GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 32 - June 2015

How do you go about figuring that out and integrating it into your system? A significant part of our development is invested in the integration of additional payment methods. The (new) payment methods provide our clients with the ability to get into new territories, accept deposits and process payouts. We listen to our clients and we understand where they want to go, where they want to be and which payment methods are here to stay. Some of them are very popular one day and then they disappear the day after. We put in a lot of work to choose which payment options we want to integrate for our client and then implement them. You actually provide a card too, right? This is a new addition to our product port- folio. In addition to our traditional pay-in services, where we allow our clients to accept payments from their clients, with our card-issuing service we now allow them to pay out to their affiliate partners or their players if they win. So we're giv- ing them an additional payment solution not only for pay-in but also for payout. What's the reception been so far for the card? It debuted for the first time here at ICE, and we've seen tremendous demand for this product, especially since it's coming from SafeCharge. They really like that they can have a single solution for both deposits and payouts. There have been electronic solutions be- fore. But the ability to pay in from and pay out into one card is just fascinating. It's one thing to pay out into a wallet or account. It's another thing to pay out into a card that people can access instantly. I think what our clients are looking for is financial control and consolidated finan- cial reporting. So if the entire pay-in and payout is being offered by one company, with a single back-office system and a sin- gle reporting service, then the financial op- erations of our clients are much simpler to maintain and understand and less prone to human errors. This is why they like it. Are there any geographic regions where this would prove to be popular right away? We are providing the service in regulated markets, and mainly in the U.K. The U.K is our main target office. How long did you work on the develop- ment of this card? We acquired a company (that did this) in December 2014. The new card is very mobile friendly. Was that a deliberate choice? Is that where you need to focus your energy moving forward? The mobile component is a significant part of this. We see mobile payments as a growing segment of our business. And as we further develop our product, we are putting significant effort into being plat- form agnostic and providing a product that is well designed for the mobile age. How are mobile payments different than other parts of the payment processing structure? There are two parts to this. One is asso- ciated with risk management. When you have a mobile platform identity, it is an additional and important parameter you don't have when you deal with laptop or desktop (transactions). So that can defi- nitely help us with risk management. The other part of the equation is the user ex- perience. We have to make sure the user experience is flawless — as much as possi- ble — and only the important information is presented. What sort of little things did you do to make the mobile experience a good one? For instance, when you have to enter your credit card information, then the numeric part of the keyboard will be automatically selected.When you type the 16 digits of the credit card, it will automatically go to the next field. Everything we can do to make it simpler for our customers, we will do. How did you get involved in the pay- ments industry? I've been in the Internet business since 2007. I'm a good friend of David Avgi, the CEO (of SafeCharge). And he knew what I was doing, so three years ago he called me and said, "Let's make a turnover in this company." And so this is what I've been doing for the past three years. When you were growing up, did you ever imagine you'd be doing something like this? No. (laughter) What did you want to be when you were growing up? I wanted to be an engineer — to invent sophisticated machines and build some- thing. I was always thinking about build- ing something for the transport industry, like an always-green traffic light or some- thing of that nature. How did you end up working on an Internet business? I was introduced by a good friend of mine to some interesting online businesses. I used to work in telecommunications and enterprise software. But when my friend introduced me (to online businesses), I fell in love with it. The fact that you see immediate results — you change some- thing in the morning and you see the re- sponse in the afternoon; it's all very quick. It's not like telecommunications where sometimes you make an offer and it takes two years for the contract to be signed. It's essentially a different business, and I like it. When you talk to people who don't know anything about payment processing or online transactions, what is the thing that surprises them the most? That the market is fragmented — it's not controlled by one big American corpora- tion like Google or Facebook, and there is still a lot of room for mid-sized com- panies like SafeCharge to be successful and profitable. 14 Executive's Corner: Putting a charge in payment processing