June 26, 2025 • 19 mins
What happens when you build direct connections to over 350 real-time banks and wallets worldwide? You create what Thunes CEO Floris de Kort calls "the smart superhighway to move money around the world."
The limitations of traditional cross-border payments are all too familiar for businesses operating globally. SWIFT transfers take days, lack transparency, come with hefty fees, and stop completely on weekends and holidays. Thunes is revolutionizing this outdated model by enabling real-time payments across 130 countries and 80 currencies through direct connections to financial institutions and alternative payment methods.
During this revealing conversation, Floris explains how Thunes has built a powerful competitive advantage through direct integrations with payment endpoints like GCash in the Philippines and M-Pesa in Kenya. Unlike competitors who rely on chains of aggregators, these direct connections deliver higher transaction success rates, more cost-efficient processing, and faster issue resolution when problems arise.
Perhaps most compelling is how Thunes' services are enabling financial inclusion in emerging markets. By facilitating immediate payments to mobile wallets, they're helping unbanked individuals participate in the global economy - like ride-share drivers in Africa who can now receive instant payment, purchase fuel, and continue earning without traditional banking infrastructure.
With licenses now secured in all 50 U.S. states and a new office opening in Atlanta, Thunes is positioned for aggressive growth in American markets, particularly serving U.S. companies with global payment needs.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast,
where we talk to C-level leadersfrom across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing theproducts and services that
impact the payment space today,as well as trends and
predictions for the future ofpayments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andtoday's special guest is Floris
de Kort, the CEO of Tunes.
So, floris, thank you for beinghere and welcome to the show.
Thank you for having meAppreciate it Absolutely.
So before we get into the meatof it, if you don't mind, tell
our audience a little bit aboutyourself, maybe where you grew
up, where you went to school,where you currently live, a few
(00:38):
things like that.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well, the funny accent's Dutch, so Dutch.
So I grew up in the Netherlands.
I currently well for now, butthat needs to change.
I currently live in Australiawith my husband and two
six-year-old children, but forTunes it makes more sense that
we relocate ourselves to eitherEurope or the UK, so somewhere
over the course of the next sixmonths we will move back to
Europe.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Okay, great.
So let's talk about the company.
So I think most of ourlisteners are probably going to
know what Toons does, but if youdon't mind for those that may
not just tell us what Toons does, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
So Toons is the smart superhighway to move money
around the world.
We have spent quite a bit oftime and resources and money
building a network of directconnections to over 350
real-time banks and wallets, aswell as to the main card schemes
like Visa, MasterCard andUnionPay, for members of our
network to make real-timepayouts into all these APMs and
(01:29):
wallets and cards, etc.
So Junes moves money and we doit in real time.
We do it in over 130 countriesand over 80 currencies.
We support both fintechs,financial technology companies,
traditional money remitters, butmore and more so we support
businesses for business payments.
Think of travel companies,think of insurance companies,
think of social media companies.
(01:50):
That's the key focus right now.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Okay, and it's all B2B type payments.
It's B2C, b2b, it's a mixactually Okay.
And you said obviously global.
Where's the company,headquartered the company?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
is headquartered in Singapore, but, yeah, safe to
say, our people, our tunesters,as we call them, are all over
the world.
We operate out of 13 differentsites.
We're around 480 people, but weare 65 different passports, so
it's a very, very multinationalcompany.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Okay, and what about your US presence?
Is that something relativelynew?
Is that a big focus of thecompany?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It is definitely a big focus of the company.
We've been in the US for awhile.
Our base is in San Francisco,but just this past week we
announced that we now havelicenses to operate in all 50 US
states with a licensing regimewhich will accelerate our growth
in the US quite significantly.
So we're actually adding quitea few more heads in the next six
months.
(02:42):
We're opening up a second siteon the US East Coast, in Atlanta
, to really focus on globalAmerican customers.
So again, think of you knowsocial media companies, travel
companies who are headquarteredin the US and therefore the
commercial relationship is inthe US, but who process a lot of
cross-border payments intoAfrica, Middle East, Southeast
Asia, the parts of the worldwhere Tunes' network is
(03:04):
strongest, Like think of Metapaying content creators in all
those geographies, those typesof customers to service.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Okay, so really, it's going to be larger companies,
not small business, correct,yeah, now.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Tunes focuses on large companies with high volume
of international cross-borderpayments, not small business.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Okay, so what would you say?
Differentiates Tunes from yourcompetitors.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I think it's three main things.
First and foremost, it's thenetwork that I mentioned earlier
and the fact that all theconnections that we've built to
mobile wallets all around theworld, like Gcash in the
Philippines and Pesa in Kenyaand so on, that those
connections are direct.
