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Tea for Two & Two for Tea is a podcast about payments—where the systems behind every transaction are up for discussion. Hosted by Jordan, it dives into the power dynamics, strategic tensions, and hidden stories shaping the global payment landscape. No hype, no trend-chasing—just thoughtful conversations between two voices, one episode at a time.
Hello, dear Sippers, payment geeks, and everything in between. I'm really, really happy and excited to welcome you for this very first episode of tea for two and two for tea, my podcast. The objective of this podcast is pretty crystal clear: interviewing people and giving their views on what shapes the payment industry, catching all the teas and offering them to you, dear Sippers. Different perspective, far from the marketing sponsorship and the vanity noise. As many of you already know, Spill the Tea on Payment is my platform on payments industry where I share opinions, education, inspiration and a bit of debunking.
Jordan:It's 100% independent and with a bit of humor and fantasy. I'm Jordan Graison, your good payment friend in this industry and you can guess by my lovely accent, I'm French. It's always good to know. I was very honored to be in Lausanne, Switzerland to work on my first guest. She accepted the challenge of this first episode, and trust me, it was not easy.
Jordan:I'm grateful to have received Vasillina Walford. Vasillina made part of her career as a treasurer in one of the biggest luxury groups in the world, Richemont, then became the head, the eyes and the hands for the retail payments in this prestigious group. Richemont, this is 20 businesses in several luxury verticals including Cartier, Jaeger Le Couture, Chloe, more than 2,000 mono brand shops. It's a very, very big luxury beast. Vasillina is now the happy founder and owner of Payment Vibes, her boutique consulting dedicated to retailers and also a director at the Payment Consulting Network.
Jordan:What's interesting about Vasillina is that she sees payment with two hats, which contradicts a bit the narrative of the industry. Let me explain. Payments industry is acceptance focused, front end focused, and Vasillina comes from a back office function in charge of financials and talking about the cash, the big figures, and the money entering. And Payment experts are seldom from the user side. A lot of experts are from the payment industry have worked WITH merchants, but I have never experienced working FOR one of them.
Jordan:So what does it look like to be at the core of a reactor in one of the biggest dream machines? This is what we are going to find out with Vasillina. In this episode, we talked about her treasury background and how it shaped her views. The multi acquiring tactic pushed by all payment strategists. Is it good or not?
Jordan:The emergence of the payment, the chief payment officer role, the relationship between luxury and payment, and the shift currently happening. And finally, the omnichannel promise, and also, of course, throughout this episode, her visions on payment and retail. You see, quite a packed and tight schedule, but you will see. It's gonna be fun. Allez, Let's go.
Jordan:Let's spill the tea. Tea for two. And two for tea. Hosted by Jordan Graison. Episode one.
Jordan:Vassilina, you're quite a specimen in the big payment zoo, veteran in the luxury retail, sorry, luxury sector. You worked fifteen years there and then a hundred degrees, a 180 degrees, you created your expertise in payment payment vibe last year. How do you how did you end up in this direction? What was the main driver for you?
Vassilina:Hi, Jordan, first of all, and thank you very much for inviting me to this your first inaugural podcast. My pleasure. Well, you know, I actually, I ended up in the payments a little bit by accident as I think many of us it's the case for many of us. I'm a treasurer by profession, so I'm a qualified treasurer. And as you mentioned, I worked in a multinational environment where basically I was responsible for different treasury activities, risk management activities.
Vassilina:And once my boss asked me can you have a look at the credit card fees? Because we are paying quite a lot and we are now opening more and more boutiques and, you know, the fees are really going up and it would be good to understand why. So that's how I started to look into the payments. So I kind of entered that space with a, you know, kind of treasury "casquette" (hat), you know, really looking at the fees, etc.
Jordan:I was about to come on that, but we will talk about that later.
Vassilina:But that's basically how I entered the payment space, really from the treasury door, if I can call it like this.
Jordan:Okay. And how your experience in treasury shaped your view on payments? Like, what was it like? Because a lot of people enter into the payment industry, you know, not by this, you know, Treasury aspect, but much more on the tech side, on the acceptance side. So what do you feel has been a plus or something different in the fact that you were coming from Treasury?
