THE FINTECH INTERVIEW
The integrated model delivers particular advantages as payment methods converge. Traditional card payments and direct-to-account real-time transfers have historically operated as separate domains, yet convergence is accelerating globally, as demonstrated by India’ s UPI system and Brazil’ s Pix network.
“ It is now normal that you can go to a point of sale and you can pay with your card, or you can pay with a QR code directly to an account,” Oscar says.
Vishal notes that Asia Pacific markets demonstrate more advanced flexible funding models, where a single card account can process transactions as debit, instalment, credit or prepaid depending on purchase type.
Euronet’ s private cloud infrastructure spans 14 instances across eight countries ensuring 100 % uptime
Company’ s 680,000 payment touchpoints represent 30 years of accumulated infrastructure impossible to replicate quickly
Euronet’ s integrated model combines Ria remittance, Epay, XE and Dandelion across 190 territories
Platform built with zero legacy code, 100 % microservices and complete API availability
“ Under the same account, under the same card, you can make a transaction that’ s treated as a debit or an instalment plan or a credit transaction,” he explains.
With over 10,000 employees operating globally, Euronet can apply learnings from diverse markets to clients everywhere.
“ Unlike most payment companies that operate in a similar country or region, we’ re fortunate that we operate on a global scale,” Vishal says.
Future of payments Looking ahead, Vishal anticipates continued evolution in payment form factors. Credit cards emerged in the 1930s as metal charge plates, progressing through cardboard and plastic before becoming digital with Apple Pay and Google Pay in the 2010s.
“ We’ re now getting used to the concept of invisible payments, embedded payments,” Vishal says.
He cites Uber as an example where passengers enter and exit vehicles without actively processing payments.“ Payment is not the experience. Payments enable the experience,” he explains.
Real-time settlement will replace batch processing, enabling instant merchant payments upon card authorisation. Artificial intelligence is already enhancing fraud protection and personalisation capabilities, though Vishal views current applications as preliminary.
“ That’ s just the tip of the iceberg. There’ s a lot more opportunity when it comes to using AI to make the experiences better, to make the process more efficient,” he concludes.
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