Marcel van Oost

🚨𝗝𝗨𝗦𝗧 𝗜𝗡: Adyen launched 𝗔𝗱𝘆𝗲𝗻 𝗨𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗳𝘁: The payment solution optimizing every transaction with AI. With Adyen Uplift, companies benefit from AI trained on over a $𝟭 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻+ of global payments data 🤯 The AI-powered payment optimization suite will help businesses increase payment conversion, simplify fraud management, and reduce the cost of payments. Adyen’s customers can utilize data-driven, tailored performance recommendations and opportunities to test different payment configurations to maximize performance. The new product suite helps you strike the balance between conversion, fraud, and cost. According to Adyen, pilot customers have already seen a conversion rate increase of up to 6%, while keeping fraud under control. “Balancing risk management, driving conversion, and minimizing cost has always required ineffective compromises – until now” said Carlo Bruno, VP of Product at Adyen. “Adyen Uplift changes the game by unleashing the depth and power of AI to solve for real-time payment optimization. This will transform cost savings and performance, redefining business efficiency in 2025 and beyond.” Source/more info: https://lnkd.in/dS664pGd Find this helpful? [ 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁 ] Anything to add about this subject? [𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁] Nice story, Marcel. Next! [ 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 ] 

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Merchant acquirers are behind every card payment. But unlike banks or card brands, they get far less visibility. Here's my take on the European landscape. A merchant acquirer enables businesses to accept card payments from customers. They process transactions, settle funds, and handle the connection to card networks. In Europe, acquirers typically operate under one of two PSD2-regulated licenses: • As an authorized payment or e-money institution • As a credit institution (i.e., a bank) 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗲𝘁𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀: 𝟭.𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱𝗽𝗮𝘆 has global scale and strong enterprise and omnichannel capabilities. Privately owned, it's expanding internationally and serving large, complex merchants. Set to be acquired by Global Payments in 2026. 𝟮. 𝗡𝗲𝘅𝗶 is Europe’s top consolidator, integrating major acquisitions (Nets, SIA) while focusing on local expertise and deep bank relationships. 𝟯. 𝗙𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃 combines US scale with global reach. It leverages its Clover platform and bank ties to deliver end-to-end commerce solutions. 𝟰. 𝗔𝗱𝘆𝗲𝗻 redefined acquiring with a developer-first, API-native model. Its single tech stack powers global platforms like Uber and Spotify. 𝟱. 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘆𝘀 uses its universal banking position to support acquiring, cross-selling to merchants and embedding finance across its UK base. 𝟲. 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 is Europe-focused, with strength in public sector and regulated verticals. Post-Ingenico, it’s expanding multi-country reach. 𝟳. 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 has a strong omnichannel presence, serving enterprises with integrated commerce. Its Worldpay acquisition will make it Europe’s largest acquirer. 𝟴. 𝗝.𝗣. 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻 𝗣𝗮𝘆𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 is gaining ground as a premium institutional-grade acquirer, embedding acquiring into treasury and cash management services. 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀: - Shrinking margins: Interchange fee regulation, competitive pricing, and rising compliance costs are putting pressure on profitability. - Alternative rails: Open Banking and A2A payments are maturing fast, promising lower-cost alternatives to cards - especially in e-commerce and bill payments. - Embedded finance: Merchants increasingly expect acquiring to come bundled with value-added services - lending, payouts, loyalty - not just payment processing. - Tech debt: Legacy acquirers face challenges modernizing infrastructure while competing with tech-native players like Adyen or Stripe. - Regulation: PSD3, AML upgrades, and data protection rules are adding pressure, especially on KYC, onboarding, and cross-border flows. - M&A Integration: Several players are still digesting mega-mergers, risking delays in platform unification and operational efficiency. Opinions: my own, Trx. volume source: 2025 Nilson Report 𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫: https://lnkd.in/dkqhnxdg

