August 4, 2025 • 22 mins
What happens when you combine lightning-fast payments with sophisticated identity verification? James Neville, CEO of Yaspa, reveals how his company is transforming financial transactions by connecting these two critical elements.
Yaspa stands at the cutting edge of real-time payment processing, offering the fastest account-to-account transfers across Europe with expansion plans for the US market. But speed is just one part of their innovation. The company's true differentiator lies in how they package these payments with bank-based identity verification and financial health assessment using proprietary machine learning algorithms creating a comprehensive solution especially valuable for regulated industries.
The gambling sector has become a particular focus, where Yaspa works closely with regulators to establish affordability standards and identify markers of potential gambling addiction. This approach represents a fundamental shift in how payment companies view their responsibilities: not just moving money, but ensuring transactions are appropriate and safe for all parties involved.
With a recent $12 million funding round from Discerning Capital, Yaspa is establishing an Atlanta office, strategically positioning themselves in one of America's payment technology hubs. Neville sees significant opportunity to shape the US regulated gaming market while it's still in its relative infancy, bringing lessons learned from Europe's more mature regulatory environment.
Looking toward the future, Neville offers fascinating insights on everything from stable coins and central bank digital currencies to the potential (and limitations) of agentic AI in payment flows. He challenges conventional wisdom about account-to-account payments at point-of-sale, highlighting how consumer habits and technical constraints create barriers that many industry observers overlook.
Tune in to discover how payments and identity verification are converging to create safer, faster, more intelligent financial ecosystems.
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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.
Greg Myers (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andon today's show we have a very
special guest, james Neville,the CEO of YASPA.
So, james, thank you so muchfor being here and welcome to
the show.
James Neville (00:28):
You're welcome, thank you.
Greg Myers (00:30):
So let's start out by having you tell a little bit
about yourself, maybe whereyou're born, where you grew up,
where you currently live, a fewthings like that.
James Neville (00:50):
Rose, a simple stuff.
So, born in the north ofEngland you wouldn't think so by
my accident, actually born bythe seaside, still live by the
seaside, although traveled a lotaround in my younger years but
always been a fan of the waterand the sea, went to university
around these parts as well.
Over in Essex I did my MBA atwhat's Now Bains at Cass
University in London and justtraveled a whole heap around
during that period I did.
My 20s was entrepreneurship, my30s was for once a better place
in investment banking, and thenthrough to places like Just Eat
(01:13):
and also the World Pay where Iwas a feature for a wee while
before the IPO.
So quite a big kind of groundingin payments, both from the
acquiring side and the otherside of defense, so to speak.
So I've seen, you know, justseen how the world and the other
side of defense, so to speak.
So I've just seen how the worldand the industry has shaked
itself over the last couple ofdecades.
But nice to finally be at thehelm of the payments company,
(01:34):
given the amount of positivechange and interesting things
going on but there always is inthis industry.
But it's a really, reallyinteresting time to be
shepherding a ship for ourauthors.
Greg Myers (01:44):
Okay, well, let's talk about the company.
So tell the audience what Yespadoes.
James Neville (01:47):
Okay.
So we're a real-time paymentand identification business, so
we our common north star as acompany, has been about
connecting identity and money.
So whilst we process account toaccount, bank to bank,
real-time payment however, youwant to call it faster than
anyone else across Europe andsoon to be the state we package
a lot with bank-based-bank rulessomething, however, you want to
call it faster than anyone elseacross Europe and seem to be
the state we package that upwith bank-based identity.
(02:09):
So, james Neville, one LongStreet, et cetera, and we also
can provide determinantfinancial health based on a
number of machine learningalgorithms that we can put in
place over the top of yourtransaction.
So we have been workingpredominantly in the regulated
space, with a big heavy bentrecently in the gambling arena,
and we use the data we get onconsumers to give operators as
(02:33):
well as warning of if somebodyhas gambling addiction, gambling
behaviors or markers of harmthat help them solve responsible
gaming in a frictionless manner, but also enable them to open
up play for those that have noproblems right.
So we've been spending a lot oftime with the regulators, ukgc
and the Dutch equivalent, aboutwhat does affordability mean?
(02:54):
You know, when is somebody ableto place a bet, place a wager?
And what are the parameters ofthat, hopefully kind of shaping
the industry into something much, much more safe and secure and
ultimately fun.
Greg Myers (03:05):
Okay, and how big is the company?
James Neville (03:07):
I should know we were 71 or 72 yesterday,
depending on who accepted offers.
We keep quite close track of itwhile we're small, but we try
to keep ourselves quitetight-knit over the recent years
.
But we've had a prettyexplosive couple of years just
gone past.
So we are hiring like crazy.
I believe we just stood upabout another six people in our
(03:29):
leads office this week alone, sostarting to really really grow
the company placed in Europe, ukand in the US over the three
main corners of the ship.
Greg Myers (03:37):
Okay, yeah, I do want to dive into the US part in
a minute, but before that youmentioned gambling.
What are sort of the otherverticals or industries that you
serve?
James Neville (03:47):
Yeah, so everything that I call the
regulated industries, thoseplaces where there's an element
of KYC, aml obligation andtypically there's a higher level
of fraud than, let's say, juststraight up, e-commerce, where
it's a pair of Nikes, so you'reputting money on account, taking
money off account, crypto, fxtrading, high value goods, car
dealership those kinds oftransactions where you have to
(04:09):
have an idea that James isreally James behind the
transaction.
Greg Myers (04:12):
And then you closed a round of funding not too long
ago and are opening an office inthe US, in Atlanta.
So maybe tell us a little moreabout that about that?