There is a lot of competitorswho claim to be similar to Tunes
, but they've quickly rushed tomarkets by basically building
(03:46):
pipes to aggregators and thenyou get, like you know, a pipe
to an aggregator who goes toanother aggregator, and so on.
And why does that not work aswell as Tunes?
Well, if you go direct, you seehigher transaction success
rates and you see a higherpercentage of payments actually
arriving in time.
So what we call quality ofservice or QoS, which we track
relentlessly, gets a lot better.
Second, it's obviously morecost efficient to go direct.
(04:07):
And third, if something does gowrong, issue resolution is a
lot faster and easier becauseyou deal directly with the
endpoint.
So it leads, just overall, to amuch better customer experience
.
So that's the first thing I'dcall out as to how Tunes
differentiates itself from othernetworks.
Second, I'd say all our systemsare in-house.
So, whether it's our processingplatform or all our treasury
(04:28):
systems for currency conversionor very important our liquidity
forecasting system.
How much money do we need ineach country to support all our
customers, all that's been builtin-house, all that it's
proprietary and all that wecontrol ourselves?
And then, thirdly and lastly,what?
What I'd call out what setsstudents apart is that from the
day the company was founded byour founder, in our DNA we have
(04:49):
had this relentless focus oncompliance.
We only operate in the whitespace.
We get licenses wherever weneed licenses, touch wood, but
we've never run afoul of anyrules or regulations or
regulators.
We've built a company with thecompliance standards of a bank
because our customers trust uswith their money right, and
that's deeply embedded in theDNA of the company and we'll
keep focusing on that.
(05:09):
We really see complianceactually as one of our USPs, as
a moat that we've created forTunes around Tunes.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Okay, okay.
Well, let's talk about thefuture of payments.
Where do you see paymentsheaded, say, maybe in the next
three to five years?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
That's an interesting question.
Well, if I think ofcross-border payments, obviously
the history or the past isswift, right, like cross-border
payments used to be done only orexclusively with like a
cross-border bank transfer.
And you know those are slow,right.
It takes a few days for a banktransfer to arrive.
You don't actually know if thefunds arrived.
You need to pick up the phoneand say like, hey, did you
(05:50):
receive my wire transfer?
It's expensive and it's closedon Saturdays and Sundays and
bank holidays.
So the future of paymentsclearly is real time of cross
border payments is real time andneo banks and alternative
payment methods and mobilewallets they all support real
time cross border payments.
So I think in the future wewill see that shift towards
those payments accelerate.
We see real time become moreimportant and I think it's also
being helped kind of by a shiftjust in the macro landscape,
(06:13):
like Visa and MasterCard havedone incredibly well the last 10
, 15 years with wind in theirback, from the cash to digital
conversion in the West, inEurope and in the US.
But that cash to digitalconversion is now shifting to
Africa, the Middle East andSoutheast Asia and those are
markets where it's like mobilewallets and banks that are the
(06:34):
prevailing payment methods, sothat will shift more volume and
more focus to again thereal-time nature.
So I do think that's the future.
And then second and I'm actuallyimpressed that we've managed to
talk now for 10 minutes withoutmentioning stablecoin, but
clearly that's another rapidlyemerging trend in this space as
well right, leveragingstablecoins for cross-border
payments.
We see that as just anothervehicle on the highway.
(06:55):
So our smart superhighwaytransports anything of value,
whether it's a US dollar orKorean won or stablecoin, and we
see stablecoin wallets as thenext endpoint we pay into, next
to mobile wallets, next to bankaccounts and so on.
So I think stable coin is goingto have a real impact on
cross-border payments as welland especially on that push,
that acceleration towards realtime.
(07:17):
Sorry that was a very longanswer.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
No, that was a great answer.
So do you feel like we're nottoo far from it truly being as
real time as a payment can be,say, in the United States?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yes, absolutely.
I mean it will take time andobviously, cross-border bank
transfers, swift, etc.
It's not going to go away.
And personally one man'sopinion I don't believe that in
the future there will be onlystable coins.
It will all coexist.
And the good news for with mytunes, head on for tunes is
obviously that that adds to thecomplexity, right, because it
makes the landscape even morefragmented.
And the more complexity thereis to solve for our customers,
(07:49):
the more attractive ourproposition becomes, which is,
you know, through a single API,you get access to all these
payment methods globally,whether it's alternative
payments or bank accounts ormobile wallets or crypto wallets
or pay-to-card.
With one API you access it alland I think it will all coexist
Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
And there's a buzzword, at least here in the
States, that I see a lot in thetrade rags and different
conversations, and it'sorchestration.
So maybe how is this similar ordifferent than payment
orchestration?
I think it's quite similarright it's.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Ultimately.
What Tunes does is about makingsure that consumers have choice
and that our customers haveaccess to all those choices.
