Latest / Leaders In Payments / Motie Bring, CEO of PPRO | Episode 287

Transcript

Motie Bring, CEO of PPRO | Episode 287 · Leaders In Payments

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast, where we talk to C-level leaders from across the payments landscape.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: We'll be discussing the products and services that impact the payment space today, as well as trends and predictions for the future of payments.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We will also hear stories from our guests about their journeys to the top.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: If you look at Europe and obviously we spend a lot of time looking at the European market you have the European Union and we have a sense of one market with one solution to fit all, but actually you have 27 different countries.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: All of them have their uniqueness, Most of them have different languages.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: We see the evolution of specific payment methods in border service, one specific market.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: The fragmentation in payment methods is here to stay.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: That was Mati Bering, the CEO of P-Pro.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: He is my special guest on this episode, episode 287 of the Leaders in Payments podcast, and I'm your host, greg Myers.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: P-pro lets PSPs and merchants scale their checkout, acquiring and risk services through one connection.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Mati and I talk about how P-Pro enables access to different markets and different payment methods.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: Psps often offer typical card acceptance capabilities, but sometimes lack offering local payment methods, and this is where P-Pro comes in.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Mati is very passionate about diversity and inclusion inside and outside the workplace.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: We've got a great episode ahead, so let's get started.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Hi, mati, thank you for being here and welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Thanks, greg, I'm happy to be here.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: Great, so let's dive right in.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: If you don't mind, tell our audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you grew up, where you went to school, where you currently live, and we'll circle back to your professional journey in a minute.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I was actually born in a small place just outside Tel Aviv in Israel exactly 50 years ago, spent most of my life in London, so I live in London now with my husband, peter, and our two dogs went to school between Tel Aviv and London.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: So some over there, some here, so I see myself as a dual national through and through.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, let's discuss P-Pro, so tell our audience what P-Pro does.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: So we are specializing in local payment methods.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So our mission is to simplify access to local payment methods and really we do that utilizing one global platform.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: We have two corporate positions the local payment methods that we do in Europe and some in APAC and LATAM, and the merchant of record, which is card processing, where we do a lot of it in Latin America.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: We service two types of businesses, so we work a lot with our payment service providers, psps, as well as directly with merchants.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: So our local payment method proposition is currently mainly utilized by other PSPs who then sell it to their customers.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Merchants end up to the end users and merchant of record model is one that we tend to at present mainly sell directly to merchants.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Okay, is it all e-commerce or is there retail as well?
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good question.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: The majority of what we do is e-commerce.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I think the evolution of local payment methods.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: When you look at global players focus on e-commerce.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: But we do have and had some success also utilizing local payment methods with a reasonable point of sale.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: But I would say 95% plus of what we do would be e-commerce, and does the size of the merchant or the partner matter, or just anyone that's looking for this solution?
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: So we're not focused on the solution side with the PSP's of different size and we work with them on their customer base.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Some of my PSP's work with small businesses.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Some would work with very big businesses.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I think what we try to do is make sure that the proposition, that solution, is tailored to the needs of the different PSP's and their customer base.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: For example, the onboarding process if you have a lot of small customers needs to be automated and fast, whereas if you bought one very big customer, normally the onboarding is done differently.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: So we make sure that we have the ability to service the different types of businesses, both in terms of size but also the different verticals the customers could be working in anything from retail to travel sector and their unique requirements.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: And do you ever describe your company as like in the payment orchestration business, or is it different than that?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: It's a very good question.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: We're not really an orchestrator.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: What we do is that we help companies that want to utilize a wider range of payment methods when they approach customers.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: So we have the ability to help them in moving consumers from using one payment methods to another.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: So you could define it is orchestration, but the corporate position of what we do is actually on enabling access to different markets and different payment methods.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: So, for example, if you want to go to Belgium, you could try and do it just with cards, but you also need to have access to bank contact if you're going to Germany and you know from PayPal to Zofo to other payment methods will be relevant in the country.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: If you go to the Netherlands, you have ideal.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: So what we try to do is less orchestrating for the same type payment method, but actually enabling a wider range of methods that would have a wider range of consumers in those markets.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, that makes sense.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: And how big is the company?
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: the company is, you know, a 400 plus people strong.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: We have 11 locations worldwide, but we also have some remote workers in some other markets, as many companies now have, especially post the pandemic.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: The core base of us is in Europe, so majority of the employees are based somewhere between Germany and the UK, with some offices from what's the need to sell a parlor, mexico City called by, in Argentina so if I'm a PSP and I'm it what sort of Stage do they typically come to you?
