Discover the latest trends in the fintech and payments industry as Discover® Global Network, Fyorin and Tribe Payments share their perspectives on the power of collaboration and the road ahead.
Fintech Connect, the 10th edition of the annual event connecting the entire financial technology ecosystem taking place at London’s Excel in December, once again emerged as a central hub for discussions on all things fintech.
The Fintech Times met up with Joachim Soderling, senior manager at Discover Global Network; Christian Agius, co-founder at Fyorin; and Alex Reddish, managing director at Tribe Payments, to hear their insights as we explored the evolution of fintech, the vital role of partnerships, and emerging trends in payments.
Discover’s insights
Soderling highlighted Discover Global Network’s commitment to building a robust ecosystem of partners. The focus is on integrating new tech companies, issuers, and processes into its network.
He highlighted how the company’s biggest learning in the past 12 to 18 months has been the significance of forming strong and reliable partnerships with the fintech industry’s rapid evolution necessitating teaming up with new collaborators to evolve and move forward.
However, Soderling noted that the focus is not just about merely onboarding as many clients as possible but ensuring that these clients are successfully launched in the market. This shift reflects a deeper commitment to the success of each partnership, where quality and efficiency take precedence.
“We’ve had a lot of interest in our services, which means we’ve had to focus more on helping bring these partners out live to market and ensuring their programmes are working properly.”
While many partnerships begin as traditional supplier-buyer relationships, Soderling highlighted the need to expedite the transition to genuine partnership models. Discover Global Network, as a global payment organisation, recognises that it cannot operate in isolation. Its strategy involves finding the right partners, enabling them to reach clients, and working efficiently together to onboard new programmes.
“It’s all about having the capabilities ready together with the right partners to onboard new programmes as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
Fyorin’s insights
Agius at Fyorin, a payments platform that automates and monetises the flow of funds across a curated network of financial institutions, shed light on the partnership with Discover. Fyorin enables Discover to launch its services from prominent global brands seeking customised solutions. Agius stressed that Fyorin’s flexibility in creating tailored solutions is key to their partnership’s success.
He said: “We’re facilitating innovative payment use-cases through issuance of the Discover Global brand, to be used by banks and financial institutions that might not have the technology to enable them to get there in a short period of time.”
Emphasising the value of partnerships, he also added: “Partnerships are essential because if we group together, everyone brings their own USP, creating a compelling solution to the end customer.”
Tribe Payments’ insights
Tribe Payments, a cloud-based, API-led and fully customisable payments infrastructure technology company specialising in issuer and acquirer processing, addressed what makes a great partnership, focusing on certification and support in various regions.
Reddish echoed Soderling’s thoughts, emphasising the mutual gains that can be enjoyed when finding and working with the right partners: With Discover and with Fyorin our ability to collaborate to deliver B2B products wouldn’t be possible on our own.” It’s identifying the mutual benefit and ultimately working together to solve problems. Fintech was built to allow for partnerships and cooperation. We’re a big believer in a non-supplier-based relationship, and even with our customers we consider them partners.”
Looking ahead, he also touched upon the commercialisation of data. Reddish mentioned that as the value of data becomes increasingly recognised, big corporations may start developing pricing models and business strategies around it. This suggests that data access and usage may evolve into a commercial enterprise.
“The availability of data might start to become a commercial enterprise rather than a catch all.”
Watch the interview in full