But the consumers in thedriving seats and whether they
want to pay with the stablecoinor into a stablecoin wallet, or
whether they want to pay bysending US dollars cross borders
into a M-Pesa wallet in Kenya,that choice is there and the
choice via Tunes is accessiblevia one API and a single
(08:39):
integration.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Okay, okay, you know how do you choose which payment
methods to integrate.
I mean, is there a certainvolume that you expect to see,
or is it?
How do you decide when is theright time to integrate with a
certain wallet?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, it's a really good question.
Actually, we look at quite afew things.
I mean, first of all, we lookat what our customers are asking
us, right?
I mean, that's a very importantfactor.
What do we hear from customersand what demands from consumers
do they see?
But second, we also want to makesure that we don't only focus
on, like you know, the large,significantly high volume
payment methods, wallets, apms,et cetera, because for us the
(09:14):
long tail is equally important,like the global reach of the
network, the depth that we havein Africa, where we offer quite
a few payment methods thatstandalone might not have that
much volume, but the fact thatall of them are accessible via
one integration and have thatmuch volume, but the fact that
all of them are accessible viaone integration and therefore
you have access to all of Africa, is actually really important
strategically for tunes as well.
So we look at both and we inour investment committee we try
(09:36):
to balance those investments asbest as we can between what's
strategically important for usand what are our customers
asking for and has the mostvolume.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Okay, okay.
Well, I don't feel like we canleave the conversation of the
future without talking about AI.
So curious as to your thoughtson AI and how it's being
integrated into the paymentspace.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, it's a very good one.
We've obviously been spending alot of time on looking how AI
can help further enhance andaugment our service proposition
as well, and we have found onemain use case that we're very
focused on right now, and then afew obvious ones that I'll
touch on as well, but for us sofar, the main use case has been
liquidity forecasting.
A very important part of whatwe do is forecast how much
(10:17):
liquidity do we need in eachpayout corridor to support the
needs of our customers?
And we need to get that right,because obviously, if we under
forecast, then there's notenough liquidity to process the
payouts that our customers areasking for.
But if we over forecast and wejust put like gazillion dollars
everywhere, then we run out ofexposure because our business
accounts in US dollars.
So we want to get that preciselyright, and the tool for that
(10:39):
we've built in-house,significantly enhanced, using AI
, because AI seems to be muchmore capable than a human being
to very quickly analyzehistorical patterns of the
processing of all our customers,what we know about certain
trends, certain bank holidays,certain events like Chinese New
(11:00):
Year Take that all into theequation and then forecast
precisely what liquidity we need, where at what moment in time.
So that's one area where we'vebeen very focused on and then in
parallel, we're doing all theobvious things too right.
I mean, most businesses rightnow are looking at like how can
AI be leveraged in customerservices to result for better
answers for customers and totake?
You know, human beings tend toreact emotionally.
(11:22):
Ai never does.
To take the emotion out of theconversation.
We're looking at how we can useAI in development for the speed
of the process of coding andwriting code.
So there's actually multipleareas where, as a company, we're
currently focused on leveragingAI.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Okay, great Thanks for sharing that.
So let's switch gears a littlebit and talk about you.
Maybe tell us a little bitabout your professional
background and how you got toyour role there at Tunes.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Oh, that requires me to complain about how long I've
already worked in FinTech andhow old I am.
I've worked in FinTech for whatis it?
It's now 24 years.
I actually started my career insales at a back then a Dutch
payment startup called GlobalCollect, which is now part of
Worldline, one of the firstpayment gateways out there, and
I was actually Global Collect'sfirst person on the ground in
(12:06):
the United States, so I movedfor them to San Francisco and
build up their US presence fromjust myself to over 50 people.
From there I went on to Asiaand, still for Global Collect,
did the same thing and thenultimately made it to chief
revenue officer.
Then I left and I joinedWorldPay in 2010, which was when
WorldPay was rescued out ofRoyal Bank of Scotland's
(12:26):
bankruptcy by Bain Capital andAdfin International.
I joined WorldPay as divisionalCEO for the global e-commerce
division, basically dealing withall large global customers who
were buying and selling online,like airlines and travel
companies and video gamescompanies and software companies
, and I did that for seven years, was part of the team that led
Willpay's IPO in London in 2016.
(12:47):
And also of the team that thenled the merger with Ventive,
which formed yet again, a newWillpay.
And then after that, I left andjoined a company as CEO that is
now called Explore Technologies, which is a company that
actually sells businessmanagement software for really
specific industries likechildcare and early learning,
fitness and well-being fieldservices.
(13:08):
But that software came withembedded payment processing.
So Explore also owns a paymentprocessing platform, which makes
for a really interestingrevenue profile, because about
half of Explore's revenue iscoming from traditional SaaS
software subscription paymentsand the other half is coming
from payment processing.