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: is it when they've they've got enough customers that are looking to move into different markets, or Do all PSP need this kind of solution?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: so I'm gonna say all PSP is need this kind of solution.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: But I can actually explain why.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: If you're customer base, if you're targeting one specific market, you're likely not to need people because you have the solution is catering for the needs of the market.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: You, from Majority of businesses in the United States and age, want to work and access customers in different markets, in different countries.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: If you're working more than one country, then you would have different methods you need to offer to really help your customers penetrate those markets.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: I think this is where you can have different ways of doing it.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: People is, I would say, the best positions to help with regards to having not just a local access in terms of the payment methods, but the know how and platform capabilities that really elevate our proposition to be better than a direct integration, and I said before, I'm mission is to simplify access to local methods and we really do that by enabling you know so good and services in those different markets are in.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: So when we work with our customers, really help them to understand the different requirements in a different markets, because it's not just a payment methods, it's a regulatory environment you working, it's a different rules that come with that, it's a protection and other areas that could be impact.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: So we're very much focused on on the full value proposition that comes with working with our customers in different markets.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: Okay, and what would you say?
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Differentiates P pro from your competitors out there.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: I think I touch a little bit about having platform capabilities.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: I think where we're very unique is we're focusing on local parent methods.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Normally, when you talk to PSPs, they're focusing on card processing, so it'd be the main card brands, and then local parent methods refer to as alternative.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Parent methods is something that they're not focusing on, but realize they need to be able to service.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: We're actually taking a very different approach here.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: What we're saying is, if you go to a local market, the payment methods in those markets are not alternative.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: They are the core, they are the basic of what people are expecting to be able to use when they live there.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: So we flip the proposition and say we will give you those payment methods and we will do it through a platform that enhances the capabilities of those payment methods, and that's the uniqueness of our proposition.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: We save the need to have endless number of connections to different parent methods.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: You need to then maintain, upgrade, look after on regular basis.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: We do all the heavy lifting and we give the connection to our different providers, and that gives us a very unique position.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: It also means that we can work with multiple PSPs and therefore have a huge amount of data that we can use for benchmarking, making sure that we have the best acceptance rate, that we have our customers understanding if something is declined, why is the decline there and how to turn it into a successful sale.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: And I think that's been hugely successful for us in our proposition and why we've been so successful in cross-selling our proposition First the PSPs that we work with and then to keep an adding payment methods one day connected to us.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: And I recently read a stat that said somewhere around 77% of global e-commerce transactions use local payment methods.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: So that sounds like that's a lot of proof right there of the value that you bring to the market.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very much.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: So I think what you see is also, if you look at Europe and obviously we spend a lot of time looking at the European market you have the European Union and we have a sense of one market with one solution to be taught, but actually you have 27 different countries.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: All of them have their uniqueness, most of them have different languages and we see the evolution of specific payment methods in border service, one specific market.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: So the fragmentation in payment methods is here to stay and it's actually accelerating.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: If you look into what happened in countries like Portugal, italy, switzerland over the last few years, poland, the emergence of local payment methods means that your stats are not just accurate, but actually it is becoming even more prevalent and with more payment methods are growing really, really fast in those markets and become dominant.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: I think that's a good segue to the next question when do you see the payments industry headed, say in the next, say maybe three to five years?
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: That's a really tough question because if you kind of look back five or seven years and try to predict how payments would evolve, I think most people probably would have gotten it wrong.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: So I think it's a combination of a few things.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: We're definitely going to see more fragmentation, in so much as we will see more new payment methods emerging in different markets, and we've seen that, like UPI in India, they came a few years ago and became the most dominant payment methods there.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Pix in Brazil has done the same.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: We're seeing 20 in Switzerland, which we've just launched and has processed over 380 million transactions last year.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: It's a new payment method in a small market and yet processing huge volumes.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: So I think we'll see a lot of that.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: But we're also seeing new, if you want, products coming out that are crossing a few countries together, like the EPI and what we're seeing in Germany, netherlands and Belgium.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: So it'll be interesting to see how that's going to evolve.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: So I think you see emergence of payment methods in specific countries and then, of course, the evolution of blockchain technology and how that's going to impact payments, because that would impact both the consumer side but also the back office, if you want.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: So the settlement process, how quickly funds are sent from one country to another, the ability to do it seven days a week, 24, seven, etc.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Which is very different to how things were done in the past.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, you can see moves by big giants like Apple and their changes in policies and how that's going to impact how different types of brands can be utilized on their platform for Apple Pay.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: So I think a lot of things are going to change in the payments industry, some through fragmentation and some through consolidation.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: Well, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about you, so tell us about your journey to your role there as the CEO.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, I started my Korean payments 22 years ago Just about 22 years ago.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I don't think that anyone gets into payments because they wanted to get into payments, it's just by coincidence.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: I found a job and that was my story.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I was coming out of uni, I didn't have too much experience.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: I found this little ad and I found myself on the merchant side.