Interview: CEO of Payments Platform Provider nanoPay
Loyalty and payments platform provider nanoPay had a memorable start to 2016.
The Toronto-based startup acquired MintChip, a digital currency developed by the Canadian Mint as a fiat alternative to bitcoin and originally backed by the Canadian dollar.
With the acquisition, nanoPay CEO Laurence Cooke sees an inevitable future wherein digital currencies will revolutionize society and the financial system, from the unbanked to the biggest financial institutions in the world.
CCN.com spoke to a representative of nanoPay about the company and founder and CEO Laurence Cooke to hear about his take on digital payments’ relevance in the future.
How did nanoPay come to exist?
Founder and CEO Laurence Cooke spent 12 years working in the wireless industry and noticed a need to change the way payments work. They are slow, expensive and there is too much fraud.
Four years ago, Laurence knew that he could create something that delivered tangible value to merchants well beyond payment acceptance. That has been the biggest motivator to make nanoPay a success.
nanoPay provides retailers and online merchants with a SaaS solution that delivers loyalty and payments in single-use transaction tokens to make payments frictionless™.
What experience do those behind the company have with payments?
nanoPay has a diverse and highly experienced Executive team that brings a variety of skills and talent to the company.
Prior to starting nanoPay, Laurence focused his work with private equity, equity analysts, and wireless new entrants. He worked for WIND Canada and was Vice President of Wireless at Shaw Communications. He was also Chief Operating Office of Bell Mobility and Bell Distribution Inc. and co-founded two wireless data businesses in Europe: Melodeo Inc. and Xtempus.
Kent Rawlings, Chief Commercial Officer, has over 24 years of experience in the telecommunications industry with a strong retail background. Prior to joining nanoPay, Kent was one of the original senior executives in the Canadian wireless startup Public Mobile, where he held the title of Senior Vice President of Sales & Distribution. Kent also served as Vice President of National Retail Sales, Warehouse and Logistics for Bell Canada.
Simon Keogh, Chief Product Officer, has an entrepreneurial background with strengths in strategy and product management, with an emphasis on innovation and marketing. Simon led new innovation and mobile wallet strategy at LoyaltyOne that operates AIR MILES, Canada’s largest loyalty program.
He was previously Vice President of marketing at Tenzing, an e-commerce hosting company, as well as Vice President of Product at Tira Wireless.
How do you factor in security with nanoPay?
Cooke: Our next-generation payments platform has been designed with security at the core. The heart of the security is the tokenization framework that secures customer identity, loyalty, offers and payment instruments in single-use transaction tokens that are meaningless if intercepted by hackers and fraudsters.
All personally identifiable information (PII) is encrypted in the nanoPay database to ensure privacy and security for both merchants and consumers, and all payments are processed in a PCI-DSS compliant data center.
How does nanoPay work?
Cooke: nanoPay is building the rails for next-generation frictionless™ payments: more secure, faster, cheaper and with greater customer engagement. Our comprehensive payments platform enables retail and online merchants to addresses key challenges such as payment acceptance, customer loyalty, PCI-DSS compliance and security.
The nanoPay API is freely available to developers and provides a simple interface into the nanoPay loyalty and payment platform. Developers can quickly and easily enable a mobile app or website to process payments, issue and redeem rewards, send receipts and redeem offers.
What is the biggest hurdle faced by the existing payments industry?
Cooke: New innovations and technologies have led to a shift in consumer expectations when choosing payment providers. Most new payment companies are either competing directly with entrenched payment processors or only focusing on underserved smaller merchants.
With the rise of mobile payments, consumers are starting to look beyond payment transactions for more personalized payment experiences that offer incentives and convenience in exchange for their loyalty.
For any of these services to really take off however, there needs to be advancements within the security and privacy across all networks.
How is nanoPay different from Apple Pay and Samsung Pay?
Cooke: nanoPay is a loyalty and payment platform that enables merchants to create custom loyalty and payment solutions, whereas Apple and Samsung pay are mobile wallets used by consumers to process credit card payments.
nanoPay enables merchants to broaden payment acceptance and let consumers choose how they want to pay. nanoPay enables merchants to link customer SKU data to their transactions to build stronger and more personal customer relationships.
What do you foresee as the future of the digital payments industry?
Cooke: It will take some time before mobile wallets become a global standard, but this will be the year that regulators work to catch up on initiatives that address mobile and digital payments.
While we are far from becoming a cashless society, we will continue to see a steady increase in consumer awareness and adoption of mobile payment systems in 2016, with a focus on convenience, loyalty and security.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