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Europe’s payments landscape is moving quickly. Just last week, ING Germany announced it is joining Wero, the European Payments Initiative’s digital wallet. With this step, Wero now connects to more than 40 million consumers across core EU markets.   This highlights a broader trend: new wallets and account-to-account schemes are gaining traction, reshaping how Europeans expect to pay. For merchants, the challenge is clear, customers will continue to demand flexibility, whether through cards, wallets, or A2A.   At Nayax, our role is to put the customer’s needs first. That’s why we enable acceptance of over 80 payment methods and 50 currencies worldwide, ensuring merchants don’t need to predict which option will dominate, but can simply say “yes” to whatever their customers prefer.   AI is playing its own role here: as new schemes scale across borders, AI is becoming essential to manage complexity, from monitoring transaction patterns to anticipating consumer behavior.   As Europe experiments with unified wallets, do you believe the biggest shift will come from consumer adoption, or from how providers adapt to manage so much choice?

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The card issuing stack isn’t just about issuing cards anymore—it’s about the business model you choose. Payments Issuing Business Models Fintechs, platforms, and corporates entering the card space face a critical question: Do you want control, speed, or flexibility? Your answer determines who you partner with. Let’s break down the payments issuing business models, as mapped by Flagship Advisory Partners: 🔹 Issuer Processors & Vendors (e.g. Marqeta, Thredd, Enfuce): They power the plumbing—auth, card management, tokenization, 3DS, etc. Used by banks and BaaS providers. Low on customer ownership, high on infrastructure. 🔹 Group Service Providers (e.g. Elan, Nexi): They bundle processing, BPO, and VAS—ideal for small banks that want a full-service package. Less flexible but simple to deploy. 🔹 White-label BaaS (e.g. Unit, Moov, ClearBank): API-first platforms that offer modular banking/payment services. Great for fintechs building fast. Coverage varies—many rely on partner networks and integrations. 🔹 White-label Program Managers (e.g. Tillo, Imprint): Offer card products and program management as a service. Can support both consumer and commercial use cases. Verticalized and usually take on some program P\&L risk. 🔹 SaaS Payment Facilitators (e.g. Stripe, Adyen, Nuvopay): They embed payments into SaaS platforms. End-to-end experiences with easy onboarding and monetization. Best for platforms serving third-party merchants. 🔹 Specialized Direct Issuers (e.g. Ramp, Soldo, Edenred): Own the full experience and serve niche verticals like expense management, fuel cards, or employee benefits. Closed-loop or hybrid networks. 🔹 Bank Issuers (e.g. JPMorgan, HSBC, Barclays): Operate through traditional issuer processors, with a mix of in-house and vendor support. Still relevant for large-scale, regulated use cases. The further right you go, the more control you have—along with more risk and responsibility. Whether you’re building a consumer neobank, B2B expense platform, or embedded finance product, understanding these models helps you make the right strategic choice. HSBC JP Morgan J.P. Morgan NEOBANK Barclays Barclays UK Stripe Adyen Nuvei Alipay Unit Nexi Group Tribe Payments Pleo Soldo Bankart d.o.o. EML WEX Benefits Deutsche Bank UniCredit Tillo ClearBank SIBS Marqeta ConnectPay Sepaga EMI Wallester Soldo AirPlus Payhawk EUROWAG Corpay Bankable Dash (YC S25) Deserve BORICA AD Worldline

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If your business accepts card-not-present (CNP) payments in Europe, here’s something you can’t afford to ignore. From October 2025, industry updates signal that transactions processed without network tokens or EMV 3D Secure will attract higher costs. For merchants still relying heavily on PAN-based traffic, this represents a direct hit to margins. These fees rarely show up in flashing lights, but left unchecked, they accumulate and quietly eat into profitability. Why this matters: * This isn’t just a compliance update - it’s a cost control issue. * It isn’t only a payments matter - it’s a profitability challenge. * And it’s not just technical debt - delaying action turns it into strategic debt. So this is what I would recommend Payments team to do: * Review how much of your CNP traffic is still unauthenticated PAN-authorised transactions. * Audit scheme fee line items on your invoices and assess the potential impact of this fee increase. * Challenge your acquirer: are they actively helping you optimize, or simply processing transactions? Fees of this nature are not going away. They’re part of a global shift toward token-first, secure-by-default digital commerce. Merchants that act early by shifting traffic to tokens, adopting 3DS, and working strategically with their acquirers will position themselves not just to cut costs, but to improve approval rates and reduce fraud. At Checkout.com, we see first-hand the real impact of scheme fees on merchants’ bottom lines. That’s why we go beyond processing. The question for merchants is no longer whether these changes will affect you, but how prepared you are to adapt. Don’t let avoidable costs drain revenue that could be reinvested in growth. PS: As a network token provider, we can request tokens directly from the card schemes on your behalf. With our Managed Service, we take care of the data, updates, storage, and optimisation, giving you stronger security, simpler compliance, and reduced scheme fees. #SchemeMandate #PaymentOperations #fintech #payments #checkoutcom #tokenization #networktokens #schemefees #costoptimisation #paymentsstrategy #ecommerce #profitability

