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How FinTech is transforming the way money moves around the world: An interview with Mike Laven
Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems,
10
(1),
6-12
(2016)
Abstract
In this interview, Mike Laven, CEO of Currency Cloud, describes why FinTech is not going to ‘kill the banks’, and why it is not looking to. Despite the perennial popularity of an ‘us versus them’ debate, that is not an accurate description of the relationship between banks and FinTech innovators. The major issue is that banks are in many cases relying on decades-old IT infrastructure that cannot cope with the modern challenges of today’s banking landscape. Currency Cloud is the perfect example of a company that is benefiting from how new technology is changing the currency markets. Currency Cloud provides its clients with total transparency about what their transfer will actually cost them. The advanced technology allows currency transfers to be priced at a wholesale rate that would not be available to most customers, and also to fully disclose what they are really paying. Currency Cloud is the power inside some of the most exciting businesses in the financial services and FinTech sector. It has over 150 clients who directly use its Payments Engine. In turn, its Payments Engine serves 500,000 end-users, ie, business or consumer customers of its clients.
Keywords: FinTech; international payments; FX; Currency Cloud
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Mike Laven is CEO at Currency Cloud. He joined the business in 2011, growing the firm to processing more than $15 billion of international payments per annum, and presiding over a total of $36 million of investment in three years. Over the last twenty years, he has held leadership roles at a number of FinTech firms – Mike previously served as the chief operations officer at Traiana as well as the CEO at Infinity Financial Technology, Cohera, and Coronet, and Chairman at FRS Global.
Diederik Bruggink is Managing Director of Bruggink Consultancy and is an independent international expert in cards, payments, and market infrastructures. During his career, he has led and worked on several international and high-visibility projects, mainly with a focus on cashless payments, across the whole payments value chain, from (e-commerce) merchant acquisition through to issuing banks and within card switching and card processing organisations. He was one of the key authors of the first three editions of the ‘World Payments Report’, and he makes regular appearances on conferences in the cards and payments industry. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems.
