Cross-border payments are a dynamic domain powered by consistent innovation; the need to seamlessly connect businesses, suppliers, workforces, customers, and other stakeholders is the foundation of emerging and developed economies alike.
We had the pleasure of sitting down for a quick discussion with Ramana Satyavarapu, Nium’s chief technology officer, to learn about his observations and experiences in the cross-border payments space, where he emphasized: “Money movement and payments are not a new problem. It’s a centuries-old problem, from the barter system to the cash payments.” What has made it more exciting, and challenging, simultaneously are two key factors: globalization and digitization.
Expressing his passion for transforming cross-border payments and working in fintech, Ramana shared that global trade has almost doubled in the last decade alone. “To enable all this global trade, it needs the backbone of a strong fintech. It needs global cross-border payments. It needs pay outs. It needs collections. It needs issuance. And that’s the strength of what we are doing here at Nium.”
The bond between digitization and modern cross-border payments has never been clearer; according to the World Bank, two-thirds of adults worldwide use some form of digital payments, presenting a remarkable opportunity for technology and infrastructure to be developed to resolve these problems at scale.
An insightful conversation into how Nium’s cutting-edge tech supercharges B2B cross-border payments, here are some excerpts from our chat:
Q. How do you define your role as CTO?
“My role is to leverage technology and enable customer potential. Help them realize their true potential, unlock new business opportunities, unlock new potential, challenges to solve.” He further stated: “Some of these problems are hard. They are on a global scale. It needs both a combination of strategic vision and laser focus execution to be successful. That’s my job; that’s the mission. I’m here to leverage technology and create customer delight.”
Q. What is your top goal to achieve at Nium?
“Create a world-class technology team – that’s my top goal. Industry changes, technology changes. The problem space changes – it’s always fluid out there. But with a world-class technology team, every change becomes an opportunity.”
Q. What is your biggest challenge as you take on this role?
“Fintech is nuanced, and even more complex is B2B cross-border payments. Global pay outs have so many cases, so many exceptions, and so many local laws around the world. This is both a challenge and an opportunity. The complexity is what we try to simplify using technology. We need to build a team that has fantastic, exemplary attention to detail.”
Q. What makes the Nium tech team special?
“We embrace that complexity; it’s in our DNA to create simple solutions for complex problems, extracting away all that unnecessary detail. The tech team of Nium, being globally distributed in India, Singapore, the United States, and Europe, gives us a global perspective to help us solve these problems at a global scale.” Watch the interview to hear more from Ramana about his thoughts, goals, and strategy to drive excellence across Nium’s award-winning cross-border payments solutions here: