chain for a wide variety of different payment use cases.    Guest Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hans-hendrik-puvogel/ Company Website: https://business.parkopedia.com/home Company on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/parkopedia/

This week we meet up with Suresh Vaghjiani CEO of CLOWD9. Founded by Suresh in 2022, CLOWD9 is the world’s first cloud-based issuer processing platform. He is an experienced financial services executive having held senior roles at both FCA regulated and leading edge technology companies. He previously served as CEO of Tribe Payments and Managing Director and President at Global Processing which is now Thredd. Prior to this, Suresh held senior roles at FTSE companies Paysafe Group PLC and Kalixa Payments Group. In our conversation today, we discuss why the payments industry has been behind in moving to the cloud and examine the latest trends in the issuer processing market. We also discuss CLOWD9’s B Corp status, which again it is one of the first payments companies to have achieved, and discuss what it takes to build effective teams and a lot more besides. So I do hope you enjoy this conversation with Suresh.

About This Episode This week, we meet up with Nico Kersten, CEO of Mercedes Pay. On top of the transformational shift from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles, Mercedes-Benz is also transforming itself into a digital software driven company where digital payments becomes an essential foundational layer. This is the focus of our conversation today. Launched in 2018 Mercedes pay operates the in-house digital Payment platform for Mercedes Benz and acts as the digital payments and fintech knowledge hub for the Group. Mercedes pay platform is now live in more than 40 markets, enabling transaction processing for Mercedes-Benz e-commerce products and services. In addition, Niko also shares his perspective on what it takes to successfully manage fintech innovation at a large traditional industrial company. About Mercedes Pay Mercedes pay GmbH as subsidiary of Mercedes Benz Mobility AG operates our in-house digital ePayment platform. Acting as the knowledge hub around digital payments, it plays an integral role in the mobility and digitalization strategy of Mercedes-Benz Group AG. Mercedes pay was first launched in 2018 in selected markets. The platform is now active in more than 40 markets, where it enables transaction processing for Mercedes-Benz e-commerce products and services on a global scale. Depending on the market, this includes transactions via the Mercedes me connect store, the Mercedes me app, in-car payments or online down payments for vehicles as well as vehicle payments in full.   Episode Links  Nico's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nico-kersten-767500211/ Mercedes Pay Website: https://www.mercedes-benz-mobility.com/en/what-we-do/payment-services/ Mercedes Pay on LinkedIn: ‍https://www.linkedin.com/company/mercedes-pay-gmbh/ Another Of Nico's Recent Interviews: "Why shouldn’t cars be able to do what smartphones have long been able to do?” ‍

This week, we meet up with Barry Levett CEO of Mypinpad. MYPINPAD is a global leader in secure payments acceptance and personal authentication solutions using smartphones and tablets. Their proprietary and globally patented technology secures and protects the input of sensitive information on touchscreens creating a trusted environment. MYPINPAD’s innovative solutions removes the need for specialised hardware thereby reducing cost and complexity, promotes rapid adoption and leverages the connected capabilities of smart devices. Barry was previously founder of SmartPesa which merged with Mypinpad in 2022. In our conversation we discuss the merger and Barry shares his perspective on state of the softPOS payments market including channel convergence and need for deeper integration into workflows and processes.

This week, we meet up with Matthew Steinbrecher, VP Partnerships at Reach. Reach is a Merchant of Record provider which acts as an intermediary between a business and its customers, taking responsibility for the payments process and assuming liability on behalf of that business. This is a great educational episode. Matthew explains what the Merchant of Record model is and how it gives merchants access to local acquiring in foreign markets and the ability to process locally. This eliminates the need to establish expensive local entities, lowering fees, reducing false declines, and outsourcing fraud risks and global tax compliance. Matthew also shares his perspective on the latest trends in the MOR space.    Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast Martin’s contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch

This week, we meet up with Jose Manuel Peral, Chief Sales Officers at Devengo -  a Madrid based start-up founded in 2020 that offers embedded payments enabling fast automated pay outs using the latest real time payment infrastructure including SEPA Instant and UK’s Faster Payments service. Jose previously co-founded Easy Payment Gateway in 2013, from which he made a successful exit via a sale to Global Payments in 2020. He is also an active seed stage investor. Lot of tips and advice for payment and fintech founders. Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch ‍

Today’s episode is timely one. We meet up with Scott McInnes, partner in the Brussels office of international law firm Bird & Bird, to deep dive the recently published package of new payments legislation proposed by the European Commission. Scott has more than 15 years' experience of competition law and regulation, with considerable expertise in payments regulation and competition law across Europe. First off we review the much anticipated 3rd Payment Services Directive - PSD3  -  which consists of 2 proposals, the Directive plus the Payment Services Regulation or PSR. Secondly, we take a look at a proposal for a framework for financial data access or FIDA which seeks to extend Open Banking to establish rights and obligations to manage customer data sharing in the broader financial sector beyond payment accounts. And then Thirdly, we discuss the proposed framework to facilitate the possible introduction of a digital euro which is perhaps the most radical and transformative idea on the table. With the EU payments legislation pipeline now chocker block, we also consider the UK’s post Brexit position and the fact that the UK has for the first time in the 20 + years of EU payments regulation, not had any input or say in the drafting of the proposed legislation. Below are Bird & Bird's client alerts on PSD3 and PSR: ‍https://www.twobirds.com/en/insights/2023/global/proposed-psd3-and-payment-services-regulation-psr-bird-and-birds-initial-thoughts And, on FIDA: https://www.twobirds.com/en/insights/2023/global/proposed-open-finance-framework-fida-bird-and-birds-initial-thoughts   Episode links: https://www.edgardunn.com/theedcpodcast Martin's contacts: https://linktr.ee/martinkoderisch