Vassilina:Well, I think actually it's not many people are I mean, depending on who you are looking at. If you are looking more kind of the companies, merchants, payments are still under the legacy of treasury or finance teams quite a lot. But it's true that once you enter that space and you really start to speak to different providers, etc, it's true that it's quite tech
Jordan:driven, But
Vassilina:I wouldn't say that it's really an exception to be a treasurer where you start, because, you know, in the past the payments were really managed by the banks.
Jordan:Yeah, this is what caught my interest and this is why I asked you this question actually.
Vassilina:Exactly. So I don't think it's that different from the merchant perspective to come from treasury. But it's true that now when I speak to people and people are seeing me coming from treasury, they always ask how is it possible because it's true that now the world of payments changed quite a lot compared to let's say even eight years ago.
Jordan:Okay. You said in an interview in the Circle, which is a remarkable initiative in France to shed a bit of light in France and a bit in Europe because you are from the Circle and and you are and you're based in Switzerland. But you started your journey in the payment and you just mentioned it just before by looking at the cost and this is apparently what your boss asked you. How important was was it for you at that time? Like, are businesses really conscious about what they pay on the merchant side from a payment point of view?
Vassilina:I think yes, because obviously in the luxury industry, the average value of transactions are quite high, and credit card commissions are percentage based. So it's becoming very expensive. But also when I started to look into that, what I very quickly realized is that there is the credit card commissions, but also at that time you had so many different providers taking a cut and it was very Exactly. So you you kind of saw, like, you know, the the headline number, which was already quite big, but really to understand who you are paying for what was quite difficult actually.
Jordan:Yeah, because there is not a lot of transparency in the industry in the way that like how you can understand your credit card statement when they come on the table is always a bit difficult. And yeah, so this
Vassilina:type of process But also, you know, I started, it was really the Interchange + + was at its kind of beginning, you It was really blended.
Jordan:And it's not the case everywhere in world. Because you work in the luxury sector, quickly it becomes cross border, so we don't
Jordan:talk only about Europe, but it can be in The US, in Canada or in Asia.
Vassilina:I think it was definitely an eye opening exercise for many things. First of all, to understand the fees you pay, but also, because it was all blended, you actually didn't know who your providers are really behind. Just saw your main banks, but behind the scenes there were so many different providers. And by actually zooming on these fees and trying to really understand, you know, breaking them down, who you are paying for what, not only kind of generated the financial savings, but also pushed us to think what are the processes behind. Yeah.
Vassilina:You know
Jordan:What value do you have for your money.
Vassilina:Exactly. And when there is a problem with the service, you kind of understood why it was taking so long to fix it because you had no clue who was behind the main bank. So it actually helped us to really not only generate financial savings by really reviewing the fees, but also to put the spotlight on all the different inefficiencies
Jordan:and a holistic view of what's happening and the, what I call the Matryoshka effect, which is like you open and you open another doll and you see again and again new intermediates and middleman and this is kind of a bit of the specificity of the payment industry, but I would say much more the card payment industry because if you go on some non card based payment methods, you don't have this effect of Matryoshka where you open the doll and you find another one. But, yeah, I perfectly understand what you are saying. I was a bit, you know, also curious because you have a lot of payment strategists, you know, that say that multi acquiring is something. Like, if you arrive somewhere and you wanna, let's say, change the process (arrive in a Market), you have to do the multi acquiring, which is for those who are listening right now, the fact that you can start having not only one acquirer but multiple acquirers, not only in multiple countries but also in one country. You can choose to say, okay, I'm just going to go with multiple acquirers to be sure that if they are put in competition, potentially, I will get better price.
Jordan:What's your takeaway on this subject? Have you I mean, I'm not going to ask you to talk about what happened, you know, in your former job, but when I'm taking when I'm talking about takeaway is much more, okay, what's your experience? How did you view that? What's your view on it?
Vassilina:I think it's quite, I would say, a complicated question. And for me, I think the way I see it is that it's all a question of balance. You know, I think having too many providers is not great. Having one or two providers is not good as well because you have the dependency. But if you have too many, well, you have the flexibility, but it becomes super complex, you know, all the integrations, etcetera.