James Neville (04:26):
Yeah, so I spent a bit of time in Atlanta over
recent years.
I mean it was well-paid home inthe US when I worked at
WellPayers over Atlanta a lot.
I mean, Georgia is lovely, it'shot, but it's also a good
epicenter for payments.
So if you're going to enter theUS on a kind of fintech angle,
particularly payments, it's kindof Jacksonville Atlanta, maybe
a bit of kind of Miami in theresomewhere.
But it's the old Dell AT&T hubsthat sprung up over the years
(04:47):
and that's why the transportnetwork is so cool.
So we parked ourselves inAtlanta for now.
We raised 12 million US fromdiscerning capital.
They've also invested inMidnight in the UK, one of the
kind of challenger operators,because they're in Australia and
they have a very strong focuson US regulated gaming sectors.
So that's a big target for us.
(05:09):
We feel we can really shape theindustry while it's in its
relative infancy in the US.
Greg Myers (05:15):
So in the US, will you mainly be focused on
gambling or will you do some ofthe similar things you do there?
James Neville (05:20):
Again similar things.
But I think the immediate kindof problem that we can fix is
around financial health and it'sone of those industries where,
as it's in its kind of nascentdays like, there's a strong
opportunity to put that in placewhile the industry grows,
exchanges and some of the otherkind of parties I mentioned.
But for the US, I think, as thestates by states regulate,
(05:49):
they've got a lot of financialhealth type requirements that
people are putting a bit of ahat set to, but not really I'm
not saying not taking itseriously, but doing the minimum
that they have to, withoutrealizing the journey that
Europe's been on to providegreater revenues through
responsible gambling.
So that's why I think takingour proposition into the US will
really help, and there'sobviously a lot of stuff going
on with 1033 and that goingthrough the court.
(06:12):
So what does that really meanright now?
But the US is a very differentbeast to Europe.
As I'm sure you know, as anAmerican you're very commercial
as opposed to being driven byregulation.
So we ended up with PSD2 andalso PSD3 through the EBA and
the likes, regulating, whereasthe US the commercial businesses
(06:32):
like Acquia and MX and Plaidand all those kind of aggregated
businesses.
They did really well by justgoing to the banks themselves
and forming commercialrelationships and building
outside of a regulated context.
So I think 1033 is going to befascinating for really opening
the sector up and normalizingthe sector as the regulations in
(06:54):
PSP3.
But opening in the States is alot easier, with the
infrastructure evolving there onthe commercial context, than it
has been in Europe I think.
Greg Myers (07:02):
Well, what would you say?
Differentiates your companyfrom your competitors out there.
James Neville (07:06):
Yeah, I mean again, we're the fastest people
to make account-to-accountinstant payments.
We spend a lot of time in datarather than just kind of talking
to the bank themselves.
We have kind of proprietaryalgorithms, that kind of
predetermine whether slowpayments will settle within the
two-day kind of window ofseparate credit transfer.
The same is true of ACH being,you know, same day or next day
(07:29):
or ultimately kind of 24 hours.
We're able to forward funds inadvance of settlement with no
risk to ourselves or themerchant.
The biggest differentiator is,of course, that we provide
financial health on transaction,which nobody is doing.
If you want to provide asolution in a regulated sector,
you've got a whole palette oftools that you have to aggregate
(07:49):
anything from IDV to PEP andsanction checks, all of that
stuff together, maybe devicefingerprinting, maybe TM or
transaction monitoring aroundall this.
We wrap that in one singulartransaction and it's kind of our
goal to be able to arrive to anexchange or an operator or a
website and go deposit money andbe able to do that and tie KYB
(08:10):
KYC process from start to finish.
Greg Myers (08:12):
How do you go to market?
Do you have a direct sales team?
Do you work through partnershipchannels?
How do you go to market?
James Neville (08:18):
I mean all of them, as every payment company
does.
Direct is where you wantsomething.
Your merchant wants something abit more bespoke.
They want to work with you anddo something.
We're very flexible.
At NAC.
We provide some very customsolutions for some of the bigger
merchants we work with.
And then, of course, we go outthrough the PSPs, through the
gateways.
(08:38):
We work with the EIs of Europeall of the guys across various
different sectors and then we'realso white-labeled within other
people's platforms.
So it's a kind of you know,some people consume other
people's PSPs into their whitelabel and then sometimes we're
in that PSP.
So it's a bit of a mix ofeverything, but kind of our goal
(09:00):
is to focus on the places andthe services and software that
our customers consume theirservices from.
Greg Myers (09:02):
All right.
Well, when you step back andtake kind of a look at the big
picture, where do you seepayments headed?
Maybe in the next three to fiveyears?
James Neville (09:10):
I mean, everybody's going to be talking
stable coins and the Genius Act.
So let's just see where thatkind of settles in in the US and
we've had this whole kind ofwedge-free kind of meta stuff.
That didn't quite take off in alot of respects.
But you know Bitcoin's stillhere to stay, ethereum's still
here, stables, you know centralbank currencies are still
(09:31):
becoming a thing.
You know the UK Bank ofEngland's had a program
operating for a while.
I think you know we'll start tosee bank-issued stables.
We'll start to see kind ofcountry-issued stables.
I don't know, it's kind of aminimum, I'd say kind of one
year for most of the kind ofbigger economies of the world.
And then we'll start to seekind of broader acceptance and
kind of insurance and liabilityshifts and all those kind of
(09:51):
things that need to happen foran ecosystem's function.
I think beyond there there isn'treally a kind of obvious trend
in a new payment mechanism ormethod.
But I think then we get intoeverybody's talking agentic AI
and something else.
