Latest / The Payments Shed / Ep. 43 - Live from MPE Berlin: From Fragmented Tools to Unified Commerce with Unzer

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Ep. 43 - Live from MPE Berlin: From Fragmented Tools to Unified Commerce with Unzer · The Payments Shed

• 0:05
  Welcome back to the Payment Shed Podcast live from MPE Berlin
• 0:08
  2026. I am joined this afternoon by
• 0:11
  Robert Funick, CEO of Unser. Robert, welcome to the Payment
• 0:15
  Shed Podcast. Thanks for joining us today.
• 0:18
  Thanks for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit
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  more about Unser and your position within the the payments
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  ecosystem? Sure.
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  Happy to. So ecosystem is exactly the word
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  that we provide. So my name is Robert, I'm the
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  CEO of the Windsor Group. And what we really do is we
• 0:33
  provide our merges with the full ecosystems, allowing them to
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  sell whatever they want to sell on digitized commerce, being
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  offline, being online, being Moto, being integrated offerings
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  between the two. And that's what we do mostly in
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  Doctor Nordics for about 90,000 merchants.
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  Oh wow. Mostly in the small medium.
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  And we want to talk to you today about reconciliation, you know,
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  particularly in that SMB ecosystem.
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  And one of the big things that comes up is the Recon data that
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  we see across point of sale and online.
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  And is there still a real intersection breakage there that
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  we need to fix or are we starting to close that gap in
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  the market? There are some players that
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  really have the full offering, but if you break down,
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  especially in the bread and bottom small to medium
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  merchants, it's still extremely fragmented.
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  They'll have different providers for the terminal, for the
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  software, for their payments, for online, if they have it all
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  separated out, all different info funds, different contracts,
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  different integrations, different everything that
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  there's huge complexity and lot of inefficiencies for this
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  business. And you hearing from your SMB
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  network that they need that to change, they want that to change
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  and they want to have the data in one location.
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  Yes, of course. I mean, merchants want to sell
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  their goods, they want to do what they're good at.
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  They want to do size of commerce.
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  They want to basically spend their time over better to them
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  and having to deal with multiple providers, multiple flows,
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  multiple participations, multiple contracts, contact
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  persons, service, everything that's just very complex, right?
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  And it's very distracting and they, you know, they just need a
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  problem solved. And some of the operational
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  issues that can come from that, I don't know, I'm just
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  brainstorming here, but things like ERP connectivity as well,
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  does that, does that come in your world in your retail SMB
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  book? For sure.
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  I mean it depends on the size of the merchant, how complex their
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  needs are in terms of software. But the more providers you need
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  to use to solve the problems that you need to run your
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  business right, that the more complexity you have and the more
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  inefficient it becomes. So that's that's definitely the
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  case. And treasury services is
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  something that we're starting to see on a more regular basis in
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  the payments market now as a as a solution and product that
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  that's offered. Do you think we're doing enough
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  to upsell and educate on the benefits of treasury services
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  for SMBs in the market? I think that there's still a lot
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  of, lot of free space there to innovate, to disrupt to, to
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  bring new products to market. Because back to what we
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  discussed before, right as a merchant, you want to sell your
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  books, you don't want to deal with all the complexity and
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  especially small medium retailers, they're very
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  underserved by banks. They they still find it
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  difficult to get credit. They find it difficult to to
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  really have help in in just the small things of spend management
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  etcetera. So that's also where we as
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  interesting, we can innovate a lot and help help our merchants
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  to really close that full ecosystem and also provide tools
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  to to help the merchants run their day-to-day, not just the
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  money in, but also the money out.
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  With 90,000 plus merchants in your ecosystem, how do you build
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  your road map strategy for that many customers?
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  You know, that's a huge pool. Like, does that become a
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  challenge for you guys internally around where you take
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  your road map or do you always build for the the the many
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  rather than the ones? I think, I think not all of our
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  merchants have all of our products.
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  So we're really looking to to cross some upselling, providing
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  more of our services to our merchant base.
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  And of course, you solve for the individual products.
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  But within our road map, we're also working towards a vision,
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  working towards the world where we believe that the future is
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  moving towards right and, and having us being able to solve
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  these these, these issues. So so it goes alongside each
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  other. And we're very much in the
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  Sunshine State. Should we call it of embedded
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  finance at the moment, right? It's, you know, payments likes
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  to work in what I would call buzzword cycles.
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  But I feel with embedded finance, there's a really,
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  really good opportunity. Not just, you know, I think
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  people look at embedded finance, they think merchant cash
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  advance, right? But it's so much more than that.
