Fintech Finance Presents: The Paytech Magazine Issue 07

Our final magazine of the year, The Paytech Magazine is now live!

Well, what a year that was! As we all draw breath, our final magazine of 2020 sums up just how transformational the past 12 months have been – not least in payment services.

The collapse of Wirecard (unrelated to the pandemic, but nonetheless significant); citizens abandoning cash at an unprecedented rate; digital adoption graphs off the scale; online shopping demographics that no one ever expected to see. While we might not miss the check-out queues, the inevitable corresponding spike in cybercrime is an unwelcome consequence of this crisis-induced acceleration – and it’s a problem that needs radical solutions, fast.

This was also the year in which the neos grew up, standing shoulder to shoulder with their elders to deliver consumers and SMEs from peril. Their strategic importance to the world’s fiscal flows now at last recognised, what now? We’ll be back to explore that thought in the New Year!

Cross Border

Security

41 2020: Entering a new dimension How new Curve Credit is expanding its time-warping financial management universe

45 Citizens of fintech With its internationalist outlook, in-app crypto tools and array of financial life hacks, Turkish challenger Papara is connecting users to a big wide world

49 For FX sake! Frustration at having to pay dearly for using their bank accounts abroad led Currensea’s founders to launch their own ‘decoupled’ debit card

Infrastructure

56 The year of the Cloud Cloud hosting’s advantages became obvious in 2020, as transaction volumes surged and banks had to rethink operating models. ACI’s Ciaran Chu and Kuda’s Babs Ogundeyi explore what the technology means for legacy banks and neos

59 Opening up the future of payments As SWIFT launches ambitious new plans, we caught up with ING’s Mark Buitenhek, also a SWIFT board member, to find out more about the cooperative’s thinking, the role open banking will play in reshaping the industry, and how the West can keep up with the fast-moving Asian payments landscape

62 Winds of change Lloyds Bank is developing its own platform ready for a major overhaul of UK payments architecture while keeping a weather eye on innovations yet to be unleashed

64 An island of innovation How AI is transforming DBS – Singapore’s biggest bank – with towering implications for the ASEAN nations it serves

67 Striking the right notes online platform Kabbage was one of the first to use granular payments data to inform lending decisions. Now that data is more useful than ever

API’s Retail & eCommerce

70 A world without borders for marketplace merchants Individual countries’ regulations and processes still present a challenge for marketplace merchants. But payments providers and fintechs can deliver a solution. Banking Circle’s Anders la Cour explains how

73 Keep calm and carry on trading SumUp, the payment solution for microbusinesses, pivoted in the pandemic to provide merchants that had been forced to shut up shop with a suite of online transaction services. For some, it’s proved transformational

76 Has COVID pushed the button on APIs? Sensedia’s Lucas Tempestini on how the API economy is boosting retail – from payments to packaging – by banishing backlogs and bottleneck

78 Scaling the payments stack Silicon Valley Bank both lends to and banks the companies that are building the payment tools and processes of tomorrow. David McHenry ponders the impact of regulation in Europe, the advent of contextual commerce and the disruptive potential of CBDCs

81 The etrolly dash! Data from pandemic-fuelled online shopping gave Klarna an insight into our collective psyche. Can the payment solutions provider and its etailers now use it to ride a permanent digital wave?

Crypto

86 Building Ziglu Mark Hipperson of new neobank Ziglu, which treats crypto as any other currency, and Joanne Dewar from its payment service provider GPS, on financial services’ next wave

89 What’s driving IDV in crypto? Wirex and IDnow on how harmonised regulation and biometrics are crucial to crypto’s future

Partnerships

92 What’s in a name? A lot! SurePay’s David-Jan Janse worked with a Mobiquity design and technology team to match account names to IBANs so payments never go astray

95 Unlocking the power of partnerships Good partnerships underpin many successful fintech ventures. We asked Railsbank’s Louisa Murray and Kani’s Aaron Holmes about building a strong one and how open banking is shifting the dial

Last Words

98 The post-COVID ATM Across the world, operators are moving to touch-free and biometric-enabled ATMs – and not just because of the pandemic. RBR, explores the trend

PLUS commentaries from 

24 The plastic billionaire and Old Master cash Ron Delnevo, Chairman of Cash and Card Consultants, ponders whether his fortunes would have been better served investing in a priceless work of cards, not art!

37 The moment that matters How open finance has offered sinking SMEs much-needed ballast over the last few, rocky months

53 Challenging the challengers Challenger or incumbent, how do you keep the flywheel of continuous innovation turning? We asked three experts with different banking and technology backgrounds

84 With this fintech, I thee wed Partnerships have come to define neobanks. But how do you ensure it’s a happy marriage? We asked Monese’s Norris Koppel and Ray Brash from its supplier PPS

Oh… and if you want a hard copy in the post, sign up HERE, and get a copy of what we can humbly claim to be the best (and only!) magazine dedicated with the word “Paytech” (sorry American payroll Association!) landing on your doorstep