Truevo Payments - October 2020 by Business Chief Europe

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DIGITAL REPORT 2020

Truevo Payments: Driving Digitalisation and Innovation IN ASSOCIATION WITH

Truevo Payments: Driving Digitalisation and Innovation 02

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Charles Grech, Chief of Operations at Truevo Payments, on the evolution of Truevo Payments and the digital transformation trends within finance

oining Truevo Payments in 2014, Charles Grech, Chief of Operations at Truevo Payments has been a part of the licensed

financial institution for six years. Grech began his career in finance in 1995 at the Bank of Valletta. 04

Grech has also held positions and co-founded Agechecked.com and PNNY Consult prior to joining Truevo Payments. “Our motto is simple,” explains Grech when asked about the evolution of Truevo Payments’ business strategy. “It’s everything for entrepreneurs. Our founder’s vision dates back 20 years ago, to try and make a significant difference within the payment industry. We have a very clear business niche in mind, which is to provide a supportive network for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. The company itself has evolved over many years, taking one step at a time. First came the technology, then came the license, and now we are adding more and more products to create an ecosystem to facilitate the growth of businesses in a quick and cost-effective way.”

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“ Our motto is simple. It’s everything for entrepreneurs” — Charles Grech, Chief of Operations, Truevo Payments

Truevo Payments has three core values which inspire everything they do. 1. Make a difference 2. Think BIG 3. Put your heart into it Founded in 2013, Truevo Payments first began operating under the name Swish Payments. In 2017, the financial institution rebranded to Truevo Payments. “There were a number of reasons why the company decided to rebrand,” says Grech. “The first one is like any other business would do,

An insight to Truevo’s challenges they have confronted CLICK TO WATCH

3:14

07 to ensure that there is not too much

grow is to drive digitalisation and

saturation on an existing brand name.

innovation within its operations.

The word ‘swish’ is not only a verb but

With this in mind, Grech details

is also used by a lot of other organisa-

that “being a fintech company, I

tions within the market. As a result,

believe we have a natural advan-

the company worked on creating a

tage because the technology came

new, bold brand name which would

before finance, not the other way

make a statement. We wanted a brand

around. Frequently, within this

which would continuously adapt, and

industry, fintech companies that

ride the evolution that is always taking

were primarily financial but in time

place within the industry. We strove

adopted the technical element,

for something that symbolized and

do not have the technical people

asserted our vision and value.”

required. At Truevo Payments our

Part of the company’s efforts to help entrepreneurial businesses

founder and CEO has a technical background. I, myself am a software www.t ruev o. com

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Truevo, ACI: enabling cross-border merchant expansion Charles Grech, COO, Truevo, and Andrew Quartermaine, VP of Customer Success, ACI, on the importance of collaboration and partnership for merchant expansion Watch Here Payment solution company Truevo provides merchants an end-to-end offering from acquiring to payment processing across Europe. It’s a mission that, according to Charles Grech, the company’s COO, requires a strong partner ecosystem. “We realised that there was a lot of opportunity for us in expanding our offering, so that we could provide our customers with an end-to-end solution. For this, we needed a gateway solution which could provide relevant local and cross-border payment options, as well as global connectivity to the ever-growing number of alternative payment methods. We also needed it to be delivered in a fast and timely fashion by someone who could scale with us.” ACI’s support for Truevo comes from multiple angles, as Andrew Quartermaine, VP of Customer Success at ACI, explains: “ACI provides the technology to support and enable customers such as Truevo. Our global Secure eCommerce solution enables safe international business expansion for Truevo and their merchants, giving them the ability to deploy tailored payment and fraud strategies for each channel and market. We provide our global Secure eCommerce as a whitelabel gateway that carries the Truveo brand and supports their end-to-end solution offering to their merchants.” ACI has worked with Truevo to understand its requirements. “ACI is a large company

with a lot of expertise and a long history in technology,” says Grech. “After going live, they followed up to make sure any problems encountered were efficiently dealt with.” That support means ACI delivers on the three main areas Grech identifies as key for its partners and the solutions they deliver: agility, innovation and flexibility. “I can firmly say that we have achieved these three factors in our partnership with ACI.” The strength of the relationship is further due to the mutual compatibility of the two organisations. “Truevo is the type of customer we enjoy supporting – innovative, global and growing rapidly,” says Quartermaine. “They wanted a secure gateway with global reach to support their rapidly expanding merchant base. They understand the importance of meeting their customers’ needs and we work collaboratively to make sure they have all the tools and payment strategies they need to do that.” Both companies maintain an eye on the future and are dedicated to finding innovative ways to enhance the consumer payments experience, protect against the risk of fraud, while increasing conversion for merchants. www.aciworldwide.com

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Truevo’s thoughts on new trends CLICK TO WATCH

3:30

and electronic systems engineer,

offerings and continuous investment

not to mention our CTO and all of

in research and development (R&D)

our technical team. Nowadays I do

and technical innovation. “One of

not believe that you have any other

the main elements we are working

choice but to upskill or onboard

to roll out in the coming months is

talent that have technological

to significantly upgrade our fraud

knowledge, in addition to financial

management capabilities and

knowledge in order to embrace the

onboarding processes by adopting

speed in which technology is evolv-

machine learning technology. Over

ing, because it is changing so fast.”

