Transaction Trends

Mike is the Acquiring Product Management Lead for Wirecard North America and a 2019 ETA Young Payments Professionals (YPP) Scholar. In this interview, Mike discusses his background, how he came to work at Wirecard, and where he thinks the industry is headed.

Tell me about your background. Where did you go to college and what did you study? How did you get into the payments industry? Where did you start and how did you end up in your current role?
I attended New York University, Stern School of Business where I double majored in Finance and International Business. I began my career at Citibank in Transaction Services, where I served various roles in core banking platform development, pricing and RFP management, and client account management. I served several years in Citi’s Prepaid Card Services division, which was eventually sold to Wirecard. The prepaid card business operated in the B2C space, and naturally was a good fit for a company like Wirecard looking to expand into the growing US payments market. Due to my diverse experiences across development, product management, pricing and client management, I was assigned the task of expanding our acquiring services (which make up 90% of our global business), into the US market.

What’s your day-to-day like? What major functions do you serve, and what types of projects do you like to work on?
Since I am spearheading the launch and development of a new product channel for the US market, every day is very different.  Some days I am working with our banking partners, while others I am meeting with new payment service providers, consulting with merchants, and negotiating with vendors. My core function is to support and expand our business by ensuring our product’s value proposition is clear and competitive. To achieve this, I need to work with every team in our business – Operations, Technology, Sales, Marketing, Legal, Compliance, and so on.

I most enjoy solving unique challenges with our merchants, in collaboration with our Sales team. It is always interesting to see the new business models our merchants are developing, and figuring out how we can support them. Solving a problem for a merchant is very rewarding, because the result is clear – you can go to a website, app, etc. to buy a product and see what has been achieved together.

What payments trends are on your radar?
At Wirecard, we focus primarily on the future of payments, so strategy is very important. Although we support merchant’s POS business, we focus on card-not-present, which means there are always new use cases to solve.  To this end, a lot of focus is given on ways to make payment invisible, whether that be embedding payment through tokenization, wallet enablement or partner software development.  We are also heavily focused on alternative payment trends. The US is a long way behind the remainder of the globe when it comes to alternative payment methods, whereas Europe and Asia have literally hundreds of local preferred methods we need to account for.

What do you think will be the most significant development in the payments industry across the next five years?
I believe there will be a massive focus on global end to end product offerings in the next 5 years. Today there are many payment companies with separate divisions around the world, but not many with a single payment interface, processor, or set of reporting. As merchants expand their businesses around the world to tap into new markets, we will see a lot of consolidation of regional players and platform unification to address these needs. Tangentially, we will also see value chain extension, which means more payment companies will try to offer merchants a one-stop-shop experience, where all payment, loyalty and banking needs can be met.

What topics do you consider yourself to be an expert in? Does not necessarily have to be limited to your payments career.
Payments is changing so fast, it’s hard for anyone to be an expert on all related topics – it is a career of exploring, learning, and re-learning.

Separately, I am passionate for Meteorology (it was a close second for career choice!) and also American history and horticulture. In my spare time, especially in the summer, you can find my wife and I in the garden at our home, built in 1844 in a historic district, during most of our spare time.

What surprised you most (good and/or bad) about the payments industry?
When our division was first purchased by Wirecard, we were no longer in Banking, we were in Payments. At first, it was intimidating to be representing a Fintech because things move so much faster. It was a great relief as I began networking that everyone is in the same boat – we are all learning and growing constantly. Anyone can become an expert quickly because knowledge from a few years ago becomes outdated so quickly.

Have you found any particular challenges or advantages being a young payments professional in payments technology?
I don’t find any particular challenges being a little younger than some of my peers. Wirecard especially is very focused on younger talent – a huge number of our executives are in their 30s and hard work and passion are rewarded. But I think this is a common attribute in Payments – we frequently are speaking to young entrepreneurs who have started companies in their 20s, and are looking for a payment partner. In this sense, my age becomes an advantage.

What advice would you give other young people who are entering the payments industry?
Don’t be intimidated by the unknown. No one knows everything, and curiosity will help you go far. People will recognize your passion, and as the industry continues to change even more quickly, passion is the most critical attribute for success.

What has participating in the Young Payments Professional Scholar program meant to you?
The YPP program is an opportunity to meet and learn. No matter how many people I meet in my current role, there will always be individuals I would never have an opportunity to learn from without a professional networking structure. I hope I can also help my peers learn more about my role, company, and focus in return.

YPP Spotlight Features highlight ETA’s Young Payments Professionals (YPP) Scholars, their path through the payments industry, and their aspirations for the future. The 2019 ETA YPP Scholars represent the finest young minds across the payments technology ecosystem. You can read more about the program, which is sponsored by Discover Global Network, here.