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🤷‍♀️ What do banks really want? This has been a constant question in my career, whether investigating it for the fintech community as a whole or specifically for mmob's API integration toolkit. There’s no easy answer. We know banks focus on customers and want to put innovation at their core, but we also know turning that oil tanker isn't easy, and as a fintech the temptation to ask “why can’t we just…?” is high. I’m afraid the way forward is simple but not easy. It's not news that you need to understand how the business operates, what their current and long-term priorities are, how your product solves real, immediate problems, and what challenges a large FI might have in adopting it – whether commercial, regulatory or technical. So how on earth do we get this information, beyond the generic approved answers we hear on an industry panel? NatWest Group made this easier by inviting five fintechs into their Fintech Growth Programme which delved into the bank’s key focuses and decision-making metrics, what they care about and how they evaluate and work with technology partners. We were invited to join teams like Innovation & Partnerships to really get under the hood and understand how innovation and procurement processes work, which many fintechs find hard to unravel. NatWest’s mission was to support fintechs in their scaling journey from sales to raising investment, as well as to build paths into the bank and simply understand the questions I hear every day like “who is in charge of what” and “what goes where”. These generous insights have been extremely valuable and I am grateful to have been included alongside Irfan Khan, especially for the chance to step outside our day-to-day operations and take time to reflect and plan for the future. I look forward to staying in touch with the NatWest team.  

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𝗗𝗼 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗡𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗔 𝗠𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁? 🌀 In the payment processing world, merchants are people or businesses that receive payments online from customers. Merchant accounts are online accounts used for making transactions between those entities and the processors. As a means of the process, they will hold all necessary information and documents so there’s no need to submit them again when making purchases through that merchant account. This is how it works (for getting a merchant account and processing services): 🔗 Sign up with basic personal info and required records. 🔗 Get it verified by the processor company. 🔗 After successful verification, activate it. 🔗 Once activated, it becomes an active merchant account As I mentioned before, it is a medium between the merchants and the payment gateways/processors because: ✔ It would have bank account details linked with it, so that only one of those accounts receives online payments made by customers. ✔ It will have a link to the website registered with it so that every time someone comes to visit or make a purchase on that site they'll use this specific gateway as well. ✔ There are other settings in regard to settling cycles, transaction limits, etc., but those are all set within the merchant account itself. ✔ Lastly, a merchant account gives you access to the dashboard - which has all kinds of statistics about transactions and feedback from both buyers and sellers- plus different functions related to settlements and refunds. Basically, this type of account is just an easy way for merchants (businesses) to keep track of things rather than having everything done manually. ➖➖➖ In the last 13 years, I have worked with over 10,000 companies creating transparency in the payments space. A business is useless without a payment "PARTNER". Entrepreneurs can have their businesses crippled OVERNIGHT if not prepared. Frozen funds and shutdown accounts are common occurrences. **** 👉 Type “PAY” in the COMMENTS below and get my FREE checklist: “5 Mistakes That Can Cost You Millions”. #entrepreneurship #bestadvice #strategy #business #paymentprocessing #fintech #platpay