So really unique model.
And yeah, about a year and ahalf ago I joined Tunes as CEO,
(13:29):
where our founder, peter de Kalu, wanted to step away from the
daily running of the businessand join the board, which is
what he did.
So he's still with us and he'sa great support for me and
fountain of knowledge.
But Peter is the idea generator, the startup leader, and Tunes
has now reached that pointwhereby you know we're no longer
a startup, we're not even a bigstartup.
We're now a small big business.
(13:50):
And with that comes the need tostart thinking about like
scaling, like no more singlepoints of failure, proper
automation, all the processesproperly documented, etc.
And that's not what Peterenjoys most doing.
He enjoys coming up with a newidea and I'm more the execution
person, so we make a reallygreat combination and, yeah,
that's what I've been doing thelast 18 months.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Okay.
So what was it that was soattractive about Toons that you
said, yes, I'll take this?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Two things actually.
As I said earlier, mybackground is commercial.
Right, I started my career insales and what really attracted
me about Tunes is the hugecommercial opportunity that's
out there for us to go get.
Cross-border payments is a $150trillion industry and it's
growing at 5% a year.
So just the market is growing2000 times the size of Tunes
(14:36):
every single year.
So the commercial opportunity,the volume that can go after, is
massive and yeah, as acommercial person, that excites
me.
But then, second, you alwaystake a quick look at the
competition, right, and you knownothing negative about the
competition, but I just know wecan do better.
I mean, of course Swift haslike the vast majority of the
market, but, as I said earlier,it's not real time, it's closed
(14:57):
on weekends, you don't know ifthe funds arrived, it's
expensive.
So we can compete against thatand we can also compete against
some of the other companies inthis space who don't have that
unique asset that we have, whichare the direct connections,
which is the direct globalnetwork.
So the combination of those twothings the market size, the
market growth and just June'scompetitive position as a
(15:17):
commercial person, person thatmade me really interested in
this role.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Okay, great Thanks for sharing that.
So what are some things you'repassionate about?
Maybe one work-related passionand one personal passion.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Work-related.
What I'm actually reallypassionate about is the impact
that Tunes is having in the,let's say, emerging markets in
Africa, parts of Southeast Asiaand so on.
Because of the rise ofreal-time payments and mobile
wallets, we are actually helpinglarge amounts of people to join
the global economy.
The best example I can usethere is let's take the example
(15:48):
of a ride share company.
You know, in Africa most peopledon't have a bank or a bank
account, but what they do haveis a mobile phone with a wallet
and now, thanks to Tunes and ourability to pay out into that
wallet in real time, evenmultiple times a day, they can,
for example, take a job at,let's say, grab or Uber and
start driving a car, make a fewrides, go into their driver app,
(16:09):
click pay me.
Funds show up in real time, payat the gas station for more
fuel, take the next few rides,and so on.
What we see is that a lot ofthese people now suddenly earn a
living, pay themselves multipletimes a day because they need
the money to pay for the nextamount of fuel, and none of that
was possible, and I'm reallypassionate about how we're
helping, in large parts of theworld, people to actually, you
(16:30):
know, start earning a living andenjoying the global economy.
On a personal level, what am Ipassionate about?
Honestly, it's mostly travelgoing to remote places of the
world beautiful parks in theUnited States to like Antarctica
and Greenland to remote areasin Southeast Asia and hiking
long hikes in nature, long walksand just exploring and seeing
(16:50):
parts of the world, ideally onfoot.
That really enjoys me andallows me to clear my mind and
step away from payments, if onlyfor a few hours.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Right, right, Okay, great.
So if someone came to you,maybe they just graduated from
college or university, they'relooking at building a career and
they pick payments in FinTech.
They see it as a greatopportunity to build their
career.
Given your experience in thisspace, what kind of career
advice would you give them?
What would you tell them theyneed to do?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
to be successful in this space?
Never stop learning.
I.
What kind of career advicewould you give them?
What would you tell them theyneed to do to be successful in
this space?
New things, just keep reading.
Keep asking questions there areno dumb questions, right.
Just keep speaking tocolleagues, keep listening at
trade shows, keep listening topodcasts.
It's an industry where younever stop learning, and if you
(17:48):
don't have that naturalcuriosity, if you don't want to
learn, then it also might not bethe industry for you, right?
So be curious would be mynumber one advice.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Okay, yeah, I've been in this industry 20 years and
done 400 podcasts in this space,and I continue to learn things
almost every day, so I totallyagree with that.
Well, before we wrap up theshow, floris, is there anything
else you'd like to add?
No, I mean this was great.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Thank you so much.
Like I said, it's a super fastchanging environment.
18 months ago, no one wastalking about stablecoin, yet
here we are.
And no one was talking aboutstablecoin yet here we are.
And, of course, ai.
