Interviews


Interview: Martin Grunewald, BankservAfrica – the African payments dream

In an exclusive interview with Daily News at Sibos, Martin Grunewald, chief payments officer at BankservAfrica, discusses its vision for a modern payments system in Africa and why replication is a good thing. “If we don’t start, we won’t get to the finish line”. There is a lot of planning and talking now, but South […]

Interview: Fabian Vandenreydt, B-Hive

In an exclusive interview with Daily News at Sibos, Fabian Vandenreydt, executive chairman of collaborative innovation platform B-Hive, explains what it’s doing for creativity and how it will form a separate company for scale-ups.

Interview: Robert Barnes, TradeIX – the IX in Trade

In an exclusive interview with trade finance specialist TradeIX, co-founder and CEO Robert Barnes explains how banks’ senior management is focusing on one goal and why product silos simply do not work.

Q&A with Teri Llach, Blackhawk Network

Ahead of Money2020 and the busiest shopping season of the year, Paybefore spoke with Blackhawk Network’s Chief Marketing Officer, Teri Llach, about connecting with consumers in every channel.

Interview: Vijay Oddiraju, Volante Technologies

In an exclusive interview with Vijay Oddiraju, co-founder and CEO of payments processing software provider Volante Technologies, speaks on the topics of agility, automation and how the ambitious company intends to prosper in the fast moving and competitive world of payments.

Interview: Aleksey Chubar, VTB – leading a fintech revolution in Russia

If you’ve got preconceptions about what fintech looks like and where it’s happening, then Aleksey Chubar, head of digital transformation at VTB, has news for you. Russia is becoming a hotbed of fintech innovation – not just domestically, but internationally too. More than that, the rapid pace of technological change in the country means you’ll soon wonder how you got left behind.

Executive profile: Solana Cozzo, Mastercard

It’s a good thing Solana (“Sol”) Cozzo is high energy. When she’s not literally running or chasing after 3-year-old twins, she’s running Mastercard’s North American prepaid and inclusive growth business. It’s hard work when you consider that “the cardable opportunity is about seven times the current market,” she says.

Q&A with Mobey Forum’s ED Maikki Frisk

Six months after coming on board to lead the digital financial services trade association, Maikki Frisk talks about how to drive mobile payments adoption, the implications of Brexit and PSD2, and the ultimate importance of a good user experience.

Interview: Ben Brabyn, Level39 – high rise

In the beating business heart of London, Banking Technology met Ben Brabyn, head of tech hub Level39, for an exclusive interview on Brexit, rivalry and how success isn’t a zero-sum game.

Compliance Titans: Jim Schafer, FIS

An early interest in credit cards hooked Jim Schafer on payments. Since then, his work has taken him across the globe in roles as diverse as programming and human resources. But it’s his current role as senior compliance director of FIS Payments that has led him to be named one of Paybefore’s Compliance Titans.

Compliance Titans: Jeff Ross, Green Dot Corp.

Nearly a decade after jumping from the public to the private sector, Green Dot’s Jeff Ross remains as enthused as ever by the new challenges and complexities he faces every day as compliance head for one of the biggest players in an industry with a constantly shifting regulatory landscape and technology that’s advancing at a breakneck pace.

Top Payments Consultants: Rick Oglesby, AZ Payments Group

Even when serving in senior manager and director roles with the likes of American Express and TSYS early in his career, Rick Oglesby, AZ Payments Group president, always felt he was destined to be a payments consultant. That vision came true in 2011, and you don’t have to spend too much time with him before his love of consultancy work—helping companies succeed while establishing and nurturing relationships—becomes apparent and likely is the reason why he was selected as one of the industry’s Top Payments Consultants.

Executive Profile: One on One with Richard Steggall, Urban FT

Richard Steggall didn’t even set foot in the U.S. until he was approaching 30. So, what prompted the native Aussie by way of London to set up a fintech shop in New York—first as Waspit, then as Urban FT, the SaaS-based digital payments platform he now heads? It was, of course, American optimism.

Q&A with Andrew Buckley, Mastercard

When the self-described skeptic took over as global head of prepaid for Mastercard earlier this year, Andrew Buckley wasn’t quite convinced that the opportunities ahead were worthy of all the hype. Five months later and he’s among the converted, preaching the gospel of democratization—not just of payments but of innovation.

Compliance Titans: Craig James, Neopay

Craig James, founder and CEO of compliance consultancy Neopay, views compliance like a chess match—you have to know the board better than everyone else, so nothing surprises you.

Interview: Daniel Schreiber, co-founder and CEO of Lemonade

Ask most people about their experience with insurance, grudge purchase par excellence, and they’ll say it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Enter Lemonade, the New York-based insurtech combining the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and an approach founded on behavioural economics and customer centricity to offer homeowners and renters protection with a difference.

Compliance Titans: Jani Gode, Payoneer

Jani Gode’s knowledge of payments compliance reaches to parts of the globe that are about as far away from the small Minnesota farm where she grew up as you can get. Gode leads the global compliance program as chief compliance officer at Payoneer, an online payments company founded in 2005 that enables businesses to send and receive cross-border payments.

Compliance Titans: Margo Hirsch Strahlberg, U.S. Bank

If Margo Hirsch Strahlberg, prepaid compliance risk management specialist at U.S. Bank, isn’t managing responsibilities at home or work, she tries to steal time away to hit the gym. “I’ve incorporated more weight lifting into my routine,” she says. “My goal is to dead-lift a few copies of the CFPB’s prepaid accounts rule.”