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So, Klarna just released its S-1, and there is not much info on Klarna Cards as of yet. They mentioned 5MM people on the waiting list for the card. As we have discussed multiple times, #BNPL adoption is not just about credit card loan disruption. These providers are using Visa flexible credentials along with their BNPL capability to disrupt deposit growth. I agree with Ron Shevlin's position that BNPL is a product, not a company. The concern I have is that these companies are becoming more full-service banking solutions than just BNPL offerings. I have also updated our quarterly Fintech update to include the latest numbers from Affirm. They increased debit cards by another 97% to 2.3MM and card spending by 132% to $1.1B. This is minor compared to the 32B that Chime reported, but it is growing significantly faster. As Ron has mentioned, traditional checking accounts are becoming paycheck motels, as moving money is so easy, and folks are moving money into investing accounts, crypto accounts, children's accounts, or BNPL accounts. This is above and beyond these companies' positioning themselves to become the primary direct deposit account. Are you tracking transfers in and out of your accounts to evaluate how much of your deposit base is being disrupted by these fintech disruptors?

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Is your glass half full or half empty? For nearly a decade in PSD2 and Open Banking, I’ve often heard: “the tech isn’t good enough for the use case I want.” Today, I rarely hear that on the consumer side—a sign that PSD2 APIs have matured, and many really exciting use cases are now possible. But in the corporate space, the feedback remains: quality isn’t quite there yet. And yes, there’s still work to do. Yet, it’s not only about technology. It’s also about mindset. Instead of saying, “I can’t cook vegetable soup because there are no carrots at home”—let’s open the fridge, see what’s already there, and ask: What can I create with the ingredients available? Who can I serve with the tools we already have? Think of the early days of electric cars. Many said: “The range is too short—I’ll wait until it improves.” But pioneers said: “It doesn’t cover all my needs yet, but it covers enough.” As technology advanced, adoption followed. Open Banking is in that same phase. The tools exist. The opportunity is here. 👉 So my question to you is: Do you know what you can build today with the APIs we already have? If not, lets have a chat! #openbanking #enablebanking #innovation #B2B

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#Payments is an industry in which established players benefit to wide and deep #moats and “shift to electronic payments” tailwinds. Large double digits operating profit and net margins are a pointer to the huge value of #networkeffects. Some that leading payment companies benefit from. The more consumers that are plugged into a payment network, the more attractive that payment network becomes for merchants, which in turn makes the network more convenient for consumers, and so on”.   “Visa is a longtime, established market leader that still enjoys strong growth prospects. Despite the ongoing evolution of the payment industry, [Morningstar] think[s] that a wide moat surrounds the business and that Visa’s position in the global electronic payment infrastructure is essentially unassailable. .. Digital payments, on a global basis, surpassed cash payments just a few years ago, suggesting that this trend still has a lot of room to run. " “.. despite ongoing evolution in the payment space, a wide moat surrounds [Mastercard’s] business and [its] position in the current global electronic payment infrastructure as essentially unassailable.  ..  In the near term, we expect Mastercard's results to normalize to a level in line with the prepandemic period. The state of the economy [is the] biggest risk" "American Express enjoyed several years of accelerated growth as its new card acquisition and loan growth has significantly outpaced peers'. The company has historically been a payment network first and lender second. While this has not changed and it still only gets around 25% of its revenue from net interest income, its shift toward a younger cardholder base and more lending features on its cards drove a 26.1% compound annual growth rate in net interest income from 2021 to 2024, providing a major tailwind to overall growth. .. The company’s greatest strength remains its .. base of high-spending individuals and small businesses. .. This will continue as Amex's position in the premium #card market has only gotten stronger in recent years“ “PayPal’s development of a network of both merchants and consumers early in the evolution of e-commerce allowed the company to build and maintain an enviable competitive position. Historically, PayPal’s growth had been driven by the ongoing shift toward electronic payments and the rise of e-commerce” Payments in an industry that is “relatively exposed to a downturn in the economy, as online purchases tend to be discretionary. If the macro picture changes for the worse” this could have some effect on results. Graphs are from the newly released update of App Economy Insights’ “How They Make Money / Earning Visuals” https://lnkd.in/dH5_9uXv Commentary is based on Morningstar’s analysis www.morningstar.com Post is illustrative& does not constitute financial analysis or investment advice. #card #payments Sam Boboev Nafis Alam Panagiotis Kriaris Prasanna Lohar Nicolas Pinto Sandra M.Nafis Alam

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