And who knows what you and Iwill be talking about in 18
months time?
We might not even have heard ofit today.
So that's the best part of thespace, right?
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Well, floris, thank you so much for being on the
show today.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really appreciate
you being here.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Thank you so much, really enjoyed it, thank you,
thank you, and to all youlisteners out there, I thank you
for your time as well, anduntil the next story.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
Make sure you visit our websiteat leadersinpaymentscom, where
you can subscribe to the showand where you'll find our show
notes.
If you enjoyed listening,please share on your social
channels as well.
Welcome to the Leaders in Payments podcast,
where we talk to C-level leadersfrom across the payments
landscape.
We'll be discussing theproducts and services that
impact the payment space today,as well as trends and
predictions for the future ofpayments.
We will also hear stories fromour guests about their journeys
to the top.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andtoday's special guest is Floris
de Kort, the CEO of Tunes.
So, floris, thank you for beinghere and welcome to the show.
Thank you for having meAppreciate it Absolutely.
So before we get into the meatof it, if you don't mind, tell
our audience a little bit aboutyourself, maybe where you grew
up, where you went to school,where you currently live, a few
(00:38):
things like that.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well, the funny accent's Dutch, so Dutch.
So I grew up in the Netherlands.
I currently well for now, butthat needs to change.
I currently live in Australiawith my husband and two
six-year-old children, but forTunes it makes more sense that
we relocate ourselves to eitherEurope or the UK, so somewhere
over the course of the next sixmonths we will move back to
Europe.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Okay, great.
So let's talk about the company.
So I think most of ourlisteners are probably going to
know what Toons does, but if youdon't mind for those that may
not just tell us what Toons does, yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
So Toons is the smart superhighway to move money
around the world.
We have spent quite a bit oftime and resources and money
building a network of directconnections to over 350
real-time banks and wallets, aswell as to the main card schemes
like Visa, MasterCard andUnionPay, for members of our
network to make real-timepayouts into all these APMs and
(01:29):
wallets and cards, etc.
So Junes moves money and we doit in real time.
We do it in over 130 countriesand over 80 currencies.
We support both fintechs,financial technology companies,
traditional money remitters, butmore and more so we support
businesses for business payments.
Think of travel companies,think of insurance companies,
think of social media companies.
(01:50):
That's the key focus right now.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Okay, and it's all B2B type payments.
It's B2C, b2b, it's a mixactually Okay.
And you said obviously global.
Where's the company,headquartered the company?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
is headquartered in Singapore, but, yeah, safe to
say, our people, our tunesters,as we call them, are all over
the world.
We operate out of 13 differentsites.
We're around 480 people, but weare 65 different passports, so
it's a very, very multinationalcompany.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Okay, and what about your US presence?
Is that something relativelynew?
Is that a big focus of thecompany?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
It is definitely a big focus of the company.
We've been in the US for awhile.
Our base is in San Francisco,but just this past week we
announced that we now havelicenses to operate in all 50 US
states with a licensing regimewhich will accelerate our growth
in the US quite significantly.
So we're actually adding quitea few more heads in the next six
months.
(02:42):
We're opening up a second siteon the US East Coast, in Atlanta
, to really focus on globalAmerican customers.
So again, think of you knowsocial media companies, travel
companies who are headquarteredin the US and therefore the
commercial relationship is inthe US, but who process a lot of
cross-border payments intoAfrica, Middle East, Southeast
Asia, the parts of the worldwhere Tunes' network is
(03:04):
strongest, Like think of Metapaying content creators in all
those geographies, those typesof customers to service.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Okay, so really, it's going to be larger companies,
not small business, correct,yeah, now.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Tunes focuses on large companies with high volume
of international cross-borderpayments, not small business.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Okay, so what would you say?
Differentiates Tunes from yourcompetitors.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
I think it's three main things.
First and foremost, it's thenetwork that I mentioned earlier
and the fact that all theconnections that we've built to
mobile wallets all around theworld, like Gcash in the
Philippines and Pesa in Kenyaand so on, that those
connections are direct.
There is a lot of competitorswho claim to be similar to Tunes
, but they've quickly rushed tomarkets by basically building
(03:46):
pipes to aggregators and thenyou get, like you know, a pipe
to an aggregator who goes toanother aggregator, and so on.
And why does that not work aswell as Tunes?
Well, if you go direct, you seehigher transaction success
rates and you see a higherpercentage of payments actually
arriving in time.
So what we call quality ofservice or QoS, which we track
relentlessly, gets a lot better.
Second, it's obviously morecost efficient to go direct.
(04:07):
And third, if something does gowrong, issue resolution is a
lot faster and easier becauseyou deal directly with the
endpoint.
So it leads, just overall, to amuch better customer experience
.
