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Ruth McCarthy is the CEO of FEXCO Corporate Payments and a non-executive director at Goodbody stockbrokers.
She shares her thoughts on how disruption can be good for business.
by phone: these interactions are a really important opportunity to get feedback from the market and get a better understanding of customer requirements. We are pretty outward looking in our business because most of our activity happens outside Kerry – we have sales staff across Britain and Ireland and a dealing team in Edinburgh.
I work at FEXCO head office in Killorglin, county Kerry so I enjoy a five minute commute to work. FEXCO Corporate payments and Goodbody form part of the FEXCO Group, a financial services and outsourcing specialist employing more than 2,300 people worldwide, and as the head of my business, I tend to enjoy a pretty varied working life. My job involves working with my management team to ensure that our various functions (sales, treasury, marketing, operations and compliance) are delivering what we need for the business to succeed.
FEXCO Corporate Payments (FCP) is a technology business so we don’t often get to meet our customers face-to-face. Clients typically interact with FCP through our online systems and
I do quite a bit of work with industry bodies such as the FinTech and Payments Association of Ireland. This gives me an opportunity to stay on top of what’s happening in the industry and ensure that our strategy is fit for purpose. I travel to Dublin a few times a month to attend industry meetings, and to conferences around Europe a few times a year, so I have plenty of air miles!
FEXCO Group is already serving a global customer base from our headquarters in southwest Ireland, particularly with our merchant services products. The next challenge for us is to grow our networks and deliver new products out to the markets that we serve. Our presence in Ireland gives us immediate access to the European market, but it also gives us easy access to the rest of the world because we are perfectly placed between the US and Asia, for instance we can do a call with FEXCO staff in Florida and Hong Kong during everyone’s normal business hours. Ireland is also a great environment for acquiring and developing talent because we have a young population and a first-rate education system.
There are a lot of disruptors facing the payments industry at the moment. The disruption has largely been triggered by digitalisation: there are lots of new products and payment methods coming to the market, and the market is now genuinely global. Traditional payment methods like card and wire transfer are getting more sophisticated and flexible, and at the same time we are seeing new payment methods like Apple Pay and Alipay coming into the market. It’s a fascinating time to work in the industry because trends are changing frequently and the future is unpredictable. The downside of this is that product lifecycles are getting shorter and we have to run to stand still. This is a fact of life for non-bank payments businesses like FEXCO.
I think the rapid rate of change in our market is more of a positive than a negative for us. A lot of FEXCO’s success comes down to our ability to deliver flexible solutions quickly, so we see
down barriers for customers and partners, and that’s something we will continue to focus on into the future. We have proven that services originating from our HQ here in Kerry can solve problems for customers in every continent worldwide, and that is something we want to build on. FEXCO is also regarded as Ireland’s oldest FinTech business so we have a growing role in supporting start- ups in the industry, as well as newcomers from other markets.
The working culture in Ireland is fantastic because people tend to be pragmatic and they focus on the end goal. That attitude helps to support a good work- life balance because there is an emphasis on prioritisation and time management. The common sense approach to work also encourages problem-solving and critical thinking, which makes this a great place for technology and innovation.
Irish people have a strong sense of community yet are very open
in Kerry can solve problems for customers in every continent.”
ourselves having a bigger role in the market as payments become more diverse and complex.
FEXCO is expanding not only in payments but also in areas like asset finance and outsourcing. As a technology-driven business we’re always looking for ways to break
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to newcomers. Teamwork and collaboration are second nature to them and they tend to be really open to new ideas or new ways of working. People take a genuine interest in supporting each other and that creates a great environment for doing business and just living life.”
fexco.com
“We have proven that services originating from our HQ here
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