You know, outside of the realmsof arriving in a Google and
looking for a flight and thenbuying a flight, it's going to
(10:14):
be more about having your ownpersonal wallet.
Maybe that includes stables.
Maybe that includes your cardsand other APMs and you can
access to that agent to go offand buying the thing that you
want and deliver it the rightway.
So I mean, personally I don'ttrust agentic AI right now
because the recommendations Iget from Google, I mean they're
giving me recommendations fororange trainers and I'll never
(10:36):
wear orange.
Well, actually I might, I'm aMcLaren fan, but you see the
point right.
So you know, I think there'sdefinitely a level of control in
all this.
But that's, I think, whereautomation is going to go and
it's going to become a littlebit more around self-sovereign
identity, self-suffering paymentmethods.
What do you want to spend where?
(10:56):
What are your limits that youmight provide out to the agents
and what data do you want toshare?
And maybe some of that dataneeds to be deeper for certain
sites and shallower for others.
Maybe you need multipleidentities, pseudo-identities,
to go to pay for stuff.
Some stuff you may not want topay with certain kind of direct
from your bankers, james Neville.
(11:16):
Maybe you want to pay withcertain kind of direct from your
bankers, james Neville.
Maybe you want to pay with that, with a stable coin or
something kind ofnon-identifiable.
So I think there's all kind ofmixes of stuff coming, but
agenti is definitely where we're.
I think the world seems to bepushing itself forward to.
Greg Myers (11:29):
What are your thoughts on, I know, like in the
US, the whole account toaccount you know?
I mean it's used when you'repaying utilities and things like
that, but there's often peopletalking about using
account-to-account at the pointof sale, so maybe more like a
PIX in Brazil or you know someof those kinds of things.
What are your thoughts on kindof that account-to-account
payment getting down to wherethe consumer's actually using it
(11:52):
almost at a point of sale, kindof thing?
James Neville (11:55):
So we struggled with that for a while, which is
why we ended up in more of theregulated space.
Let's take kind of pause out ofthe equation for a second.
But if you arrive somewhere tobuy a new pair of Nike sneakers
and you've got Apple Pay andPayPal and everything else
that's quite habitualized forpeople pay by bank, you can put
it there.
You can put it there, but it'snot going to get any traction
(12:15):
right.
Habits have formed over decadesand those decades go all the
way back to.
You know my dad being shoutedvisa from a Moroccan souk and he
went and bought a carpet andyou know all those kinds of
things.
But you know the predominanceof those trust marks and brands
just create repetitive behavior.
So, trying to get consumereducation to a point where
(12:36):
someone goes, I would prefer topay with Chase directly.
Why would someone prefer thoseplaces where there's maybe more
fraud on the transaction?
You want to know that that'sreally the person behind it
(13:04):
rather than some anonymous cardthat could have been path three,
alpha bin or Mr Bin for adarknet site.
So there's got to be use cases.
We tried a bit of POS and werevisited it again about a year
back.
We did all the work for thecasinos in London, so the big
ones that have kind of paymentsin ticket out type machines, and
(13:26):
that's gone well.
Obviously it's better becauseyou can go to higher limits than
cards can, etc.
Etc.
But the problems that you haveat point and fail is really
around communication.
Rejection Cards you're almostuniversally going to accept
unless there's insufficientfunds where there's bits on the
(13:47):
account-to-account chain thattend to be more fragile.
Some of the banks in Europe havesuch an implicit fragility to
them that if something doesn'twork you need to sit there in
the state for a while.
But you can't keep a customerwaiting at a POS terminal for
more than about 30 seconds.
You need to either see that themoney's moved or you need to
refund the money, and there'sall kinds of unhappy paths that
(14:08):
happen with a solution like that.
So I'm not sure that POS isnecessarily the right solution
right now.
But in the US you've got a muchbetter way of moving money via
push, which is effectively justconsent from an open banking
transaction can then be used towire money from one ACH
participant to another, whereasin Europe you've got to go
(14:31):
through kind of a pushtransaction on your mobile phone
.
So I think you know the US isinherently kind of more open,
could be more fraudulent, butwe'll see how it all pans out.
But I genuinely say that POSisn't really a place for account
to account.
Greg Myers (14:45):
Right, okay, well, let's change gears a little bit
and talk about you.
You talked a little bit aboutyour background, kind of brought
us up to the CTO of WorldPay,but maybe what led you to
starting the company, what wasthe impetus of that?
James Neville (14:57):
I mean a number of things.
So I've been in and out of thepayments industry.
As I said, on kind of bothsides of the acquiring fence.
I looked at what fraud reallymeant.
Bitcoin was a merchant at thetime that I was at WorldPay.
All these things revolvedaround passphrases and pins and
3D Secure and everything kind ofcame together at one time,
(15:18):
everything from GDPR, psd2, scait was actually a.
It was a number of things, but aboard meeting that we had at
WorldPay where we werediscussing all of these things
coming together and what wouldhappen if somebody had to type
their name, address, date ofbirth, mother's maiden name, all
kinds of other things at thepoint of payment.
Well, conversion was going tofall off the cliff.
(15:39):
So the discussion then wasthere must be someone who
tokenizes identity, like wetokenize a pound, like we
tokenize a card.
That wasn't.
So we were like, okay, maybe weshould go off and do a business
.
That did that, and that'sactually where it started.
So we were originally calledCitizen.
Like.
(16:01):
Our first proposition wasessentially taking all the data
you'd require at kind of pointof sale, remote or online the
GDPR and PSD2, rolling that alltogether in an identity token
that somebody could kind of passaround and reuse with our hands
, retype all the stuff.