the last few years machine learning

When it comes to innovation,

and artificial intelligence (AI) have

Grech highlights the importance

been a bit of a buzzword. However,

of finding a balance between being

I believe that many companies are

fast to market with its new product

starting to see the benefits now of

these technologies. While you can

adopting new opportunities such as

automate business functions, there

machine learning and AI.â&#x20AC;?

are limits. By harnessing the power

Alongside its adoption of machine

of machine learning, you can benefit

learning, Grech details that when

from optimisation and predictive

looking to enter new industries,

capabilities. Ultimately, when it comes

â&#x20AC;&#x153;one first needs to have certain

to innovation it comes back to that

knowledge and competence and

balance of being first to market when

the data set in that industry. Truevo

rolling out new products with the lat-

Payments has been operating since

est improvements in technology and

2016 and we are now in our fourth

E X E C U T I V E P R O FILE :

Charles Grech Title: Chief of Operations

11 Company: Truevo Payments

Industry: Financial services Location: Birkirkara Charles Grech is a seasoned payments executive with 25 years of experience in design, management and operation of payment systems and payment businesses. He has managed large scale projects such as migration to chip on both acquiring and issuing businesses, systems migration and migration of national currency. Charles is a software and electronics systems engineer. Previously, Grech managed various areas of the payment card business in Bank of Valletta plc. And was co-founder of the online age verification provider agechecked.com. Today, Charles Grech is Chief of Operations at Truevo Payments, a card acquiring and financial services company servicing European businesses. www.t ruev o. com

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TRUEVO PAYMENTS AND ITS PARTNERSHIP WITH ACI WORLDWIDE

At Truevo Payments the company has several partners at various levels which can be classified into three main areas: suppliers and vendors, customers and regulatory authorities. “There are many entities that we work with and over the years - since we have a large variety of products - instead of having different providers for different services, we have tried to stick with people who are there for the long term. ACI Worldwide is one of them,” commented Charles Grech, Chief of Operations at Truevo Payments.

Grech has worked with ACI Worldwide for 20 years and in that time he believes that when it comes to partner relationships “when everything is working fine, that is the easy part. It is the time when there are problems that I really appreciate our partners. When something goes wrong, when the reliability of the partner is put into question because we need backup, ACI Worldwide is one of our reliable partners. They join us in our ambitions to put the customer at the forefront and offer a best in class product. It is this common goal and reliability which has made such a relationship last this long.”

“ Being a fintech company, I believe we have a natural advantage because the technology came before the finance, not the other way around” — Charles Grech, Chief of Operations, Truevo Payments

amount of flexibility, because while you can invest in the best technical platforms in the world, at the end of the day those using the tools need to have a mindset that is willing to adopt the changes. I also believe that it is equally important to have a mentality where you are willing to

year of business operations, as a 13

result we are now trying to organise our data so that when the time is right - which is now - we can harness the data and use it for our machine learning. However, I think that there needs to be a certain transition time until a dataset is mature enough to be indicative of one’s business purpose, which, being in our fourth year, is where we are now and will continue to improve in the background.” To successfully implement these strategies, it is important to have the right starting point. “In order to facilitate digital transformation, it takes a certain mindset, people need to be willing to change and have a large www.t ruev o. com

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“ Nowadays, I do not believe that you have any other choice but to upskill or onboard talent that has technological knowledge, in addition to financial knowledge” — Charles Grech, Chief of Operations, Truevo Payments make a continuous business transformation. There is no process that is set in stone because technology, business and customer requirements continuously change. This is something that we also integrate within our core business processes - the concept of continuous improvement, doing little changes but all the time.” Reflecting on the payments industry as a whole, Grech details that “one of the biggest challenges within the industry is the evolution of a much more onerous regulatory landscape. If you go back even three years, there were fewer regulators and local governments wanting www.t ruev o. com

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“ In order to facilitate digital transformation, it takes a certain mindset. People need to be willing to change and have a large amount of flexibility” — Charles Grech, Chief of Operations, Truevo Payments

to control the industry. Therefore, companies like us needed to make a significant number of changes in the way we conduct our business processes and our systems. Another major challenge for business is the onboarding process, which is why as part of our operations we are focused on trying to shorten the onboarding time as much as possible, which I believe at this stage we have laid the necessary foundations. Currently we are working on providing

Truevo’s digital transformation process CLICK TO WATCH

3:31

entrepreneurs with the ability to build

Certain aspects of the industry, such

a homogenous set of components,

as document signing and meetings

instead of purchasing off the shelf

with regulatory authorities, had

systems that are disjointed.”

to be done in person. Now these

Contemplating the impact of

processes are forced to be done

COVID-19, Grech explains how the

remotely. Even authentication of

pandemic has brought about per-

individuals can be done successfully

sonal digitalisation for customers as