In 2008 I started a business on the day that the financial crisis started. Having poured all my savings into a new endeavor and seeing the economy crumble in front of my eyes, was one of the most surreal feelings I ever had. Being a true optimist, instead of pulling out, I decided to go through with it. Investing over €250,000.- …

Yesterday the CBS News reported that Jack Dorsey the CEO of Twitter told his employees that he anticipates them to work from home at least until the end of the year, and on top of that even said that they don’t even have to return to the office at all, and can continue to work from home if they want to.

In a world that has become even more global than ever before, having a CEO like Jack, make such a statement, really might indicate the dawn of a new era. But it makes me wonder can you truly have…

If you are in the Payments/FinTech industry, and you keep track of companies who are listed, you might have noticed that Adyen, the Dutch Payments company, crossed the €1,000.- per share mark, making the total company worth a little more than €30 Billion. In the Netherlands, it has made a significant impact, as it is now bigger than the well known ING Bank (€20 Billion) and ABN Amro Group (€5,5 Billion). But also on a global scale, companies like Fiserv, PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa are paying close attention to their biggest rival.

Being part of the Payments Industry for over…

While there have been key events throughout modern history over the years that have drastically changed consumer behavior — from the Industrial Age to the Great Depression, World Wars, and the Internet Age — we are facing unprecedented times. The current Global Coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed how we work, play, and spend our money. This has had a direct impact on the global economy, and shaping the future for eCommerce across all industries, for merchants and payment service providers alike. As of yet, it’s difficult to predict exactly how the marketplace will look going forward, and this is a…

I see it all the time, entrepreneurs, managers, product owners and analyst, at startups who continue to lie to themselves. Especially entrepreneurs, they are the most delusional of all.

Every great company started based on a lie

When it comes to business, especially in startups entrepreneurs lie to themselves every single day. Let’s face it, if you want to make it as an entrepreneur your biggest asset might actually be the fact that you believe your own lies, you are just waiting for the world to catch up and see what you see. An entrepreneur starts with an idea, something that could change the world, or at least…

In the last couple of years, we have seen a growing number of acquisitions in the Payments Industry. From large investors buying established global companies, like San Francisco Partners -> Verifone, to strategic acquisitions for capabilities, geo-expansion or consolidation purposes, like ING -> PayVision, WorldFirst -> Wyre or Worldline -> SIX. However, the companies that don’t seem to be bought up just yet, are the ones who have made leveraging their Data a key strategic objective. …

Unless you have been living under a rock the last couple of years, you must have heard about Voice. Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant or even Apple’s Siri, each Virtual Assistants used with hardware provided by the parent company or hardware partners, are currently the manifistation of Voice.

With products like Amazon Echo, Google Home or Apple HomePod, users are learning to interact with a devices that are controled using voice, instead of the now familiar remote or touch-based controls. But like any other device that came before it, this first introduction has been very limited feature wise. …

I find it fascinating to be part of any discussion that stretches across generations (from Baby-Boomers to Millennials), especially in the Financial Services industry. Unlike the traditional banking industry, that required a lot of people to manage and fulfil the tasks related to it, current FinTech companies use technology to automate tasks and leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to reduce the manual work and processes.

The complexity of the traditional banking and payments industries has led to organisational structures, which can go as far as six levels of VP’s (Vice-Presidents) reporting to SVP’s (Senior Vice-Presidents) and even EVP’s (Executive…