We ended up working with thebanks quite heavily for about a
year and a half, two years, andthen the banks got a little bit
scared by GDPR, and GDPR camealong and came to force and
(16:25):
didn't want to talk aboutidentity anymore, which was just
.
That was the time that openbanking became a thing in Europe
.
You know 2017, we startedgetting the kind of account
information component in the UKand then, two years later, the
payment side.
So we decided well, you know,if we're going to be in the
payment seeking system, weshould just be a payments
business.
Because if we're going to be inthe payment seeking system, we
should just be a paymentsbusiness.
Because if we're handling theaccount to account
(16:45):
identification piece, why not doboth?
Why rely on another participant?
And that's kind of where I went.
Aside from that, you know, I'vehad some great leaders work
around me and I've had someterrible leaders work around me
as well, and I genuinely thoughtI could build a company that
had a great culture, that couldbe really successful and also
where people could be reallysuccessful and enjoy their time
(17:06):
working here.
I think we built a reallystrong culture of trust and
actually a lot of fun as well.
If you speak to people thatwork here, we've got a very flat
hierarchy and we all workreally, really collaboratively.
Greg Myers (17:19):
Okay, okay.
Well, what are some thingsyou're passionate about?
So, maybe one work-relatedpassion and one personal passion
.
James Neville (17:25):
I mean work.
I'm a techie At the end of theday.
I grew up with my dad's Unixterminals when I was like eight
years old and I was playingadventure to start with, but I
learned Shell when I was a kid,so I've always been a techie.
Anything that involves tech,you can see.
It was music around me as well.
It's also very, very techie, soyou know very similar type
(17:46):
things.
I like generative music.
I like writing code that writesmusic, so to speak.
So I've got a whole heap ofstuff around here that does kind
of algorithmic, kind oftextural audio.
So that's a bit of a passion ofmine.
Used to run sound systems whenI was in my 20s, so you know we
used to run around and play loudmusic to people and that's
always been a passion of mine.
You can tell I'm a quite loudindividual generally.
And then my hounds.
So I've got you won't see them,but I've got four Weimaraners
(18:09):
under the table just herebehaving like I was implicitly
waiting for their afternoon run.
But they're my personaltrainers and how I keep fit.
Greg Myers (18:17):
Okay, okay, you know I want to go back on something
we kind of touched on it, but Ithink maybe, given kind of the
business you're in not so muchthe payment side but the
identity side how is AI sort of,I guess, two parts.
You've probably been usingmachine learning and AI for a
while.
Right, it's not a new conceptto what you're doing, but maybe
how do you see it?
(18:37):
Improving what you do, movingforward or changing things?
James Neville (18:40):
Yeah.
So I think at the moment we'refocused on things like
categorization and identifyingthings that are outliers and
going much more kind of broad,full-brush terms.
We've been looking at fixingkind of last mile, not
chargebacks in our world it'smore kind of request for
information, kind of RFIs, andconnecting lots of individual
(19:01):
parties that way, so kind ofautomating that kind of
conversational process.
We're not going to put it infront of customers yet.
I know Klarna tried to do thatand backtracked on it very
quickly.
I think as a business we try tokeep a very personal touch to
things.
I just don't think AI hasreally got that personal touch
just yet.
But as we move deeper intotransaction monitoring and that
(19:26):
side of the business 100%,absolutely more to unlock
transactions that existing toolssay are suspicious, being able
to really deep dive on those andrelease them a lot faster.
Greg Myers (19:38):
Okay, okay.
So you've obviously been aroundpayments for a while.
So if someone came to you maybethey're right out of university
or school and they say hey,james, I'm looking to get into
the payments industry and builda career there what would you
tell them they should do to besuccessful?
James Neville (19:52):
Probably ask them why.
I mean, I actually fell into itmyself Me too.
Yeah right, but it's one ofthose industries that, because
it touches so many things,there's always kind of a pathway
back to the payments.
They'll try to run away for afew years but you always end up
back in the same thing.
But it's just one of those kindof foundational industries.
If you think of money generally, it's just it's always going to
(20:14):
be around.
So I wouldn't necessarily maybeI'd ask why, but you know where
, like what.
Why do you want to be inpayments?
Is it because you love money,you're interested in, you know,
making it move faster?
You're interested in the fraudaspect of it, like what?
Why do you want to be inpayments?
Is it because you love money,you're interested in, you know,
making it move faster?
You're interested in the fraudaspect of it, like what?
What really floats your boat?
For me it was.
It was always technical.
Again, you know, I was a techie, I I spent a long time on I was
(20:34):
at sporting, bet building, youknow orchestration platforms
that you'd hit a certain levelof of kind of ingress of funds
You'd have to shift to anotherprovider.
So, like, the technicalchallenges were there.
So I think, if you're a techie,join a things app or join a
startup, but just and just learn.
This industry is absolutely rifewith acronyms.
(20:56):
You know it's acronym soup,right, we've just said GDPR, sga
and that one.
We were all fine with it, butanyone else that isn't in
payment would go what the hellare you talking about?
That stuff comes second natureand it takes a wee while.
So anyone that wants it, it'snot scary.
There isn't all this stuffthat's unintelligible.
You just need to immerseyourself in it for a while.
(21:17):
So I would find somewhere wherethere's an open floor, it's a
FinTech, there's a product guyaround and just listen and learn
that way, one take at a time.
Greg Myers (21:25):
Before we close out, just kind of open the floor,
see if there's anything elsethat maybe we didn't talk about
that you wanted to mention.
So kind of open floor for youfor closing comments.
James Neville (21:35):
Thanks for delving into the background.
I think not so much that Ihaven't mentioned, but I
definitely think there's anothercategory opening up around data
and payments generally andcombining things like device
fingerprinting, combining bankidentity or card identity.