So that's the first thing I'dcall out as to how Tunes
differentiates itself from othernetworks.
Second, I'd say all our systemsare in-house.
So, whether it's our processingplatform or all our treasury
(04:28):
systems for currency conversionor very important our liquidity
forecasting system.
How much money do we need ineach country to support all our
customers, all that's been builtin-house, all that it's
proprietary and all that wecontrol ourselves?
And then, thirdly and lastly,what?
What I'd call out what setsstudents apart is that from the
day the company was founded byour founder, in our DNA we have
(04:49):
had this relentless focus oncompliance.
We only operate in the whitespace.
We get licenses wherever weneed licenses, touch wood, but
we've never run afoul of anyrules or regulations or
regulators.
We've built a company with thecompliance standards of a bank
because our customers trust uswith their money right, and
that's deeply embedded in theDNA of the company and we'll
keep focusing on that.
(05:09):
We really see complianceactually as one of our USPs, as
a moat that we've created forTunes around Tunes.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Okay, okay.
Well, let's talk about thefuture of payments.
Where do you see paymentsheaded, say, maybe in the next
three to five years?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
That's an interesting question.
Well, if I think ofcross-border payments, obviously
the history or the past isswift, right, like cross-border
payments used to be done only orexclusively with like a
cross-border bank transfer.
And you know those are slow,right.
It takes a few days for a banktransfer to arrive.
You don't actually know if thefunds arrived.
You need to pick up the phoneand say like, hey, did you
(05:50):
receive my wire transfer?
It's expensive and it's closedon Saturdays and Sundays and
bank holidays.
So the future of paymentsclearly is real time of cross
border payments is real time andneo banks and alternative
payment methods and mobilewallets they all support real
time cross border payments.
So I think in the future wewill see that shift towards
those payments accelerate.
We see real time become moreimportant and I think it's also
being helped kind of by a shiftjust in the macro landscape,
(06:13):
like Visa and MasterCard havedone incredibly well the last 10
, 15 years with wind in theirback, from the cash to digital
conversion in the West, inEurope and in the US.
But that cash to digitalconversion is now shifting to
Africa, the Middle East andSoutheast Asia and those are
markets where it's like mobilewallets and banks that are the
(06:34):
prevailing payment methods, sothat will shift more volume and
more focus to again thereal-time nature.
So I do think that's the future.
And then second and I'm actuallyimpressed that we've managed to
talk now for 10 minutes withoutmentioning stablecoin, but
clearly that's another rapidlyemerging trend in this space as
well right, leveragingstablecoins for cross-border
payments.
We see that as just anothervehicle on the highway.
(06:55):
So our smart superhighwaytransports anything of value,
whether it's a US dollar orKorean won or stablecoin, and we
see stablecoin wallets as thenext endpoint we pay into, next
to mobile wallets, next to bankaccounts and so on.
So I think stable coin is goingto have a real impact on
cross-border payments as welland especially on that push,
that acceleration towards realtime.
(07:17):
Sorry that was a very longanswer.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
No, that was a great answer.
So do you feel like we're nottoo far from it truly being as
real time as a payment can be,say, in the United States?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yes, absolutely.
I mean it will take time andobviously, cross-border bank
transfers, swift, etc.
It's not going to go away.
And personally one man'sopinion I don't believe that in
the future there will be onlystable coins.
It will all coexist.
And the good news for with mytunes, head on for tunes is
obviously that that adds to thecomplexity, right, because it
makes the landscape even morefragmented.
And the more complexity thereis to solve for our customers,
(07:49):
the more attractive ourproposition becomes, which is,
you know, through a single API,you get access to all these
payment methods globally,whether it's alternative
payments or bank accounts ormobile wallets or crypto wallets
or pay-to-card.
With one API you access it alland I think it will all coexist
Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
And there's a buzzword, at least here in the
States, that I see a lot in thetrade rags and different
conversations, and it'sorchestration.
So maybe how is this similar ordifferent than payment
orchestration?
I think it's quite similarright it's.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Ultimately.
What Tunes does is about makingsure that consumers have choice
and that our customers haveaccess to all those choices.
But the consumers in thedriving seats and whether they
want to pay with the stablecoinor into a stablecoin wallet, or
whether they want to pay bysending US dollars cross borders
into a M-Pesa wallet in Kenya,that choice is there and the
choice via Tunes is accessiblevia one API and a single
(08:39):
integration.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Okay, okay, you know how do you choose which payment
methods to integrate.
I mean, is there a certainvolume that you expect to see,
or is it?
How do you decide when is theright time to integrate with a
certain wallet?
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, it's a really good question.
Actually, we look at quite afew things.
I mean, first of all, we lookat what our customers are asking
us, right?
I mean, that's a very importantfactor.
What do we hear from customersand what demands from consumers
do they see?