Vassilina:I think it's also a question of strategic kind of approach. I mean, payments is not only about cost. Yeah. You know, it's also about the partners with who you really want to to well, who you are kind of confident enough that they will help you to grow. And especially for the companies who are entering either new markets or new channels, you really need to have a partner who can support you on that.
Vassilina:But what I was trying to say in terms of the multi acquiring versus kind of single acquiring strategy, I think for me it's really about balancing many different aspects. And it's not only about cost, but it's more strategic. My personal strategy is that you need to have a relatively small selective group of several acquirers. It shall not be too big, but it shall not be too lean. You are really exposed, then you have really an exposure.
Vassilina:And I think then you also
Jordan:And that's something from treasury actually.
Vassilina:Exactly.
Jordan:In treasury you always have this view of creating a redundancy in your bank account. You don't always put your eggs in the same basket.
Vassilina:Yeah, it's really coming from the kind of treasury banking background, when, you know, we always say, you know, the banks, if you don't have the strategic kind of relationship, the banks who are approaching you with the lending, it's very common when you don't need the lending, but when you do need the lending, that's when you realize who are your real partners. And it's a little bit the same on payment side when you have strategic partners. It's not only when everything is good and everything is growing, but it's also when you have, you know, like for example when we had COVID. I mean, that's a very good example when all the boutiques were closed, everything was closed, everyone was panicking, and that's when you really understand
Jordan:That you have a partner. Let's talk about treasurer and finance. So we just kind of just talk about their role, but I wanted to know more, I mean, having your feeling because I worked with, you know, treasury and finance in my past life and I've always feel that those people are the most impacted, you know, by the strategy and, you know, the decision that are taking in the payment, but always the least consulted. They always come at the end, you know, like a decision is taken and payment is always the last to know, actually. So they are never like leading, you know, the change, but much more like getting the change at the end, especially now.
Jordan:Is it a fact? Or I mean, is it real or is it like something that I've invented, you know?
Vassilina:No, no, I think it's true. I mean, I think payments is quite often under the legacy of treasury/finance, but it's true that in terms of a lot of the decision making, especially, you know, everything which concerns kind of customer facing or commercial or branded experiences, it's true that, you know, it's not really the kind of the territory of treasury.
Jordan:So there is like a sort of shift as what it used to be. So this is why you have this impression of getting the last one informed actually.
Vassilina:I think things are definitely changing now, you know, to when I started to look into that. When I started to look into that, it was really a payment or kind of payment processing was considered like a cost of doing business, you know. And the main, the primary focus was really on efficiency, on cost, that's how I entered there, on the kind of automation of the processes, on the back office aspects. But it's true that, and I think that's where we see quite a big change in many companies, especially in the luxury space. I think it's really the case because the experience Is experience is very important.
Vassilina:And when you spend a lot of effort in terms of the product development, in terms of
Jordan:And money! Not only effort
Vassilina:but also And you get to the checkout and it can be checkout on e commerce or in boutique, you know, and you have a, you know, kind of not great payment experience, while all the efforts before are, you know, spoiled, you know, it's basically not great.
Jordan:Yeah, and if you lost a customer in the luxury, it's very difficult to get it back because if they are disappointed by the experience, then they will never come back.
Vassilina:Exactly. So I think that's when the payments kind of the role of people who own the payments topic in the company is changing, so they are maybe a bit more consulted. But I think the role of payment is and I think probably I'm anticipating one of
Jordan:the next question
Vassilina:it's so multifaceted. It's not finance has its role to play. Technology has its role to play. Operations has its role to play. Brand marketing has their role to play.
Vassilina:And it's actually an orchestration of all that. For me, that's what payments is often about, it's about this kind of multifaceted view of different impacts.
Jordan:You made the perfect transition for me. I was about to ask about, you know, and talk about what is emerging, and I know it's something close to your professional heart or your heart of expertise, the ascension of the chief payment officer role. So according to what makes a good chief payment officer?
Vassilina:Well, I don't know what makes a good chief payment officer, and I think for me we use a lot chief payment officer but I think it's a title. It can be anything. It can be
Jordan:You're spilling the tea.