Maybe even MasterCard's beenmoving more into digital
(21:55):
services and financial healthjust to create more of a space
where the transaction can betrusted.
And I think as everybody startsto think in those terms, as
chargebacks become more rife andfraud becomes more rife, I mean
we all start thinking in asimilar kind of term connect
identity and money will be in amuch better space.
Greg Myers (22:14):
Well, James, I think that's a great way to finish up
the show.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
I really appreciate your time.
I know it's very valuable.
James Neville (22:20):
You're more than welcome.
Thanks so much for having me.
Greg Myers (22:23):
Great, and to all you listeners out there, I thank
you for your time as well, anduntil the next story.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
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.
Greg Myers (00:18):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Leaders in
Payments podcast.
I'm your host, greg Myers, andon today's show we have a very
special guest, james Neville,the CEO of YASPA.
So, james, thank you so muchfor being here and welcome to
the show.
James Neville (00:28):
You're welcome, thank you.
Greg Myers (00:30):
So let's start out by having you tell a little bit
about yourself, maybe whereyou're born, where you grew up,
where you currently live, a fewthings like that.
James Neville (00:50):
Rose, a simple stuff.
So, born in the north ofEngland you wouldn't think so by
my accident, actually born bythe seaside, still live by the
seaside, although traveled a lotaround in my younger years but
always been a fan of the waterand the sea, went to university
around these parts as well.
Over in Essex I did my MBA atwhat's Now Bains at Cass
University in London and justtraveled a whole heap around
during that period I did.
My 20s was entrepreneurship, my30s was for once a better place
in investment banking, and thenthrough to places like Just Eat
(01:13):
and also the World Pay where Iwas a feature for a wee while
before the IPO.
So quite a big kind of groundingin payments, both from the
acquiring side and the otherside of defense, so to speak.
So I've seen, you know, justseen how the world and the other
side of defense, so to speak.
So I've just seen how the worldand the industry has shaked
itself over the last couple ofdecades.
But nice to finally be at thehelm of the payments company,
(01:34):
given the amount of positivechange and interesting things
going on but there always is inthis industry.
But it's a really, reallyinteresting time to be
shepherding a ship for ourauthors.
Greg Myers (01:44):
Okay, well, let's talk about the company.
So tell the audience what Yespadoes.
James Neville (01:47):
Okay.
So we're a real-time paymentand identification business, so
we our common north star as acompany, has been about
connecting identity and money.
So whilst we process account toaccount, bank to bank,
real-time payment however, youwant to call it faster than
anyone else across Europe andsoon to be the state we package
a lot with bank-based-bank rulessomething, however, you want to
call it faster than anyone elseacross Europe and seem to be
the state we package that upwith bank-based identity.
(02:09):
So, james Neville, one LongStreet, et cetera, and we also
can provide determinantfinancial health based on a
number of machine learningalgorithms that we can put in
place over the top of yourtransaction.
So we have been workingpredominantly in the regulated
space, with a big heavy bentrecently in the gambling arena,
and we use the data we get onconsumers to give operators as
(02:33):
well as warning of if somebodyhas gambling addiction, gambling
behaviors or markers of harmthat help them solve responsible
gaming in a frictionless manner, but also enable them to open
up play for those that have noproblems right.
So we've been spending a lot oftime with the regulators, ukgc
and the Dutch equivalent, aboutwhat does affordability mean?
(02:54):
You know, when is somebody ableto place a bet, place a wager?
And what are the parameters ofthat, hopefully kind of shaping
the industry into something much, much more safe and secure and
ultimately fun.
Greg Myers (03:05):
Okay, and how big is the company?
James Neville (03:07):
I should know we were 71 or 72 yesterday,
depending on who accepted offers.
We keep quite close track of itwhile we're small, but we try
to keep ourselves quitetight-knit over the recent years
.
But we've had a prettyexplosive couple of years just
gone past.
So we are hiring like crazy.
I believe we just stood upabout another six people in our
(03:29):
leads office this week alone, sostarting to really really grow
the company placed in Europe, ukand in the US over the three
main corners of the ship.
Greg Myers (03:37):
Okay, yeah, I do want to dive into the US part in
a minute, but before that youmentioned gambling.
What are sort of the otherverticals or industries that you
serve?
James Neville (03:47):
Yeah, so everything that I call the
regulated industries, thoseplaces where there's an element
of KYC, aml obligation andtypically there's a higher level
of fraud than, let's say, juststraight up, e-commerce, where
it's a pair of Nikes, so you'reputting money on account, taking
money off account, crypto, fxtrading, high value goods, car
dealership those kinds oftransactions where you have to
(04:09):
have an idea that James isreally James behind the
transaction.
Greg Myers (04:12):
And then you closed a round of funding not too long
ago and are opening an office inthe US, in Atlanta.
So maybe tell us a little moreabout that about that?
James Neville (04:26):
Yeah, so I spent a bit of time in Atlanta over
recent years.
I mean it was well-paid home inthe US when I worked at
WellPayers over Atlanta a lot.
I mean, Georgia is lovely, it'shot, but it's also a good
epicenter for payments.
So if you're going to enter theUS on a kind of fintech angle,
particularly payments, it's kindof Jacksonville Atlanta, maybe
a bit of kind of Miami in theresomewhere.
But it's the old Dell AT&T hubsthat sprung up over the years
(04:47):
and that's why the transportnetwork is so cool.
So we parked ourselves inAtlanta for now.
We raised 12 million US fromdiscerning capital.
They've also invested inMidnight in the UK, one of the
kind of challenger operators,because they're in Australia and
they have a very strong focuson US regulated gaming sectors.
