Jérôme Traisnel, CEO and Co-founder of SlimPay, spoke with Pascal Burg (Director, Paris). SlimPay is the European leader in recurring payments for subscriptions. Jérôme outlines how the recurring payment services market is growing and the impact of COVID-19 on its business.

‍1. How do you anticipate the evolution of recurring payments for subscriptions in the next 5 years?

‍The recurring payment services market is already growing rapidly, thanks to factors such as digitalization of customer relationships, rise in e-commerce purchases, and PSD1/PSD2 innovation. In the next 5 years, we are going to see this pace accelerate with the arrival of instant payments and open banking.

PSD2, for example, changes how you access bank account information and provides increased security measures to improve customer trust. If you’re a merchant, you will start to see rapid access to funds and more information to develop specific payment solutions. And as a payment provider, you will need to create these solutions through innovation and deep account-to-account payment expertise.

Particularly in the SEPA zone, we will start to see how payment regulations will become more homogenous and cross-border specificities will be gradually displaced.

‍2. How does SlimPay differentiate itself from its main competitors in this space?

‍At SlimPay, we help merchants deliver increasingly successful recurring interactions with their customers. Our smart payment solution allows businesses to be paid faster with SEPA direct debit or through a mix of payment methods such as direct debit and card.

I would say that we are uniquely positioned when it comes to the payment brick to accompany merchants in this journey, thanks to our established expertise in payment collection automation and proven range of value-added services. We’re here to help merchants extract more value for their payments — moving beyond just getting paid but how they can strategically maximize each part of that value chain.

‍3. How has the COVID-19 crisis impacted SlimPay?

‍There is strong resilience in the recurring/subscription business compared to “one-off” purchases because it provides merchants with a steady stream of predictable revenue.

At the start of COVID-19, we saw an uptick in consumer behaviour and online consumption: pay TV, music downloads, games, etc. So companies that were ahead of the trends of digitalization and recurring payment models managed to ride out some of those turbulent waves.

Our story was no different. In a crisis like this, you need operational excellence — particularly in payment, which is core for all businesses. We pivoted early on in the crisis to focus our tech, product, and support teams on payment delivery to best serve our customers 24/7. This was crucial to our resilience because our merchants’ success is our success.

‍4. What are your personal interests?

‍Being an entrepreneur is a strong part of my identity, so even in my spare time, I enjoy helping entrepreneurs with their businesses. I sit on the board of many companies and am involved with an incubator in Paris. The mentorship work is rewarding in terms of being able to use my experiences to help these bright, young entrepreneurs hone their skills and focus on the right initiatives.

I’m also part of the Galion Project, a think tank of over 300 CEOs in the French tech ecosystem, where we’re always sharing ideas and best practices. Occasionally, we will get together for some outdoor activities — eager to get back into that once the pandemic is under control.

‍5. Any personal goals? Bucket list?

‍Personally, I’m a huge fan of any literature that challenges your mindset and outlook. I did cross off a bucket list item of mine in my earlier years when I spent a year and a half in Africa. It was a transformative experience that really shaped my framework of mind, particularly how it relates to materialism and human relationships. Since then, I’ve been fascinated in discovering the different ways that people build their mindset and find satisfaction and contentment through that prism. If you have any recommended books on this, please send them my way!‍

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