Vassilina:No, but I think my main message is that I think one of my main messages is actually, I have two. One is because of this multifaceted nature of payments, if you put payment or head of payment or or chief payment or let's forget about chief payment of but somebody responsible for payments in a function Yeah. You automatically create a bias of that function. Yep. So if it's in finance, it's more control, it's more bottom line, it's more efficiency, etcetera.
Vassilina:That's the bias. So they are less open and less ready sometimes to take even a risk, you know, to try something in a new market because, you know, the return on investment is not there, etc. They they are conscious of course about the bottom line but not as a fine. So there is another bias. If you put it in IT or technology which happens quite a lot, well you have completely different bias.
Vassilina:You have speed of integration, simplicity of integration.
Jordan:Yeah. Is it like a good API to work with? And therefore the question of customer experience or cost doesn't come into account.
Vassilina:Exactly. So I think you basically create, and that's one of my messages, is that in order to kind of get rid of these biases, my view is that it shall be a dedicated function. And then how you call that? It's another question. And why chief payment officer?
Vassilina:It's just to say that this function, this dedicated role, shall be senior enough. That's why I kind of call it
Jordan:chief This is why it's a chief and officer
Vassilina:Exactly, because I think one of the problems is that this person shall be, of course, be able to speak to teams everywhere, this person is also able to manage the C level, which is often CFO, COO, who are quite involved in these questions because it's commercial operations. And, you know, if you don't have enough seniority, it's very difficult to basically, well, get buy in first, to explain, to have a seat at the table.
Jordan:You know, question of chief payment officer and the risk is like you get into your tower and you feel completely cut from operations because you get seniority, you get the role, you get the responsibility, and the more you go on the hierarchy, the less you are connected with the field. What what is happening? And my and I'm potentially I'm biased or I don't know. I mean, I'm wrong, but I feel like payments is also a question of being in the field, like having the operations, you know, but if you are too high in the hierarchy, are you really connected to the field? Like, you know, I know it's
Vassilina:Yeah. I think it's well, I think the question is you can ask that or you can say that for any sea level. Okay. Know, a CFO, you can be a CFO who sits in in a in a tower, or you can be CFO who goes on the on the ground and visits the the the markets, the your operations, etcetera. The same for CEO.
Vassilina:For me, definitely payments is something which you really need to be in the markets.
Jordan:Yeah. Need feel
Vassilina:You really need to understand and not only from the sales ambassadors perspective, you need to visit the call centers, you need to visit the back office teams because, you know, there is
Jordan:Oh, yeah.
Vassilina:A lot of debates between, you know, there is a it's good to innovate and put new solutions in place, but if you don't think back office at the same time, you know, it's very difficult to scale.
Jordan:And also the question of scalability, also yeah. It's like you need to sell it. Like, you need to sell it to people that will use you the solution. I mean, I've been in organisations where they struggle to deploy new solution because they didn't sell it to the team. Because ultimately, you know, the chief payment officer is not going to be the one that set up the terminal take care of the chargeback.
Jordan:So if you don't sell this, you don't train appropriately the people. And, yeah, again, if you don't sell this to the team and they don't buy it, it's not gonna work.
Vassilina:Exactly. And I think that's a little bit the challenge of this role, well, as probably the case for many transversal roles, is that you have to sell to so diverse audience and really not only find the message find the message but implement the message as well.
Jordan:I want to talk now more about the luxury retail because it's where you come from. So I'm a bit, you know, interested and curious to hear more about that. You talked in one of your LinkedIn posts I read on the Chinese winter and the Indian summer, and I really like the image and that it made me think, okay, so how can luxury industry and retail luxury industry can use the payment as a strategic tool to help? Because obviously if you want to have a good Indian summer, you need to think about what you're going to do from a payment perspective, you know? Yes.
Vassilina:Well, I think it's quite, I would say, complicated, not complicated, I don't know, but it's not an easy question. Because when I wrote that post, I remember because you know India is quite an interesting market for luxury brands, but it was a very difficult market to enter, but not for payment reasons, for different other reasons.
Jordan:And also for payment reasons, I can assure you.