So that's a big target for us.
(05:09):
We feel we can really shape theindustry while it's in its
relative infancy in the US.
Greg Myers (05:15):
So in the US, will you mainly be focused on
gambling or will you do some ofthe similar things you do there?
James Neville (05:20):
Again similar things.
But I think the immediate kindof problem that we can fix is
around financial health and it'sone of those industries where,
as it's in its kind of nascentdays like, there's a strong
opportunity to put that in placewhile the industry grows,
exchanges and some of the otherkind of parties I mentioned.
But for the US, I think, as thestates by states regulate,
(05:49):
they've got a lot of financialhealth type requirements that
people are putting a bit of ahat set to, but not really I'm
not saying not taking itseriously, but doing the minimum
that they have to, withoutrealizing the journey that
Europe's been on to providegreater revenues through
responsible gambling.
So that's why I think takingour proposition into the US will
really help, and there'sobviously a lot of stuff going
on with 1033 and that goingthrough the court.
(06:12):
So what does that really meanright now?
But the US is a very differentbeast to Europe.
As I'm sure you know, as anAmerican you're very commercial
as opposed to being driven byregulation.
So we ended up with PSD2 andalso PSD3 through the EBA and
the likes, regulating, whereasthe US the commercial businesses
(06:32):
like Acquia and MX and Plaidand all those kind of aggregated
businesses.
They did really well by justgoing to the banks themselves
and forming commercialrelationships and building
outside of a regulated context.
So I think 1033 is going to befascinating for really opening
the sector up and normalizingthe sector as the regulations in
(06:54):
PSP3.
But opening in the States is alot easier, with the
infrastructure evolving there onthe commercial context, than it
has been in Europe I think.
Greg Myers (07:02):
Well, what would you say?
Differentiates your companyfrom your competitors out there.
James Neville (07:06):
Yeah, I mean again, we're the fastest people
to make account-to-accountinstant payments.
We spend a lot of time in datarather than just kind of talking
to the bank themselves.
We have kind of proprietaryalgorithms, that kind of
predetermine whether slowpayments will settle within the
two-day kind of window ofseparate credit transfer.
The same is true of ACH being,you know, same day or next day
(07:29):
or ultimately kind of 24 hours.
We're able to forward funds inadvance of settlement with no
risk to ourselves or themerchant.
The biggest differentiator is,of course, that we provide
financial health on transaction,which nobody is doing.
If you want to provide asolution in a regulated sector,
you've got a whole palette oftools that you have to aggregate
(07:49):
anything from IDV to PEP andsanction checks, all of that
stuff together, maybe devicefingerprinting, maybe TM or
transaction monitoring aroundall this.
We wrap that in one singulartransaction and it's kind of our
goal to be able to arrive to anexchange or an operator or a
website and go deposit money andbe able to do that and tie KYB
(08:10):
KYC process from start to finish.
Greg Myers (08:12):
How do you go to market?
Do you have a direct sales team?
Do you work through partnershipchannels?
How do you go to market?
James Neville (08:18):
I mean all of them, as every payment company
does.
Direct is where you wantsomething.
Your merchant wants something abit more bespoke.
They want to work with you anddo something.
We're very flexible.
At NAC.
We provide some very customsolutions for some of the bigger
merchants we work with.
And then, of course, we go outthrough the PSPs, through the
gateways.
(08:38):
We work with the EIs of Europeall of the guys across various
different sectors and then we'realso white-labeled within other
people's platforms.
So it's a kind of you know,some people consume other
people's PSPs into their whitelabel and then sometimes we're
in that PSP.
So it's a bit of a mix ofeverything, but kind of our goal
(09:00):
is to focus on the places andthe services and software that
our customers consume theirservices from.
Greg Myers (09:02):
All right.
Well, when you step back andtake kind of a look at the big
picture, where do you seepayments headed?
Maybe in the next three to fiveyears?
James Neville (09:10):
I mean, everybody's going to be talking
stable coins and the Genius Act.
So let's just see where thatkind of settles in in the US and
we've had this whole kind ofwedge-free kind of meta stuff.
That didn't quite take off in alot of respects.
But you know Bitcoin's stillhere to stay, ethereum's still
here, stables, you know centralbank currencies are still
(09:31):
becoming a thing.
You know the UK Bank ofEngland's had a program
operating for a while.
I think you know we'll start tosee bank-issued stables.
We'll start to see kind ofcountry-issued stables.
I don't know, it's kind of aminimum, I'd say kind of one
year for most of the kind ofbigger economies of the world.
And then we'll start to seekind of broader acceptance and
kind of insurance and liabilityshifts and all those kind of
(09:51):
things that need to happen foran ecosystem's function.
I think beyond there there isn'treally a kind of obvious trend
in a new payment mechanism ormethod.
But I think then we get intoeverybody's talking agentic AI
and something else.
You know, outside of the realmsof arriving in a Google and
looking for a flight and thenbuying a flight, it's going to
(10:14):
be more about having your ownpersonal wallet.
Maybe that includes stables.
Maybe that includes your cardsand other APMs and you can
access to that agent to go offand buying the thing that you
want and deliver it the rightway.
So I mean, personally I don'ttrust agentic AI right now
because the recommendations Iget from Google, I mean they're
giving me recommendations fororange trainers and I'll never
(10:36):
wear orange.
Well, actually I might, I'm aMcLaren fan, but you see the
point right.
So you know, I think there'sdefinitely a level of control in
all this.
But that's, I think, whereautomation is going to go and
it's going to become a littlebit more around self-sovereign
identity, self-suffering paymentmethods.
What do you want to spend where?
