GoCardless, a bank payment solutions, announced the hire of Paul Stoddart as President. Stoddart joins from Mastercard where he was President of its New Payment Platforms, Executive Chairman of Vocalink and Member of the Mastercard Management Committee.
What is Stoddart’s industry expertise?
In his role at GoCardless he will have global responsibility for the go-to-market firm including the Strategy, Sales, Product, Marketing and Customer teams, with a view to accelerating growth and achieving the firm’s ambition to become the world’s bank payment network.
Stoddart brings a wealth of experience to GoCardless. He was named as CEO of Vocalink after its acquisition by Mastercard and subsequently promoted to President of Mastercard’s New Payment Platforms where he led the establishment and growth of a business unit that expanded Mastercard’s role in payments beyond cards to account-to-account payments.
He was Co-Head of Corporate Finance at Barclaycard. He spent 10 years at NatWest where he held senior roles like in their merchant acquiring and e-commerce business, Worldpay.
What will Stoddart bring to GoCardless’ portfolio?
His appointment comes as the company broadens its offering of direct bank payment solutions for both one-off and recurring payments and builds out its suite of payment intelligence products to help businesses manage their payments more effectively.
GoCardless will benefit from Stoddart’s expertise as it doubles down on account-to-account payments, with plans to release its Variable Recurring Payment feature shortly in the UK and expand Instant Bank Pay, its solution for one-off payments, across Europe.
Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO at GoCardless, said: “This year marks an inflection point at GoCardless as we expand beyond recurring payments to serve a broader range of clients and payment use cases. Having the right people to lead us on the journey is important as we scale, develop new products and services with open banking, and explore new markets.”
“Paul has great expertise across card and non-card payments and is well-positioned to help us seize the openings that will make GoCardless a force to be reckoned with in the space.”
Paul Stoddart, President at GoCardless, said: “GoCardless is in an exciting place right now. Hiroki and the team have built a successful business by solving real customer problems.”
“They have the foundations of a global bank pay network that will pick traction as more businesses embrace account-to-account payments from bank debit to open banking-enabled payments. We will continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in payments.”
“In this new role at GoCardless I’ll have the opportunity to be part of the team building the new generation of payment solutions to do just that, with customer needs at the forefront.”
What does the future hold for GoCardless?
Stoddart’s hire comes as GoCardless steps up growth following its funding round of $312m in February. In the intervening months, GoCardless released its second open banking-enabled feature, Verified Mandates, in the UK and Success+, its ‘payment intelligence’ product which uses machine learning to identify the optimal day to recover failed payments, in the US.
In the United Kingdom, GoCardless recently signed its first Variable Recurring Payment customers and plans to introduce VRPs in both ‘sweeping’ and ‘non-sweeping’ forms over the coming months. And by mid-2022, GoCardless will also integrate PayTo into its international bank payment platform just in time for the regulated launch in Australia.