Vassilina:I think it's definitely when you enter a market like this, like either India or China or any market basically, definitely what you need to be able to do is offer the payments that the local clientele is used to, you know. And sometimes it's quite a challenge, you know. I still remember when we started to implement Alipay, it was so new for everyone, you know, we didn't really understand how it works. I mean, was a few years ago, so
Jordan:And now we have a little bit more understanding of the solution. But yeah, it's true, like five or six years ago when Alipay arrived on the European market and started selling their solution to European brands and "Maisons" (Luxury Brands), and it was something super new, like it's not a card payment, so it kind of shifted their mind. And it's interesting you're talking about Alipay because I think it's kind of luxury retailers get conscious that payment is an enabler and I think they can thank the Chinese for that.
Vassilina:No, no, it's definitely an enabler and I think the as you mentioned, the WeChat and Alipay examples are a good one. Good ones where payment is not anymore about, again, processing. You know? It's a lifestyle app.
Jordan:This is how the market and brand it
Vassilina:where everything is in one kind of environment and it's definitely something which is very important to understand when you enter a new market. In India, it's something it's it's different. But it's definitely payment is an enabler when you enter new market. So you can either take it as again, just process the payment
Jordan:And get your money.
Vassilina:And done, or you really embrace the the the local specificities, local preferences of the consumers, which is now, especially in all these relatively new markets, if you think from kind of old Europe perspective
Jordan:Yeah, the emerging economies. Exactly,
Vassilina:of paying and using these payment apps than Yeah. We we we have in Europe. So it's very important to understand that, and it's definitely opens a lot of opportunities in that market. Yeah. So so it's definitely an enabler.
Vassilina:Payment is an enabler. It can be a very simple enabler, or it can be a kind of full scope, you know, taking the advantages of many many opportunities.
Jordan:Yeah. And do you think like there is a sort of it used to be potentially because if what we are talking now is like we see payment as enabler, but in the luxury, I got the feeling that for a moment, it's not like payment was a taboo, but it was not considered. Like so as And do you think that there is like this taboo has disappeared or
Vassilina:I think it's well, I am not sure if it's disappeared but it's true that, you know, for luxury for luxury goods, you know, as I think luxury brands are changing.
Jordan:Okay.
Vassilina:The way I see it. And it's true that I remember times when, you know, offering buy now pay later would be
Jordan:For example. Yeah.
Vassilina:For example, kind of implicitly means that we are not attractive the attracting the
Jordan:The right customer.
Vassilina:The right customer base. But I think there was such a shift in the customer base Yeah. Of luxury, you know?
Jordan:That's true. Like, there is a real shift in the and and I was talking about that with one someone I know, and I think he will recognize in this. I was saying that, you know, now the main driver of the luxury retail industry is the Gen Z.
Vassilina:Yes, yes. It's Millennials and Gen Z. Exactly.
Jordan:And we don't buy luxury products as how our parents were buying. I'm a Millennial. And we don't buy luxury products the same way as our parent
Vassilina:because But one of the taboo well, it's kind of related to payments but not 100% payment, is that the most famous one is that we don't sell luxury online.
Jordan:Yeah I was about to come on that.
Vassilina:Okay. Sorry. No,
Jordan:no, but that's cool. Like, you made a good transition, you know, because Yeah. I wanted to talk more about the unified commerce. So you give me the perfect, you know, transition for that. Yeah, you were saying we don't sell stuff online.
Jordan:And so how can you achieve this unified commerce, you know, vision if you feel a bit reluctant to sell your stuff online?
Vassilina:Well, I think now it's not a taboo anymore. That's why I said it's it used to be a debate Quite a big debate a few years ago. But I think what we've seen and especially, of course, as usual, COVID was a great accelerator in that, is that luxury sells very well online.
Vassilina:You know, it's it's a fact of life. And I think that's when basically, if you look before COVID, after COVID, you know, the e commerce for luxury was relatively small. Yeah. After, it became a a very important channel.
Jordan:Channel. Yeah.
Vassilina:And now it's again, you know, now we are talking about omnichannel, unified commerce, etcetera. Because, for the consumer and I like this phrase, somebody told me that, I don't remember who, but consumer doesn't care about omnichannel. You know, we as merchants, we talk about omnichannel, unified commerce, whole Because you just want to buy, you know, anywhere, on any device, computer, mobile, etcetera at any time. I think what I meant is that for the consumer, they don't they don't understand the concept of omnichannel.