(10:56):
What are your limits that youmight provide out to the agents
and what data do you want toshare?
And maybe some of that dataneeds to be deeper for certain
sites and shallower for others.
Maybe you need multipleidentities, pseudo-identities,
to go to pay for stuff.
Some stuff you may not want topay with certain kind of direct
from your bankers, james Neville.
(11:16):
Maybe you want to pay withcertain kind of direct from your
bankers, james Neville.
Maybe you want to pay with that, with a stable coin or
something kind ofnon-identifiable.
So I think there's all kind ofmixes of stuff coming, but
agenti is definitely where we're.
I think the world seems to bepushing itself forward to.
Greg Myers (11:29):
What are your thoughts on, I know, like in the
US, the whole account toaccount you know?
I mean it's used when you'repaying utilities and things like
that, but there's often peopletalking about using
account-to-account at the pointof sale, so maybe more like a
PIX in Brazil or you know someof those kinds of things.
What are your thoughts on kindof that account-to-account
payment getting down to wherethe consumer's actually using it
(11:52):
almost at a point of sale, kindof thing?
James Neville (11:55):
So we struggled with that for a while, which is
why we ended up in more of theregulated space.
Let's take kind of pause out ofthe equation for a second.
But if you arrive somewhere tobuy a new pair of Nike sneakers
and you've got Apple Pay andPayPal and everything else
that's quite habitualized forpeople pay by bank, you can put
it there.
You can put it there, but it'snot going to get any traction
(12:15):
right.
Habits have formed over decadesand those decades go all the
way back to.
You know my dad being shoutedvisa from a Moroccan souk and he
went and bought a carpet andyou know all those kinds of
things.
But you know the predominanceof those trust marks and brands
just create repetitive behavior.
So, trying to get consumereducation to a point where
(12:36):
someone goes, I would prefer topay with Chase directly.
Why would someone prefer thoseplaces where there's maybe more
fraud on the transaction?
You want to know that that'sreally the person behind it
(13:04):
rather than some anonymous cardthat could have been path three,
alpha bin or Mr Bin for adarknet site.
So there's got to be use cases.
We tried a bit of POS and werevisited it again about a year
back.
We did all the work for thecasinos in London, so the big
ones that have kind of paymentsin ticket out type machines, and
(13:26):
that's gone well.
Obviously it's better becauseyou can go to higher limits than
cards can, etc.
Etc.
But the problems that you haveat point and fail is really
around communication.
Rejection Cards you're almostuniversally going to accept
unless there's insufficientfunds where there's bits on the
(13:47):
account-to-account chain thattend to be more fragile.
Some of the banks in Europe havesuch an implicit fragility to
them that if something doesn'twork you need to sit there in
the state for a while.
But you can't keep a customerwaiting at a POS terminal for
more than about 30 seconds.
You need to either see that themoney's moved or you need to
refund the money, and there'sall kinds of unhappy paths that
(14:08):
happen with a solution like that.
So I'm not sure that POS isnecessarily the right solution
right now.
But in the US you've got a muchbetter way of moving money via
push, which is effectively justconsent from an open banking
transaction can then be used towire money from one ACH
participant to another, whereasin Europe you've got to go
(14:31):
through kind of a pushtransaction on your mobile phone
.
So I think you know the US isinherently kind of more open,
could be more fraudulent, butwe'll see how it all pans out.
But I genuinely say that POSisn't really a place for account
to account.
Greg Myers (14:45):
Right, okay, well, let's change gears a little bit
and talk about you.
You talked a little bit aboutyour background, kind of brought
us up to the CTO of WorldPay,but maybe what led you to
starting the company, what wasthe impetus of that?
James Neville (14:57):
I mean a number of things.
So I've been in and out of thepayments industry.
As I said, on kind of bothsides of the acquiring fence.
I looked at what fraud reallymeant.
Bitcoin was a merchant at thetime that I was at WorldPay.
All these things revolvedaround passphrases and pins and
3D Secure and everything kind ofcame together at one time,
(15:18):
everything from GDPR, psd2, scait was actually a.
It was a number of things, but aboard meeting that we had at
WorldPay where we werediscussing all of these things
coming together and what wouldhappen if somebody had to type
their name, address, date ofbirth, mother's maiden name, all
kinds of other things at thepoint of payment.
Well, conversion was going tofall off the cliff.
(15:39):
So the discussion then wasthere must be someone who
tokenizes identity, like wetokenize a pound, like we
tokenize a card.
That wasn't.
So we were like, okay, maybe weshould go off and do a business
.
That did that, and that'sactually where it started.
So we were originally calledCitizen.
Like.
(16:01):
Our first proposition wasessentially taking all the data
you'd require at kind of pointof sale, remote or online the
GDPR and PSD2, rolling that alltogether in an identity token
that somebody could kind of passaround and reuse with our hands
, retype all the stuff.
We ended up working with thebanks quite heavily for about a
year and a half, two years, andthen the banks got a little bit
scared by GDPR, and GDPR camealong and came to force and
(16:25):
didn't want to talk aboutidentity anymore, which was just
.
That was the time that openbanking became a thing in Europe
.
You know 2017, we startedgetting the kind of account
information component in the UKand then, two years later, the
payment side.
So we decided well, you know,if we're going to be in the
payment seeking system, weshould just be a payments
business.
Because if we're going to be inthe payment seeking system, we
should just be a paymentsbusiness.
Because if we're handling theaccount to account
(16:45):
identification piece, why not doboth?
Why rely on another participant?
And that's kind of where I went.