Exclusive interview: Luis Uguina, Macquarie

Everyone loves a dreamer, except in the world of banking – where digital aspirations are swiftly cut down to size by the reality of legacy systems. That is until Luis Uguina, chief digital officer for Macquarie’s Banking and Financial Services Group, comes along and challenges everything you thought you knew about banks’ digital offerings.

Interview: Oliver Hughes, Tinkoff Bank

In an exclusive interview, Oliver Hughes, CEO of Russia’s Tinkoff Bank, talks about its online financial supermarket, maintaining momentum, and how US and UK banks can be occasionally underwhelming.

Q&A with Walt Granville, Cachet Financial Solutions

No more “one and done.” That’s central to Cachet Financial Solutions’ mission for its prepaid clients and was the impetus for platform upgrades that were nearly a year in the making. Paybefore spoke with Walt Granville, senior vice president of mobile innovation, about what’s resonating with clients and how Cachet is using optimized mobile apps to help them fight churn.

Interview: Kyle Ferguson, Fraedom’s CEO – on the road to Fraedom

Payments technology and expense management specialist Fraedom is on the journey to tap into the $110 trillion B2B market opportunity that remains untapped today. “If the technology is both powerful and intuitive, people will use it,” states Kyle Ferguson, Fraedom’s CEO.

Interview: Martin Coen, CEO of Dovetail

Payments software vendor Dovetail is one of the very few independent fintech beacons in the industry, having not fallen into the hands of a large tech conglomerate. The company pioneered the concept of a “payment services hub” – before analysts coined the term – and has maintained double digit growth over the last decade. So what’s next? Banking Technology talks to Martin Coen, Dovetail’s CEO.

Interview: Rivi Varghese, CEO of CustomerXPs Software

Banking is going digital and instantaneous, which is great news for customers. But it is also a great headache for banks, as fraud is going that way too – the money can disappear into fraudsters’ virtual pockets with a blink of an eye, anytime, anywhere. At the same time, the real-time capabilities of new solutions […]

Interview: Rupert Scofield, founder of Finca International

Rupert Scofield, president and CEO of microfinance organisation Finca International, discusses how it brings banking to the developing world and why people should follow America’s lead in the art of philanthropy. “This is your world. My generation had its shot. We thought our problems were daunting but it’s nothing like the stuff you’re dealing with. […]

Q&A with Ron Hynes, UniRush LLC

Ron Hynes has been on the job as the new CEO of UniRush LLC less than a month, but he’s already looking ahead. And, he’s not going to let the CFPB’s looming final prepaid rulemaking slow the company down when it comes to innovation and product development. Hynes spoke with Paybefore about what he brings to his new role and why UniRush’s cardholder settlement made him want the CEO job even more.

Interview: Matteo Cassina, Saxo Bank

During the two-day MoneyConf event in Madrid, there was an exclusive Banking Technology interview with Matteo Cassina, member of the global executive committee at Saxo Bank. Deputy editor Antony Peyton spoke to him about his opinions on the show and the industry. In terms of MoneyConf 2016, Cassina says: “I do believe there are a […]

Interview: Ramin Niroumand, co-founder of FinLeap

Berlin-based fintech incubator FinLeap and solarisBank have created the first global banking platform, called Solaris – a Banking-as-a-Platform (BaaP) service. What is it all about and how is it going to make its mark on the fintech industry? Devie Mohan interviews FinLeap’s co-founder, Ramin Niroumand. The solarisBank launch has been in the press quite a […]

Q&A with Steve Montross, CPI Card Group

For card manufacturers like CPI Card Group, the U.S. transition to EMV continues to be a top priority. But broader trends like the rise of e-commerce and wearables also are shaping a business that goes well beyond plastic.

Word from the Streit: Green Dot CEO Talks to Paybefore

In the midst of a contentious proxy fight leading up to the May 23 shareholders’ meeting, Green Dot Chairman and CEO Steve Streit spoke with Paybefore about Harvest Capital’s concerns, how he sees Green Dot’s position in the market and when he’d show himself the door.

Preparing for PSD II

The European Commission’s upcoming PSD II legislation will bring big changes to the payments landscape in Europe. Banking Technology talks to Jerry Norton, VP of financial services at CGI, to find out more. In October, the European Parliament gave its approval to the level one text of the Payment Services Directive II, which aims to further the […]

Q&A with Emily Baum, Prepaid International Forum

The Prepaid International Forum (PIF) is celebrating its 10-year anniversary in 2016. Emily Baum, a non-executive board member of the forum and business development director of PrePay Solutions, tells Paybefore more about PIF, where the 23-member group is headed and how the industry is responding to calls for increased prepaid regulation following the Paris terrorist attacks.

Memory muscle

An in-memory DBMS with its roots in embedded systems for the defence and aerospace sectors is setting records for manipulating financial data. Chief executive Steve Graves told Banking Technology how it works.

Executive Profile: One on One with Joby Orlowsky, Discover Network

Joby Orlowsky is a die-hard Cubs fan—is there any other kind?—but the Chicago native’s optimism extends well beyond baseball. After nearly 20 years at Discover, Orlowsky is animated when he talks about the future of payments and Discover’s place in it. And unlike some, he’s not spooked about a potential fintech bubble.

Getting to grips with mobile security

The sensors built into mobile devices offer a whole new way of identifying their users though biometric techniques, according to security expert Uri Rivner. 

Top Payments Lawyer Spotlight: Amy Ross Lauck, Lindquist & Vennum LLP

Earlier this year, we recognized the Top 10 Payments Lawyers as voted for by Paybefore.com visitors. In our first profile, we feature Amy Ross Lauck, partner, in the payment systems and consumer financial services practice at Lindquist & Vennum LLP, who discusses the challenges of the CARD Act, prospects for the CFPB’s prepaid rulemaking and innovations yet to come.