Vassilina:If you talk to to my daughter well, now she knows because I'm talking a lot about that. But before, she doesn't understand. What she wants is just convenience. If she's on the phone, buy own phone, if she's in boutique boutique, online, etcetera. But what it means for merchants, it's a completely different story.
Vassilina:Because in order to offer this unified experience across all the channels in a very seamless way, you do need to have, you know, quite a strong infrastructure, whether it's customer facing, whether it's back office facing behind, you know?
Jordan:And I think, you know, this is something that should be taken in account. And, you know, sometimes I don't agree with people saying, you know, frictionless or seamless, you know, payment experience or customer experience because, you know, it's the question is not about, you know, the friction, it's about how you care about the friction, you know, because there will always be some friction because if you think about the tech stack that you need in order to make it, you know, a reality, you know, your unified commerce, of course, you will have friction.
Vassilina:No. It's true. I mean, it's true. I think you can maybe never eliminate 100% of the frictions. I think it's really, as you say, it's try to do your best.
Vassilina:Of course, first understand where the frictions are coming and not just, you know, you can have a friction, but if you don't do anything after, I think it's really about also kind of identifying the friction points and do something about to remove them as you go. But so I think it's for me it's kind of parallel thing to do is really understand your friction and you know progressively work on removing them or improving them but friction always happen. You know we've just went to a restaurant when there was no signal, you know, I mean, voila. So it's more how you then handle that.
Jordan:Right. You know, if you think about the friction because I really like this idea, you know, card payment is actually a lot there is a lot there are a lot of frictions when you pay by card.
Vassilina:But you mean by card, by physical card? Mean credit card in a virtual form, for example.
Jordan:Now, yeah, because you have the virtual phone, so it's getting easier. But it's still like it can be a friction because if your card is expired, it's in your phone and you cannot buy anymore. If you don't, I mean, it's it's still like sometimes still bring friction even if it's inside the wallet in your phone.
Vassilina:Yeah. Yeah. No. Of course. But I think for me, it's a question like we just said before, you know, do you have friction everywhere anyway?
Vassilina:So I think it's for me, it's more the future of plastic cards, which is probably not for a long time here. The credit card, I think the in whatever form, in in a wallet or in a virtual form, I think it will definitely lose its importance, but I don't think it will disappear very shortly because, you know, especially in the luxury I mean, depending on the of course, on the retail segment, but in the luxury It's compulsory. It's it's still there, and it's still a quite significant chunk because also you have all the loyalty programs, you have all the insurances and all that. Mean And
Jordan:business card. I mean, a lot of people that go and buy luxury don't use consumer card. They use commercial card. It happens a lot.
Vassilina:Yeah. Exactly. But then I think it also depends on the countries. I mean, you know, I still remember when I went to China, I wanted to buy a coffee in Starbucks. And I said that can I pay with credit card?
Jordan:They looked at you
Vassilina:at . Yeah. He went somewhere down he dusted the machine. So, you know, I think it also depends on on where you are. So it's in in countries like China, think credit cards.
Vassilina:They don't really exist.
Jordan:Yeah because they didn't have
Vassilina:credit Exactly, they just basically they
Jordan:just make a leap and go directly to the wallet and now it's everything is embedded in a wallet and if you want to ask you know €200 to Alipay they can give it to you.
Vassilina:Yeah, exactly.
Jordan:Because they have everything about you. So they know everything. So if you ask for €200 I mean, equivalent in yuan.
Vassilina:But I think that's where it becomes interesting because when the markets like China, now we see that in Africa, they make these leaps and they basically bypass, you know, the traditional
Jordan:card centric.
Vassilina:Etc. Then they influence the way how the traditional markets, you know, all the apps, etcetera, which we have here, they have been pushed through by by China. Yeah. I mean, we had a little bit, but the the mainstream came because everyone was looking at Alipay,
Jordan:WeChat Pay, So It's that's interesting. Yeah. That's that's this sort of dialogue between, you know, people that are more digital advanced. Yeah, it's true, like in the payments, know, in China it's much more like advanced. I want to talk now about some perspective.