Aside from that, you know, I'vehad some great leaders work
around me and I've had someterrible leaders work around me
as well, and I genuinely thoughtI could build a company that
had a great culture, that couldbe really successful and also
where people could be reallysuccessful and enjoy their time
(17:06):
working here.
I think we built a reallystrong culture of trust and
actually a lot of fun as well.
If you speak to people thatwork here, we've got a very flat
hierarchy and we all workreally, really collaboratively.
Greg Myers (17:19):
Okay, okay.
Well, what are some thingsyou're passionate about?
So, maybe one work-relatedpassion and one personal passion
.
James Neville (17:25):
I mean work.
I'm a techie At the end of theday.
I grew up with my dad's Unixterminals when I was like eight
years old and I was playingadventure to start with, but I
learned Shell when I was a kid,so I've always been a techie.
Anything that involves tech,you can see.
It was music around me as well.
It's also very, very techie, soyou know very similar type
(17:46):
things.
I like generative music.
I like writing code that writesmusic, so to speak.
So I've got a whole heap ofstuff around here that does kind
of algorithmic, kind oftextural audio.
So that's a bit of a passion ofmine.
Used to run sound systems whenI was in my 20s, so you know we
used to run around and play loudmusic to people and that's
always been a passion of mine.
You can tell I'm a quite loudindividual generally.
And then my hounds.
So I've got you won't see them,but I've got four Weimaraners
(18:09):
under the table just herebehaving like I was implicitly
waiting for their afternoon run.
But they're my personaltrainers and how I keep fit.
Greg Myers (18:17):
Okay, okay, you know I want to go back on something
we kind of touched on it, but Ithink maybe, given kind of the
business you're in not so muchthe payment side but the
identity side how is AI sort of,I guess, two parts.
You've probably been usingmachine learning and AI for a
while.
Right, it's not a new conceptto what you're doing, but maybe
how do you see it?
(18:37):
Improving what you do, movingforward or changing things?
James Neville (18:40):
Yeah.
So I think at the moment we'refocused on things like
categorization and identifyingthings that are outliers and
going much more kind of broad,full-brush terms.
We've been looking at fixingkind of last mile, not
chargebacks in our world it'smore kind of request for
information, kind of RFIs, andconnecting lots of individual
(19:01):
parties that way, so kind ofautomating that kind of
conversational process.
We're not going to put it infront of customers yet.
I know Klarna tried to do thatand backtracked on it very
quickly.
I think as a business we try tokeep a very personal touch to
things.
I just don't think AI hasreally got that personal touch
just yet.
But as we move deeper intotransaction monitoring and that
(19:26):
side of the business 100%,absolutely more to unlock
transactions that existing toolssay are suspicious, being able
to really deep dive on those andrelease them a lot faster.
Greg Myers (19:38):
Okay, okay.
So you've obviously been aroundpayments for a while.
So if someone came to you maybethey're right out of university
or school and they say hey,james, I'm looking to get into
the payments industry and builda career there what would you
tell them they should do to besuccessful?
James Neville (19:52):
Probably ask them why.
I mean, I actually fell into itmyself Me too.
Yeah right, but it's one ofthose industries that, because
it touches so many things,there's always kind of a pathway
back to the payments.
They'll try to run away for afew years but you always end up
back in the same thing.
But it's just one of those kindof foundational industries.
If you think of money generally, it's just it's always going to
(20:14):
be around.
So I wouldn't necessarily maybeI'd ask why, but you know where
, like what.
Why do you want to be inpayments?
Is it because you love money,you're interested in, you know,
making it move faster?
You're interested in the fraudaspect of it, like what?
Why do you want to be inpayments?
Is it because you love money,you're interested in, you know,
making it move faster?
You're interested in the fraudaspect of it, like what?
What really floats your boat?
For me it was.
It was always technical.
Again, you know, I was a techie, I I spent a long time on I was
(20:34):
at sporting, bet building, youknow orchestration platforms
that you'd hit a certain levelof of kind of ingress of funds
You'd have to shift to anotherprovider.
So, like, the technicalchallenges were there.
So I think, if you're a techie,join a things app or join a
startup, but just and just learn.
This industry is absolutely rifewith acronyms.
(20:56):
You know it's acronym soup,right, we've just said GDPR, sga
and that one.
We were all fine with it, butanyone else that isn't in
payment would go what the hellare you talking about?
That stuff comes second natureand it takes a wee while.
So anyone that wants it, it'snot scary.
There isn't all this stuffthat's unintelligible.
You just need to immerseyourself in it for a while.
(21:17):
So I would find somewhere wherethere's an open floor, it's a
FinTech, there's a product guyaround and just listen and learn
that way, one take at a time.
Greg Myers (21:25):
Before we close out, just kind of open the floor,
see if there's anything elsethat maybe we didn't talk about
that you wanted to mention.
So kind of open floor for youfor closing comments.
James Neville (21:35):
Thanks for delving into the background.
I think not so much that Ihaven't mentioned, but I
definitely think there's anothercategory opening up around data
and payments generally andcombining things like device
fingerprinting, combining bankidentity or card identity.
Maybe even MasterCard's beenmoving more into digital
(21:55):
services and financial healthjust to create more of a space
where the transaction can betrusted.
And I think as everybody startsto think in those terms, as
chargebacks become more rife andfraud becomes more rife, I mean
we all start thinking in asimilar kind of term connect
identity and money will be in amuch better space.
Greg Myers (22:14):
Well, James, I think that's a great way to finish up
the show.
So thank you so much for beinghere.
I really appreciate your time.
I know it's very valuable.
James Neville (22:20):
You're more than welcome.
Thanks so much for having me.
Greg Myers (22:23):
Great, and to all you listeners out there, I thank
you for your time as well, anduntil the next story.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
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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