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I spent the first decade of my career working for different online gaming companies, setting up payments, infrastructure, risk management and fraud.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: Having done it for a decade, I felt like I know everything I need.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: From that end, I had the opportunity to cross over to work on the PSP side.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: I joined Worldpay as the VP of Relation Management in the gaming sector, which was utilizing my knowledge and experience.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I've worked with there before in that sector.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Then I spent almost eight years at Worldpay in different leadership roles and I had the most amazing time.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: It's fantastic.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: People learned a lot about the industry, learned a lot about payments, about PSPs.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: From Worldpay I joined Nouveau, where I was the Chief Commercial Officer for three years.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Then the opportunity came to join PIPRO.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I joined PIPRO as Chief Commercial Officer first, soon after I joined the exiting CEO, simon Black, and, as he's leaving, I put my hand up and said I think I'm ready.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: There was a long, very extensive search for external and internal for a new CEO.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Then I was the lucky guy to get the job.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: So yeah, 22 years after starting in payments, I got the job as a CEO.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: Okay, Well, first I agree with you.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: No one, at least that I have met over the years, really started their career wanting to be in payments.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: Everyone fell into payments and haven't figured out how to get out.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: So I agree with you there.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: What was so attractive about PIPRO when you came there?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: I always say I got to test the product before put my hands on it.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Pipro was a payment provider in both my previous jobs, Worldpay and Nouveau, so I had a great exposure to the fantastic product, the people here, etc.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: So when the opportunity came to engage with PIPRO and consider joining it, it was quite an easy process for me because I was always very, very appreciative of what PIPRO had to offer.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: To get my hands and be able to shape the strategy, shape the future of this business has been without starting to cliche, but quite like a dream come true been very cool to be able to do that and I'm very happy to know that I'm leading this business.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: And what advice would you give to those who are just starting out in the payment space?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I think the most important thing when you join payments so actually any industry is always be curious, always be open to change and embrace whatever is happening around you.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: When I look back to when I joined my first job in payments, a lot of the things are now part of what we do where things were impossible to imagine.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: I remember first time I saw someone spoke to me about mobile payments and I said mobile payments will never take off, but we didn't have the technology and the means to do it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: And look at mobile payments now it's the most famous I've done through mobile.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: So I think embracing change is really really important.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I think in terms of personal journey, if I look at my personal journey, I think the curiosity is really really important.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: They're willing to learn and grow and change.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: You know, be like a sponge where you take on board all the feedback you're getting and using that to really better your understanding of yourself, your understanding of the industry, understanding of the customer, your colleagues.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: I think that's been key for me what are some things you're passionate about?
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: maybe one business related passion and one personal passion I think I'll combine it into into the same one, as I mentioned the site.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: I married to my husband, peter, so I'm very passionate about diversity and inclusion, both in, you know, in the workplace as well as outside of workplace, and I've decided I mean being role models to to younger generations.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: So that's been key for me throughout my career.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been very fortunate to have a fantastic career and I've always been very open about my sexual orientation, about being gay, and as you progress in your career, I think it's also very important not only to embrace it and and use it, but also to make sure that your voice to others and that you can be a role model for younger generations, for other lgbtq I plus you know students or people who start their career and I'll be confused and finally be doing things so they can see it's a really good role models about how you can be very successful in your career.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: So that's always been key for me and just you know, in case you didn't know, we have every year march is diversity, equity and inclusion month.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: So we focus a specific month and we do four to six episodes specifically on that topic.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: So the fact that you brought it up I wanted to make sure you know you and the audience knew that we we do focus on that here and try to spotlight that as as part of our industry that I I felt like when I started this almost four years ago now wasn't given enough visibility.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: So we do a full month dedicated to that.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: So, around that, a quick question before we wrap up how do you feel like the payments industry is doing around that kind of diversity, equity and inclusion topic?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: we're having our internal kind of tangle tomorrow and the main topic is actually diversity, equity and inclusion, and I think we look we were looking at the stats of of people as well as of, you know, competitors and partners, etc.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: We're doing better than we did 10 years ago or 15 years ago, but we're still not doing anywhere near where we should be.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: We're not doing good enough.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of work to be done on the different aspects of diversity, inclusion, equity.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: I think in some areas that you can see some progress.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: I think others it's still very much behind.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: But I think we need to make sure that there's awareness to it, there's a gender around it and there's a strategy of how we can.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: All businesses in fintech and payments can do a lot better when it comes to diversity and inclusion yeah, yeah, I would agree with you there.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: So, maddie, we've covered a lot of ground so far about you and the company and the industry as a whole.
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up the show?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: no, I think just I'm wishing everyone a fantastic christmas and, uh, great start of 2024 great well, thank you so much for being on the show today.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: I know your time is very valuable, so I really appreciate you being here.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Thank, you very much, great, it's been a pleasure and to all you listeners out there.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: I thank you for your time as well, and until the next story thank you for joining us this week on the leaders in payments podcast.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Make sure you visit our website at leadersinpaymentscom, where you can subscribe to the show and where you'll find our show notes.
• 19:58
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