Jordan:In the last fifteen years, and it's purely personal, how did you see the payment industry moving? Like, what was something like you feel like, okay, this is a serious shift even if, you know, it's kind of to wrap up a bit our conversation also.
Vassilina:You mean next
Jordan:No. Fast I mean, coming back I mean, looking back, like, how was it I mean, in the past fifteen years, like, many things changed in the payment industry.
Vassilina:Well, yes. I mean, I think it's well, it's fifteen years. It's quite a long long period. I mean even ten years. I think it's already quite long.
Vassilina:Like I said you know when I started I had to learn what is interchange + + because no one was really talking about interchange plus plus. So it was just one rate. And then, of course, what I have seen again, we spoke about that a little bit at the beginning, you know, I'm coming from the treasury perspective. So for me, the territory of credit card of of payments, of direct to consumer payments, which was mainly credit card or cash at that time. Yeah.
Vassilina:Checks in France. Was really the legacy of banks. Yep. We don't see that anymore. I mean, what we see is that many banks either they lost the ground Yeah.
Vassilina:Or they tried to catch up. But I think they lost a lot of ground. So I think it will be very difficult to to to catch up. But what we see now is the technology companies who became banks, because they now have licenses, who took this whole territory.
Jordan:Adyen, for example.
Vassilina:For example, but not only. And I think they did it really right because the banks, they had so many legacy systems which they had to connect, and by having this completely new technology stack, you know, focused on user experience, etc, that's what made the change. So that's, I see, quite a big also shift in the dynamics of who was providing who was in kind of offering the payment services, you know, from banks to to to tech companies. That's definitely another big change.
Jordan:And what will be according to you the biggest challenge that the industry must overcome in the coming fifteen years?
Vassilina:In the
Jordan:I mean
Vassilina:Fifteen years, I don't know. But I would say in the next five years which industry? Payment industry.
Jordan:Yeah. Payment industry, of course. We spill the tea on payment.
Vassilina:Well, it might be luxury industry. In terms of payment industry, I think, well, I think for me, one of the challenge which I see for the acquirers, for example, especially for those who really did well in the payment space because of what I just mentioned, new technology, new Stack. User experience approach, you know. But I think what they basically there is so much now competition that they need to somehow find the new directions.
Vassilina:And what I see is that, and I think it's a very good move, is that they are moving into kind of B2B treasury space. They expand, like, you know, kind of offering the same app, not same technology, but same approach in terms of user experience Yeah. You know, new technology, etcetera, more to B2B treasury space, which I I find quite interesting. I think there is definitely a lot of competition, you know, in terms of all the different payment solutions, payment mode payment methods, etcetera.
Vassilina:So I kind of assume there will be some sort of
Jordan:Consolidation.
Vassilina:Consolidation because I do feel that we speak a lot about, you know, giving flexibility to the customers, etcetera, but I also feel that there are so many of the solutions that the customer sometimes it's almost too much. So I think there will be some consolidation into that space. And in terms of next trends, think for me, definitely, I think there is a lot of innovation in the e commerce space.
Vassilina:You know, you are talking talking about orchestration and all that. And I think it's missing in the physical store space.
Jordan:So the the retail stores need to have their revolution.
Vassilina:Exactly. And I think that's also something which is coming. I I I read recently about I don't remember about the company. I'm not going to pronounce. I'm not going to make the the publicity.
Vassilina:But there is some, you know, initiatives who which are bringing the the kind of orchestration type into the physical stores. And I think that's for me will be something really interesting for for the for the omnichannel retailers because it's nice to have orchestration online. But if you don't have that in stores, well, you know, you can only basically be flexible in one of your channels. So I think that's definitely something which is quite interesting.
Jordan:Perfect. Thank you very much, Vassilina. It was a pleasure.
Vassilina:Thank you. Was nice.
Jordan:Thank you.
Vassilina:Thanks for inviting me.
Jordan:You listen Tea fo two and Two for Tea, a podcast produced edited by Jordan Grays. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can also follow my company on LinkedIn, Spill the Tea on Payment, as you probably understood. This podcast is 100% self funded. And if you want to help, you can go to Patreon and consider a membership.
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Jordan:Bye bye!