Fast-growing fintech FinXP is supporting businesses with its innovative payment solutions.

“We give a lot of importance to deeply understanding each client’s business challenges to provide them with the best solutions for their situation.”

 FinXP is a European electronic money institution based in Malta. It’s an established payments and banking solutions provider committed to empowering businesses globally to effortlessly make and receive payments in whatever form best suits them.

The company, led by an experienced management team, is growing fast and offers businesses across several sectors multiple payment solutions, including Business IBAN accounts, instant payment solutions, a Payment Gateway with 350 payment methods, SEPA Direct Debit and SEPA Credit Transfer services, as well as expert payment consultancy services combined with bespoke payment solutions.

FinXP is licensed by the Malta Financial Services Authority and it is registered with the European Payments Council and SWIFT. The company’s license has been passported within the EU and EEA.

Interview Excerpt: Jens Podewski, CEO & Co-Founder of FinXP

What are the latest technologies leveraged by you to provide exceptional financial services?

Technology can prove to be a very powerful competitive advantage in the fintech industry. It helps create massive efficiencies, introduces new product capabilities, and improves the overall customer experience. In light of all these benefits, FinXP has been investing heavily in its technology infrastructure.

One of the most notable investments we have made this past year is implementing Oracle Flexcube as our core banking system. Flexcube is one of the leading banking systems used by some of the largest banks in the world. To have it power our services gives us a significant advantage over many of the less established players in the market. One of the great things about Flexcube is its open banking capabilities. It has hundreds of APIs, and these are all opportunities to integrate with other systems, facilitate collaboration, and create new efficiencies.

Beyond Flexcube, we’ve also been investing heavily in other technologies such as client lifecycle management software, which helps us onboard clients digitally, automated transaction monitoring software, which helps us ensure that client transactions are compliant with anti-money laundering regulations, and due diligence technologies, which help us ensure we are only onboarding the right types of clients.

I think technology is definitely one of the strengths of FinXP, and that’s not just because we have all of these advanced systems but also because our software development team is able to develop complex custom solutions not just for internal use but also for our clients and partners.

Online transactions can create a lack of personal relationships with bank personnel. How do you bridge this gap?

One of the advantages of working with a boutique payments and banking company like FinXP is that since we do not target the mass market, our clients can benefit from personalized service. We give a lot of importance to deeply understanding each client’s business challenges to provide them with the best solutions for their situation.

Furthermore, internally we’ve implemented a customer relationship management solution that helps us securely organize our client communications and information. As a result, it’s easy for us to be appropriately informed and efficient when responding to client queries.

Cybersecurity is a top priority in the financial services industry. How do you secure your clients’ data without overly increasing the complexity of your services?

Ensuring that our clients’ data is secure is definitely a top priority for FinXP. Our data is protected using cybersecurity best practices such as encryption, filtering of traffic, and continuous backups. Even internal communication channels are highly encrypted, and staff members go through regular cybersecurity training to minimize the risk of human error.

We provide clients with two-factor authentication to access their accounts, and in-line with PSD2, we follow Strong Customer Authentication protocols across all our services.

Nowadays, cybersecurity is constantly changing, and we do our best to keep up with the latest developments and standards in the industry.

The Payments industry is growing quickly, with an increasing number of companies entering the market. How does FinXP stand out?

We offer a combination of integrated payment and banking services under one roof. This is rare as traditional banks do not process ecommerce payments because they lack a deep understanding of ecommerce business models. On the other hand, traditional payment service providers cannot bank and settle payments for their merchants. Offering both payment and banking services creates time and cost efficiencies for us and our clients. In addition, doing all of this with an agile and innovation-driven FinTech mindset helps us stay ahead of the pack.

What are some of the trends that will be shaping the payments and banking industries in 2021?

Throughout the past year, we have seen the ecommerce industry grow at a breakneck pace in the process of accelerating several significant payment trends that impact businesses worldwide. Among those to profit from the growth in ecommerce are the card schemes (e.g., VISA and Mastercard) that have benefitted from many people switching from cash to contactless card payments. Even though the card schemes are going strong and will remain a key payment method for a long time, we also see growth in alternative payment methods in many different European countries. For example, in Germany, giropay (an online payment system based on online banking) reached 5.5 billion transactions in 2020, resulting in a 21.7 percent growth rate.

Another significant trend growing in popularity is instant payments due to the benefits for both merchants and consumers. Faster receipt of funds can help businesses manage cash flow in real-time and avoid expensive short-term financing. Businesses will also benefit from greater certainty as payments clear and settle more quickly. From the consumer’s perspective, instant payments can lead to a superior customer experience. For example, in the online betting industry, instant pay-in and pay-out capabilities result in increased customer loyalty, hence, increased revenues for operators.

What does the future hold for FinXP and its customers? Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

We are happy to say that despite COVID-19, FinXP is doing very well and is projecting to grow significantly in the years to come. More importantly, this year, we are launching several new products that will enable us to serve and empower our clients in new ways. Currently, we are launching ‘Real Time Payments’ (RTP). This is a secure payment method that we have developed in-house that allows merchants to guarantee receipt of funds in real-time while enjoying significant cost savings compared to credit card processing. Since RTP is based on peer-to-peer payments, there are no chargebacks, giving merchants more peace of mind when running their business. In addition to RTP, we’re happy to announce that we are introducing SEPA Instant Credit Transfer payments in the coming months. We are also launching a few other exciting products this year, but we will be announcing those at a later date.

About | Jens Podewski

Jens Podewski is the CEO and Co-founder of FinXP. He is an experienced executive and entrepreneur and a specialist in the international credit card market and other payment processes. As a banker, Jens Podewski has over 25 years of experience in the financial sector. After completing his professional training, he worked in the Otto Group’s financial arm, with his last position being as Head of Trade Finance.

“One of the most notable investments we have made this past year is implementing Oracle Flexcube as our core banking system. Flexcube is one of the leading banking systems used by some of the largest banks in the world.”