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  And what we can do with the next stage of embedded finance.
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  And again, like I think a lot of the conversation we have on the
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  podcast has been embedded finance for the enterprise
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  merchant, but the embedded finance proposition for SMBs.
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  I'd love to get your perspective on how you're thinking about
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  embedded finance for your 90,000 customers again.
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  No. So if you look, I think you
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  should really look at the needs of of small to medium retailers
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  and what they have, right. And, and there's a lot of tools
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  that are not just relevant for enterprise that are really
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  irrelevant for, for also small medium retailers.
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  They all do their buying. They all need their stock
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  manage, they all need their, their suppliers paid.
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  You know, they're looking today, they're looking for their
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  inbound payments in one portal. They're looking for their
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  banking in the other portal. They're very inefficient with
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  how they they manage their cash flows and their funds when it
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  comes to paying for suppliers. So, so having all of that,
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  including software for the stock management, all of that in one
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  integrated offering, it makes a. Lot of sense and do you use data
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  to offer different finance products to those merchants?
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  When you say you're consolidating the data across
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  different poles and ecosystem, is that is that something that
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  you guys have looked at? Yes and we do, but I think we're
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  just scratching the surface. I think there's, there's a lot
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  more you can do not as as general cash advance, we get
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  paid earlier or hey, we give you 50K worth of credit.
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  It's much more also around how you trade finance individual
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  payments, how you can maybe get advance payments on on
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  outstanding debits. So all these for the elements.
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  I think there's a lot more that you can do there also for small
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  merchants. And is that accessing liquidity
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  still a big problem in the market?
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  I would say so, yes, especially especially small mergers that
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  don't have a very long track record and not not in business
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  for very long, which is often the case when when merchants
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  need financing. I think that is that is still
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  quite a lot of gap to be fulfilled and how to help
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  merchants grow at the end of. I've seen insurance becoming
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  quite prevalent within e-commerce checkouts as well as
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  an upsell product, you know in a few different sub verticals.
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  So not just having that merchant cash advance kind of liquidity
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  play, but actually the tip box of do you want to insure your
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  purchase? And that's another embedded
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  finance upsell that we see in the market in terms of, you
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  know, not just the chargeback protection, right, to a customer
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  thinking, oh, if something goes wrong here, I've got chargeback
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  protection in the background thinking I want to protect this
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  product at source and it's €2 or 2 lbs more on your transaction.
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  Do you think that that's going to continue to be something we
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  see at any commerce checkout as an upsell product for merchants?
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  I would say so. In certain verticals it makes
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  sense, but you need to be careful not to make it too
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  complex for the customer. The more they need to read, they
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  need to click, they need to go through to to be able to
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  purchase it will have. They also have a negative effect
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  on conversion. You need to be careful how how,
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  how cloggy you make it and how confusing you make.
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  It, I think in the UK we've seen it with train lines, the train
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  booking apps. You buy your train ticket, it's
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  £1.50 extra to ensure your ticket and you start to see it
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  with music events and festivals. And at that purchase, you know
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  it's a high value purchase and you can ensure it's just ticking
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  a box, £1.50 extra on your transaction or €2.00 extra on
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  your transaction and you feel a bit more protection for that
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  higher value purchase. No, there's certain juice case
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  where it makes sense, right? And it's an added value.
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  But you need to be careful like I said to not make it too
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  confusing. And if you do this with too much
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  pop ups and click aways rather than you might increase the pick
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  rate, which will decrease your overall conversion, right?
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  So it's always a balance. So it's a nice segue into my
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  next question around whether you think more PSPS should be
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  offering embedded products. I mean, it's a it's a very
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  healthy and normal add on because the the services are so
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  adjacent to each other. One is really connected to the
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  other. Now there's a question how, how
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  deep you want to go. You can only be good in in so
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  many things, right? You can't be good in everything.
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  We've seen this when banks are trying to go into payments.
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  It has never been successful. Now payments is going into
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  banking and I think you know there always be a place where
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  the adjacent will be can be served for payment companies
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  until you get to a certain stage where you will have pure players
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  that are better than executed. I haven't really thought of
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  that, but you're right, payments companies are kind of flipping
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  on its head at the moment and going into that that banking
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  world, aren't they? So we've actually not talked
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  about AIA huge amount today, which is very surprising on on
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  the podcast because normally we end up at AI at some point.
