Jeremy Nicholds, CEO of Judopay, payment gateway provider focusing on delivering a simple, seamless and safe payment checkout process both in-app and online, spoke to EDC’s Samee Zafar.‍

As payment transaction processing is a scale business, do you think, the large processors still have a cost advantage or nimble new processors will offer something different?

‍Transaction processing is and always has been a scale business - one where volume is king and cost per transaction is the principal metric. But changing consumer behaviour – with consumers across the world embracing mobile technology at an accelerating rate – and the relentless growth of customer not present digital commerce – be that ‘e’, ‘m’ or ‘app’ based- mean that more and more emphasis is being placed on successful transactions, with a focus on cutting cart abandonment or dropout rates. Whilst solutions from the ‘large scale providers’ built for the e-comm age do work for mobile commerce, the results are often pretty clunky in terms of the customer journey they support, and they lack sophistication in managing fraud. As retailers have to fight much harder for a successful transaction these days, the clear performance advantage that ‘pay-tech’ processors like Judopay using native solutions can offer is very attractive.

In addition, the major advances in and availability of cloud technology mean that smaller companies without expensive legacy operations, call centres and technology setups, that fully embrace cloud-based solutions can achieve similar or better cost advantages. Advances in automation and machine learning also allow smaller more agile players like Judopay to compete with bigger competitors. With the payments industry undergoing significant change – as a result of changes to payment regulations such as PSD2 and other initiatives - small processors are able to adapt more quickly to events which in turn presents an opportunity to be one of the first in the market with a particular service.

‍Will payment processing services become more and more industry-specific – how does Judopay deliver industry vertical industry processing needs?

‍Possibly. We’re seeing a lot of consolidation right now though which takes us the other way. As consumers and business people we live in a really exciting age – one where business models and ways of doing things are constantly being challenged and enhanced by disruptive new players. Understanding merchants, their business models and their customer journeys is key to Judopay’s approach – helping our merchants to grow their businesses, and as a consequence growing our own. There is then an inevitable tailoring of what we do to meet the needs of the client.

Whilst as a company there are sectors that we specialise in, such as transit, parking, food & beverage, personal financial services including insurance – this is more to do with merchant adoption of mobile app-commerce – where certain sectors have led the way. The inevitability is that having solved a payment processing issue for one merchant in a particular vertical, and perhaps setting the standard for what good looks like in that vertical, you get asked to help other merchants in the sector and gain further experience in that sector which helps all our clients.

For the future, we’re excited to be talking to more and more merchants that previously eschewed card payments due to costs, that are attracted by the possibilities of account to account transactions and solutions like Mastercard’s PaybyBank.

‍What do you in your spare time? Hobbies?

‍Family and friends are really important to me – and as a father of three, I find my time gets used up pretty quickly. Cycling became a passion of mine a few years back when I was persuaded by a dear friend of mine to do the Land’s End to John O’Groats ride for charity. I’ve since done a fair amount of distance rides but not a lot recently. Skiing is another passion and one which I look forward to every year. I enjoy music, theatre, cinema and finding new places to eat out – and non-work travel is a treat.

‍Your personal goals for 2019?

‍Improving health and happiness (so being a positive individual, having a positive impact on the world) are my recurring resolutions – but this year I’ve set myself the challenge of being entirely ‘cash free’ – just using my cards, mobile devices and digital banking for any and all of my payment needs. So far so good, and whilst I’m set to go to some more challenging countries later this year, I’m determined to make it.