But second, we also want to makesure that we don't only focus
on, like you know, the large,significantly high volume
payment methods, wallets, apms,et cetera, because for us the
(09:14):
long tail is equally important,like the global reach of the
network, the depth that we havein Africa, where we offer quite
a few payment methods thatstandalone might not have that
much volume, but the fact thatall of them are accessible via
one integration and have thatmuch volume, but the fact that
all of them are accessible viaone integration and therefore
you have access to all of Africa, is actually really important
strategically for tunes as well.
So we look at both and we inour investment committee we try
(09:36):
to balance those investments asbest as we can between what's
strategically important for usand what are our customers
asking for and has the mostvolume.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Okay, okay.
Well, I don't feel like we canleave the conversation of the
future without talking about AI.
So curious as to your thoughtson AI and how it's being
integrated into the paymentspace.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, it's a very good one.
We've obviously been spending alot of time on looking how AI
can help further enhance andaugment our service proposition
as well, and we have found onemain use case that we're very
focused on right now, and then afew obvious ones that I'll
touch on as well, but for us sofar, the main use case has been
liquidity forecasting.
A very important part of whatwe do is forecast how much
(10:17):
liquidity do we need in eachpayout corridor to support the
needs of our customers?
And we need to get that right,because obviously, if we under
forecast, then there's notenough liquidity to process the
payouts that our customers areasking for.
But if we over forecast and wejust put like gazillion dollars
everywhere, then we run out ofexposure because our business
accounts in US dollars.
So we want to get that preciselyright, and the tool for that
(10:39):
we've built in-house,significantly enhanced, using AI
, because AI seems to be muchmore capable than a human being
to very quickly analyzehistorical patterns of the
processing of all our customers,what we know about certain
trends, certain bank holidays,certain events like Chinese New
(11:00):
Year Take that all into theequation and then forecast
precisely what liquidity we need, where at what moment in time.
So that's one area where we'vebeen very focused on and then in
parallel, we're doing all theobvious things too right.
I mean, most businesses rightnow are looking at like how can
AI be leveraged in customerservices to result for better
answers for customers and totake?
You know, human beings tend toreact emotionally.
(11:22):
Ai never does.
To take the emotion out of theconversation.
We're looking at how we can useAI in development for the speed
of the process of coding andwriting code.
So there's actually multipleareas where, as a company, we're
currently focused on leveragingAI.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Okay, great Thanks for sharing that.
So let's switch gears a littlebit and talk about you.
Maybe tell us a little bitabout your professional
background and how you got toyour role there at Tunes.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Oh, that requires me to complain about how long I've
already worked in FinTech andhow old I am.
I've worked in FinTech for whatis it?
It's now 24 years.
I actually started my career insales at a back then a Dutch
payment startup called GlobalCollect, which is now part of
Worldline, one of the firstpayment gateways out there, and
I was actually Global Collect'sfirst person on the ground in
(12:06):
the United States, so I movedfor them to San Francisco and
build up their US presence fromjust myself to over 50 people.
From there I went on to Asiaand, still for Global Collect,
did the same thing and thenultimately made it to chief
revenue officer.
Then I left and I joinedWorldPay in 2010, which was when
WorldPay was rescued out ofRoyal Bank of Scotland's
(12:26):
bankruptcy by Bain Capital andAdfin International.
I joined WorldPay as divisionalCEO for the global e-commerce
division, basically dealing withall large global customers who
were buying and selling online,like airlines and travel
companies and video gamescompanies and software companies
, and I did that for seven years, was part of the team that led
Willpay's IPO in London in 2016.
(12:47):
And also of the team that thenled the merger with Ventive,
which formed yet again, a newWillpay.
And then after that, I left andjoined a company as CEO that is
now called Explore Technologies, which is a company that
actually sells businessmanagement software for really
specific industries likechildcare and early learning,
fitness and well-being fieldservices.
(13:08):
But that software came withembedded payment processing.
So Explore also owns a paymentprocessing platform, which makes
for a really interestingrevenue profile, because about
half of Explore's revenue iscoming from traditional SaaS
software subscription paymentsand the other half is coming
from payment processing.
So really unique model.
And yeah, about a year and ahalf ago I joined Tunes as CEO,
(13:29):
where our founder, peter de Kalu, wanted to step away from the
daily running of the businessand join the board, which is
what he did.
So he's still with us and he'sa great support for me and
fountain of knowledge.
But Peter is the idea generator, the startup leader, and Tunes
has now reached that pointwhereby you know we're no longer
a startup, we're not even a bigstartup.
We're now a small big business.
(13:50):
And with that comes the need tostart thinking about like
scaling, like no more singlepoints of failure, proper
automation, all the processesproperly documented, etc.
And that's not what Peterenjoys most doing.