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  So we are going to ask you about AI and answer and how you guys
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  have started to explore AI adoption to help yourselves as a
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  business and your customer base. Yes, it's definitely the
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  buzzword of today. It is one that is here to stay.
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  But like everybody else in the industry, especially if you talk
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  to them off stage, we are, we are looking testing trial and
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  error to see where, where can have the biggest impact, where,
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  where it really drives efficiency and, and, and allows
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  us to, to spend more time on what's, what's really worth it
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  versus time on Edmund. At the same time, we also see US
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  SSP speeds our role to help our merchants sell wherever they
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  want to sell, right, which which also means selling to an agent.
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  So we spend a lot of time to make sure that we are we are at
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  the at the front of this race in Europe where it's not completely
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  available yet, but how to hack our way around so we can.
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  And they were our merchants to sell through an agent.
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  And I think data is one of the best use cases for it right now
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  and what it can do with data. And you guys must have a huge
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  amount of data with such a large customer base that you can play
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  around with. And you like you say trial and
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  error in the background say, well, we've got this huge data
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  set. Let's see how we can really tap
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  into that and then think about what we then roll out to our
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  customers at a later date. Exactly.
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  But it's also a challenge because the outcome is only as
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  good as the data you feed it and the ability for you to
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  understand it, right? So, but there's a lot we can do
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  with with that. There's a lot we can do with
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  customer service. But I mean, some, just to give
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  you a very simple example that's a good one to give here because
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  there's a lot of sales people walking around is when we do our
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  monthly QBRS, we build a tool in a way that just with one click
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  of the button, the whole deck to present to the merchant is
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  printed out with the help of AI data analytics, the slides,
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  100%, everything is just just ready, which usually took this 8
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  hours of work collecting it all and now it's click of a button.
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  So it's just a very very simple example on how we're already
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  using I. Think more people should be
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  doing that with sales name and I haven't worked in a commercial
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  role merchant facing. I would have loved to be able to
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  click a button and have a beautiful deck put in front of
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  me. Everything there.
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  So we're MPE in Berlin. Why is this such an important
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  event to enter in your calendar every year?
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  Well, it's it's a home event. Our headquarters are in Berlin,
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  so it's it's easy to get to I. Wish ours were today with the
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  flights that have been cancelled.
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  I moved away the previous years I would I would come here by
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  bicycle. But at the same time, it's just
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  one where the whole industry meets people like me that
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  they've been in payments for a couple of decades, right?
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  There's one big reunion of the people you used to work with,
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  used to partner with, used to negotiate with.
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  There are now all different companies.
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  So it's it's it's a great one to to connect with everybody again,
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  but it's also a very good place to just have lots of meetings,
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  which usually would take months to together travelling around
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  and super efficient to just have everybody in one place and get a
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  lot of catch up meetings in. So it's a great event for.
• 12:35
  That we've had a great day, Day one today.
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  And yeah, there's just a real buzz in the room, isn't it?
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  I feel like, you know, you can feel the collaboration happening
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  around you. So we have a final section on
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  the podcast. It's called the Shelf of Shame,
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  where our guests nominate something from payments and
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  fintech they would happily banish forever, never to see
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  again. Please can you bring us your
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  Shelf of shame? Well, banished forever.
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  It's it's it's also part of what makes payments interesting.
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  But, but you mentioned embedded finance, you mentioned AI,
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  right? If you've been in this business
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  for a few decades, it's just, it seems like we're all like
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  butterflies going from 1 flower to the other.
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  And every year there's the new word, right?
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  Stable coins. We go back to Google glasses, we
• 13:20
  go back to beacons, right? We're all going to change
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  everything. Our fridges would already be
• 13:26
  talking to each other. Milk would automatically arrive
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  because it would scan the inside with the Internet of Things and
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  all these things that keep on keep on being the buzzwords.
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  But at the end, some of it sticks, but not all.
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  And sometimes I miss just to be a little bit more looking at the
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  bigger picture. And and people also understand
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  that at the end, adoption is driven by the consumers changing
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  behaviour and that is that's much tougher to do and sometimes
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  underestimated. So we're shelving buzzword high
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  pin payments. Yes, yes, and.
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  I'm more than happy to put that on the shelf.
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  For shame. And sometimes people that go on
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  stage, we do secret bingo cards to say, OK, like you you're
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  trying and and drop in AI based blockchain.
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  Agentic Commerce. Agentic commerce well.
• 14:14
  Brilliant. Thanks very much for for joining
• 14:16
  us on the show today and enjoy the rest of the event.
• 14:19
  Cheers.