An interview with Sean Forward, UK chief executive officer of payabl.

In our latest interview from Money20/20, Robert Welbourn talks to Sean Forward, UK chief executive officer of online payments provider payabl. 

The conversation covered how things are going at payabl., the future of payments, and how CBDCs may be a game changer. 

To kick off could you give me a brief introduction please. 

I’m Sean Forward, UK chief executive officer for payabl., a leading online payment processor. We specialise in facilitating merchant payment acceptance, primarily online, but we also offer point of sale (POS) terminals. 

Our company has been in operation for almost 15 years and boasts proprietary technology developed in Frankfurt. We have offices in Frankfurt, Limassol, Amsterdam and London, and we are regulated in both the UK and Cyprus. And we are in the process of obtaining regulatory approval in several other markets. 

That brings me on to a topic I’m really interested: cross-border payments. What is, in your opinion, the biggest blocker at the moment to the speed of cross border payments? 

In our case, we receive payments on behalf of the merchants. The majority of those payments come in from card schemes and then we send those payments out to the merchants. We’re not finding significant blockers within this flow, especially since we work B2B. 

On the consumer side, we enable merchants to transact cross-border for their customers to both receive and send payments. In the UK, we have faster payments, which simplifies domestic transactions. However, going cross-border outside of the UK to Europe, and dealing with currency exchanges, is often where friction arises.  

To manage this, we maintain floats in different currencies, allowing us to move funds within a specific currency, which helps speed up the process. 

Do you think CBDCs will help improve that process? 

This is a favourite topic of mine; I’m really keen on CBDCs. I think CBDCs still have a journey to make, particularly in the UK. The digital Euro is a bit further along the timeline, but it’s still not quite there. 

What I do see evolving very rapidly are stablecoins. European regulation is already quite advanced, and in the UK, it’s progressing quickly. I’m confident that many financial institutions, maybe even some of the banks, will start issuing their own stablecoins to manage cross-border payments much more efficiently. 

CBDCs are being driven by central banks, so they’re tied down by regulation. Do you think there’s a chance they might be left behind the private sector, which innovates so much faster? 

I think that’s a broader discussion. Government initiatives often move and mature more slowly, frequently allowing the competitive market to shape future developments.  

I can’t envision a future without digital currencies. While there’s debate about the current use cases, I believe they will evolve as these technologies mature. Likely, banks will tighten controls to make sure that the central currency is effectively implemented. 

One of payabl.’s products is Payment Link, which you say has no coding required. That must be invaluable for a lot of the smaller businesses and startups who just don’t have the time to code their own solutions. 

We’ve found that offering a range of connection methods and checkout options for merchants is the best approach because there’s no one fits all solution.  

We offer very sophisticated APIs for larger merchants with substantial tech teams, enabling them to integrate and gather extensive information through their own systems. 

Additionally, we integrate with most online shopping carts, providing flexibility for merchants preferring that route. We offer a payment page and payment links, handling the hosting to facilitate the collection of various payment types.  

These methods include credit cards, bank transfers and other payment options. We provide a comprehensive range of products at the point of order.  

That agility must be invaluable to your clients. As the saying goes, if you’re not first, you’re last. 

Flexibility is key, but so is speed to market, backed by advanced tech like AI. We’re also focused on providing merchants with a full suite of services under one umbrella.  

We have a product which is an overarching one. We give the merchant the ability to accept payments and send payouts, but we also give them banking functionality and payment accounts. This centres around where funds can come in and go out so the merchant can manage their payment flows. As you said, speed is absolutely vital, and hosting lots of products under one umbrella helps with this. 

You mentioned AI; it wouldn’t be Money20/20 without us talking about it. Do you have plans to utilise AI within payabl.? 

The industry often latches onto buzzwords. Last year everyone was talking about open banking, this year everyone is talking about AI. AI is more prominent currently because lots of companies are using AI for consumer interaction. 

We’ve been using machine learning for years. If you listen to talks on the Visa or Mastercard stages, they’re very much talking about having used machine learning for decades. So, “Yes we are!” is the answer, and we have been for a long time. Particularly on the fraud management and the transaction monitoring side of things. 

I attended a talk earlier about AI protection in banking. What struck me as fascinating was that on one side it’s criminals using generative AI to impersonate customers, and on the banking side they’re using AI to fight the scammers. It’s an AI vs AI battle, which I found absolutely fascinating. 

That concept isn’t unusual! If you think about fraudsters that have been attacking sites to try and obtain data, then on the other side you’ve got the people who are trying to prevent that. It’s been happening on the internet for a long time. 

What every merchant wants is as frictionless a process as possible. However, having some friction in the process of transacting is often a positive thing, because it makes it harder for the fraud to take place. There’s always this balance of acceptable fraud from the merchants’ point of view, managing that fraud and making sure that the consumers have a smoother ride; what they want to do is have the consumer come away and go, “Wow, that was easy”, so they’ll come back and buy from you again. 

What’s your opinion on the battle between frictionless payments and proper AML and KYC checks?  

Compliance is essential; it’s not only regulatory and good business, but it’s the right thing to do as a responsible entity. AML measures have to be in place. 

A lot of discussion and a lot of thought goes into how the AML and KYC parameters are set. The AML piece in particular has to be strong as far as the controls are concerned, but if you’re looking at low-value transactions, you’re looking for something quick and efficient. If you have very high volume, cross-border payments there’s usually less demand for speed and that’s where the friction can come in if extra checks have to take place. 

It’s a balance; consumers have to be serviced, but they also have to be protected too. It’s what we all want, both as consumers but also as payment facilitators.

Image: payabl.

Robert Welbourn
Robert Welbourn is an experienced financial writer. He has worked for a number of high street banks and trading platforms. He's also a published author and freelance writer and editor.