He enjoys coming up with a newidea and I'm more the execution
person, so we make a reallygreat combination and, yeah,
that's what I've been doing thelast 18 months.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Okay.
So what was it that was soattractive about Toons that you
said, yes, I'll take this?
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Two things actually.
As I said earlier, mybackground is commercial.
Right, I started my career insales and what really attracted
me about Tunes is the hugecommercial opportunity that's
out there for us to go get.
Cross-border payments is a $150trillion industry and it's
growing at 5% a year.
So just the market is growing2000 times the size of Tunes
(14:36):
every single year.
So the commercial opportunity,the volume that can go after, is
massive and yeah, as acommercial person, that excites
me.
But then, second, you alwaystake a quick look at the
competition, right, and you knownothing negative about the
competition, but I just know wecan do better.
I mean, of course Swift haslike the vast majority of the
market, but, as I said earlier,it's not real time, it's closed
(14:57):
on weekends, you don't know ifthe funds arrived, it's
expensive.
So we can compete against thatand we can also compete against
some of the other companies inthis space who don't have that
unique asset that we have, whichare the direct connections,
which is the direct globalnetwork.
So the combination of those twothings the market size, the
market growth and just June'scompetitive position as a
(15:17):
commercial person, person thatmade me really interested in
this role.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Okay, great Thanks for sharing that.
So what are some things you'repassionate about?
Maybe one work-related passionand one personal passion.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Work-related.
What I'm actually reallypassionate about is the impact
that Tunes is having in the,let's say, emerging markets in
Africa, parts of Southeast Asiaand so on.
Because of the rise ofreal-time payments and mobile
wallets, we are actually helpinglarge amounts of people to join
the global economy.
The best example I can usethere is let's take the example
(15:48):
of a ride share company.
You know, in Africa most peopledon't have a bank or a bank
account, but what they do haveis a mobile phone with a wallet
and now, thanks to Tunes and ourability to pay out into that
wallet in real time, evenmultiple times a day, they can,
for example, take a job at,let's say, grab or Uber and
start driving a car, make a fewrides, go into their driver app,
(16:09):
click pay me.
Funds show up in real time, payat the gas station for more
fuel, take the next few rides,and so on.
What we see is that a lot ofthese people now suddenly earn a
living, pay themselves multipletimes a day because they need
the money to pay for the nextamount of fuel, and none of that
was possible, and I'm reallypassionate about how we're
helping, in large parts of theworld, people to actually, you
(16:30):
know, start earning a living andenjoying the global economy.
On a personal level, what am Ipassionate about?
Honestly, it's mostly travelgoing to remote places of the
world beautiful parks in theUnited States to like Antarctica
and Greenland to remote areasin Southeast Asia and hiking
long hikes in nature, long walksand just exploring and seeing
(16:50):
parts of the world, ideally onfoot.
That really enjoys me andallows me to clear my mind and
step away from payments, if onlyfor a few hours.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Right, right, Okay, great.
So if someone came to you,maybe they just graduated from
college or university, they'relooking at building a career and
they pick payments in FinTech.
They see it as a greatopportunity to build their
career.
Given your experience in thisspace, what kind of career
advice would you give them?
What would you tell them theyneed to do?
Speaker 3 (17:28):
to be successful in this space?
Never stop learning.
I.
What kind of career advicewould you give them?
What would you tell them theyneed to do to be successful in
this space?
New things, just keep reading.
Keep asking questions there areno dumb questions, right.
Just keep speaking tocolleagues, keep listening at
trade shows, keep listening topodcasts.
It's an industry where younever stop learning, and if you
(17:48):
don't have that naturalcuriosity, if you don't want to
learn, then it also might not bethe industry for you, right?
So be curious would be mynumber one advice.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Okay, yeah, I've been in this industry 20 years and
done 400 podcasts in this space,and I continue to learn things
almost every day, so I totallyagree with that.
Well, before we wrap up theshow, floris, is there anything
else you'd like to add?
No, I mean this was great.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Thank you so much.
Like I said, it's a super fastchanging environment.
18 months ago, no one wastalking about stablecoin, yet
here we are.
And no one was talking aboutstablecoin yet here we are.
And, of course, ai.
And who knows what you and Iwill be talking about in 18
months time?
We might not even have heard ofit today.
So that's the best part of thespace, right?
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Well, floris, thank you so much for being on the
show today.
I know your time is veryvaluable, so I really appreciate
you being here.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
And I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Thank you so much, really enjoyed it, thank you,
thank you, and to all youlisteners out there, I thank you
for your time as well, anduntil the next story.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Thank you for joining us this week on the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
Make sure you visit our websiteat leadersinpaymentscom, where
you can subscribe to the showand where you'll find our show
notes.
If you enjoyed listening,please share on your social
channels as well.
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