In an effort to upturn global payments technology, CLOWD9, a cloud-based decentralised payments processing platform, has come to market this week.
The UK-based fintech, a certified partner of AWS, has created a decentralised model that can be accessed virtually via ‘instances’, which route payment transactions securely through the cloud.
The brainchild of founders Peter Selman, Suresh Vaghjiani, Cosmo Spens, Artur Grabowski and Robert Hampel, the platform’s creation seeks to bolster the capabilities of back-end systems that are often beyond the spotlight of payment technology innovation.
“As a team, we have each experienced the pain points created by the legacy technology that underpins much of the payments processing industry,” comments Vaghjiani, the company’s CEO.
CLOWD9 was founded to mitigate the complexities of legacy-based payments technology, and to more efficiently service the fintech and banking sectors.
Targetting banks, challengers and fintechs, the platform applies the use of open APIs to support its microservices architecture, enabling its users to scale up and down according to transactional demand.
This makes the platform both more energy efficient and resilient compared to legacy systems.
Vaghjiani says that addressing the challenges associated with legacy systems remains central to the company’s operations, “creating a platform that is fit for purpose, using modern technology to create maximum efficiency for our clients,” he shared.
The company has confirmed the availability of its cloud instances on every continent, underlining its pursuit of providing a globally accessible payment processing platform that’s beyond the use of legacy systems and hardware.
Speaking on the accessibility of the platform, Vaghjiani admits that building a truly global service in issuer processing requires an understanding of regional payment preferences.
“For example, historically in Europe and North America cards are often used,” he says. “However, in territories such as Africa and the Asia Pacific, users are leap-frogging this technology to go straight to mobile and QR payments.”
“It was imperative that we built a platform that could service these preferences,” continues Vaghjiani, “whether they are paying by traditional card, bank transfers, QR codes, biometrics or even crypto.”
The platform also supports real-time transaction monitoring, data reporting and specific end-user controls, including spending limits and insights.
As it awaits B-Corp certification, the company currently counts 40 full-time employees at its London office while sitting on an investor base that includes Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Vantage Capital Markets.
As Hampel explains, the company has experienced “strong momentum” during its first year.
“We want to start a payments revolution!” he confirms.
“Our team has…built a platform that brings payments processing into the modern age…establishing ourselves as a genuine challenger to the current operating model.”
“We know we have built a platform with limitless potential,” continues Hampel, “and I look forward to the next phase of growth with CLOWD9 officially launched.”
