Meet Ivo Gueorguiev, co-founder of Paynetics
Hi Nadine, I’m Ivo Gueorguiev, co-founder and Executive Chairman of fintech payments provider Paynetics.
I’ve been in the finance industry for decades - key highlights of my career include helping to establish a new financial era in post-Cold War Central & Eastern Europe, and co-founded а pioneering retail banking group in the region too. In total I have built and exited over 20 businesses.
I co-founded Paynetics to challenge the status quo of the often convoluted world of payments, and to simplify it. Even though we are a fully regulated EMI, we’re a startup in our own right, but we also have a range of sister startup companies that provide a range of separate solutions to our customers under one Paynetics network. These include a revolutionary software POS via phos, or a digital banking platform via phyre, as a couple of examples.
What’s the most common problem your customers approach you with?
Complexity, opacity and confusion. The payment ecosystem is unnecessarily complicated, creating a lot of confusion and resulting in costs hard to justify. A lot of our customers are SMEs that are trying to navigate the complexities of various payments systems and want to digitalise in as seamless and effective a manner as possible. They want to offer their own customers as broad a range of payment options as possible, but they want to do so in a way that is streamlined and does not put them out of pocket either.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
All our products are inspired by the problems we face every day.
Paynetics was conceived with the idea to make payments simple. The whole card acceptance infrastructure was built 40-50 years ago and remains littered with legacy problems. From the moment you swipe your card to the merchant receiving the funds, there are five or six players involved. No one needs this complexity and we are trying to find solutions for that.
Phyre, our digital banking platform was born as eWallet out of the familiar frustration with forgotten or bulging wallets. We set out to change how consumers make their purchases and embarked on a venture to compress the physical wallet into the mobile phone by digitising loyalty cards, payment cards and cash.
Phos was born to put a tool in the hands of more than 130 million merchants worldwide so that they can start taking card payments directly on their phone without the need of a hardware. The current POS terminal was born around 30 years ago and has not changed much. But 30 years go there was no internet and certainly no mobile phones.
The changes we experience in our everyday life are not reflected in the way we do payments and so we are trying to change that.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
We’re different to a lot of our competitors due to the range of solutions we provide, all under one roof. We’re a card issuer, an acquirer, can provide payment tech and eWallet solutions as well as bank transfers, to name a few; when it comes to managing your payment ecosystem, you name it and we’ve got it!
This all means that we can add value to our customer’s business or solve specific problems for them by drawing on our team’s deep expertise in the finance and payments industries, and implement our tech in a quicker and more effective way than our competitors.
In addition, as a fintech one of the key pain points that our larger customers or partners have when working with startups is that they don’t have the deep regulatory knowledge required to work within this complex industry. Fintechs are often, by definition, unregulated and so when it comes to cooperating with financial institutions there is often a lack of understanding of what is a very complicated regulatory framework.
Paynetics is what I like to call a “regulated fintech” and so we can bridge the gap between runaway, disruptive ideas and down to earth, complex, regulatory frameworks. We are driven by innovation but are fully regulated, so can bring the best of both worlds and substantially shorten the time to market for our customers.
What are your thoughts on failure?
Failure is part of the game. You learn from failure, it makes you stronger and teaches you how to get back on your feet. Accepting and even encouraging failure is a main driver behind any entrepreneurial culture. I think that the US is so successful in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship because it embraces failure. In Europe failure is looked down upon. If you failed with one venture it is unlikely to get funding for another. Everyone is looking for a track record. But people often miss the track record in trying to build something, which may be as valuable as actually succeeding in building it.
If you could be in a room with 4 entrepreneurs, who would they be and why?
I admire James Dyson for his technical ingenuity and genius, for his amazing perseverance and stamina in pursuing his dream without compromising the product. And for delivering staggering engineering - I was really looking forward to his electric car.
I would love to be in the same room with Steve Jobs, to experience first hand his ability to bend reality to his will.
Richard Branson, for his charisma, genius in branding, ability to look beyond and structure businesses out of nothing, whilst managing his flaws extremely well.
Finally it would be Warren Buffett; I would love to experience first hand his sharp mind and ability to cut through nonsense, and I would hope to learn from his clarity of thought and independence of opinion, isolated from any predominant folly.
What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?
Never take NO for an answer. 99% of the people will say no. Stick to your guns and push forward.
What plans do you have for Paynetics over the next two years?
We are on a mission to simplify payments with focus on functionality and user-friendliness. We have built a full product set which allows merchants to deal with one entity only, significantly reducing complexity, friction and costs. A big priority for us is to empower the 130 million financially underserved merchants across the world to accept card payments on their phones through the first ever purely software POS solution, phos.
How important is company culture and what is your top tip to get it right?
Culture defines who you are, what you stand for and how you pursue your dream. Having the right people around you, with the same mindset, same dedication and same values, is paramount to the success of a venture. The founder defines the culture and should only bring people on board if they subscribe to it. When people start finishing your sentences, you know that you got it right.
Any new product launches we should know about?
We’ve recently launched phos - it’s a pioneering, purely software POS solution which enables merchants to accept payments from contactless cards or mobile phones directly on any NFC Android device without the need for additional hardware. Phos turns the Android device into a smart business hub thanks to additional powerful functionalities such as receipt issuing, product catalogs, loyalty, or other business applications, all seamlessly integrating with the software. The aim of phos is to arm all merchants with the technological capability to accept payments on what is considered their business hub, their smart phone, providing all merchants with the choice of how they process payments for goods purchased in their store. There are more than 130 million such merchants around the world.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
Am I willing to sacrifice my lifestyle, my free time, my security to pursue this idea? Is it worth it? The road is long and full of obstacles, so stamina and perseverance are paramount.
How do you believe the evolution of tech will affect your industry over the next 10 years?
As a fintech, we have a responsibility to push the envelope and to deliver the most cutting edge technologies to our customers. But as much as we can shape trends, we are also subject to and must respond to the broader shifts taking place in terms of customer expectations and behaviour when it comes to how they interact with payment tech, for instance.
The rise and reign of mobile payments, the increased prevalence of eWallets and the continued digital transformation of businesses will all drive the evolution of new technology, and we are at the coalface of making those solutions available. The way we pay and get paid is undergoing a huge transformation in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 and ensuing economic crises and the effects of this will continue to be felt for years to come.
