IBS Journal April 2016


the reward economically with little if any long term social upheaval. Socially the UK has thrived historically when interacting with Europe but like all relationships there


are positives and negatives. I am not yet convinced by the Brexit argument and it does force pan European businesses to consider where they may domicile and operate from in future.


Scott Thompson: PFS has been doing deals with various other FinTechs, challenger banks, local authorities and retailers. Could you bring us up to speed on your latest


contracts? NM: We are working with banks and financial institutions across Europe, such as NLB, Slovenia’s largest bank. We’ve delivered a quick to market, prepaid payment programme which includes an instant issue contactless card and stickers for mobile payments. This is a prime example of where a bank needs to partner with a FinTech to give them a technology advantage: prepaid products are issued through our platform rather than their legacy systems that simply can’t facilitate such innovation as quickly.


We’ve also worked with mobile net-


work operator Three Mobile to deliver their first own-branded payments product, a vir- tual and physical prepaid MasterCard that can be managed through their customers’ mobile app. Budgeting is enabled within the app so this in particular has allowed Three Mobile to enter the market with their own banking product that offers a stronger customer proposition that even some of the banks can currently provide. A slightly different example is our


partnership with Correos in Spain – the Spanish Post Office. This launched last year and it is now one of Spain’s most significant prepaid consumer programmes, that includes a contactless card that can be


There are real FinTech gems out there who have been


trading for a significant amount of time and who have a bonafide story to tell. But as the saying goes, for others


it’s been a case of the higher they rise, the harder they fall, which is unhelpful to our industry as a whole.


topped up in any Post Office branch in the country. The programme has really opened up the door for the Post Office to address all of its customers with financial products, regardless of their socio-economic status. Our multi-currency products that


allow up to 15 currencies to be stored on one card account are also gaining a lot of traction. These products, offered by the likes of our startup FinTech client Centtrip, utilise a card but also allows the current account functionality of our bank-lite proposition. This is also proving be a big


© IBS Intelligence 2016


hit with corporate clients such as AFEX as it takes all the complication and expense out of sending and spending money overseas; they have totally transparent fees and no mark up, with direct access to buy currency from the live market. Prepaid is an area of financial services


that both professional and individual consumers think they understand based on their own specific experiences. The applica- tions of the technology are, however, much more wide reaching than many realise.


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43


the big interview


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