Payments infrastructure 2.0 w/ payabl.

Charlotte Lustin: Foreign. And welcome to the MPE podcast. So today we will be focusing on payment infrastructure 2.0. Um, so my name is Charlotte Lustin, I'm a principal at Flagship Advisory Partners. We are a boutique consultancy firm focused in payments and fintech. And today I'm joined by the wonderful ukne. So before we kick into the question, we'd love if you can briefly introduce yourself and also speak about your company.

Lugna Burasiny: Sure, no problem. My name is Lugna Burasiny. I'm the group CEO of Payable. Uh, we consider ourselves as the Lego of the payment industry. It's a very nice way to put that. We have all of that it takes and all the different building blocks for the companies to service themselves in terms of uh, anything related to payments, uh, acquiring, issuing banking as a service and they can choose the best parts and uh, who working through with uh, their business.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, perfect. Perfect for the topic as well. Exactly. So that also leads to my first question. So how would you effectively define payment infrastructure 2.0 and what does it effectively mean for all of the different ecosystem players, including merchants?

Lugna Burasiny: Uh, it's a very good question, um, and I think it's a very broad question and I think we could talk properly around it for quite some time, but I think ultimately to just break it down in very simple terms. I think it's the ultimate optimization and also the instance of the payments and do doing things in real time. And this is basically how the platform in general and the infrastructure of payments should really look like. So all interoperable, uh, all uh, instant and in real time. But of course that requires a lot of development and a lot of uh, different moving parts, uh, to collaborate in order to make it happen.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, and you already mentioned a couple of things here, right? Optimization, um, amongst other things. What do you think are the biggest challenges that merchants are facing today? Um, because they operate across multiple markets, um, obviously multiple channels, et cetera. Um, what's your thoughts on this?

Lugna Burasiny: I think it's very, uh, uh, I can answer very quickly and I can answer it with one word is complexity. So I think that is the biggest challenge, the fragmentation and the complexity, uh, in everything that our clients do. When you think about how difficult it is to operate throughout all different, uh, rails, throughout different geographies. And we're not only talking about technical parts, but there's the regulatory part and compliance and also the operational parts for clients, which is actually, actually the biggest burden. Right. Because it's the reconciliations, the transparency of the information, the data that, you know, that they need to Receive. So all of that is still very fragmented and it's still uh, quite complex, uh, for uh, the merchants. And um, this is why it's important to focus on these challenges and to make it. We. Obviously we cannot change everything overnight. But there's definitely a lot of, should be a lot of focus in streamlining that for the merchants.

Charlotte Lustin: And you just mentioned it. Right. Fragmented, complex. Do you think there will be a wave of consolidation?

Lugna Burasiny: Um, everyone asks that question and um, I honestly want to say no. Um, but I think some things are really becoming a commodity in payments. And I think uh, there is some commodities that uh, will be more obvious. Like in my view payment, uh, orchestration, uh, is slowly becoming a commodity. Um, and uh, in terms of the consolidation, I think there's benefits and I think there's uh, there's negatives. Um, and um, in my view there's also companies, uh, you know, do and specialize things, you know, really well. And I think it should remain, uh, remain ah, that. But I'm not anticipating, let's say a huge, uh. Um. Yeah, change in that.

Charlotte Lustin: That makes sense. And so that also leads into my next question. Um, why do you see some providers effectively combining multiple product stacks into one? So it can be like you know, acquiring banking payouts, you know, broader financial tools, like you know, services into one platform.

Lugna Burasiny: Well, it's a great question, but that's exactly what we do at uh, payable, um, long time I already see that payment processing and acquiring is just also a commodity. Anyone can do it and uh, many acquirers can do it, uh, really well. Uh, but ultimately when you think about what merchants really need and uh, what they need, you know, day to day, it's a full management of cash flow. So meaning that end to end, uh, the full control and transparency and also management of their cash flow and anything related, uh, to their money flow. So taking care of the money acceptance, the money movement, the payouts, also the settlements, the clearing, uh, the uh, FX liquidity, all of that is still required. And I think there's a real reason for it. Why we do it because we want clients to have that uh, ease and transparency of managing their funds. Because the funds really start very early on in the chain and then in order for them to be utilized and to be uh, used, it's quite a long way. And also, uh, in a lot of cases, uh, it's a very simple, I mean, understanding that the more money moves, the more it costs. So our goal is to make the money move as least as possible, uh, for the benefit of Ours and for the benefit of the client and with the uh, appropriate amount of transparency and flexibility.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, I fully agree. I think if like a uh, payment service provider like a Fintech can effectively like you know support the merchant on both side, the pay inside, the pay outside and then like lay over like you know, banking, um, you know that's super powerful also in the context of you know, embedded finance.

Lugna Burasiny: Absolutely. Yeah.

Charlotte Lustin: So that's uh, I fully agree with that.

Lugna Burasiny: No, embedded finance is a great, great uh, asset also for, for merchants to utilize and I think uh, uh, and this is the beauty also of payment service providers like us that you know we take care of all of the complexity in that so they don't have to worry about the regulatory part. We give them the ready solution and they can use the best parts of it which is uh, fantastic.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, I think they're really like you know, busy enough to actually effectively try to sell the product.

Lugna Burasiny: Right, exactly. Than actually looking in different markets to sell their product to invest in marketing and uh, the operational side for the business is still quite significant. If you take fraud and uh, other things into, into account. It takes a lot of time, a lot of time for, for uh, clients. So it's good that you know that payment service providers are focusing on that and making sure that that part is taken care of as much as possible and as good as possible so at least to alleviate them from, from, from that burden.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, I fully agree. Because otherwise you need to change your business model. Right, exactly.

Lugna Burasiny: And uh, then became payment experts, fraud experts, uh and then went to actually do the actual business uh which uh, is actually selling or any kind of services uh that they have. So it's true you have to rely on counterparties uh that are doing that for you and doing it well. And we for example from our side what we do is that uh, we have a uh, buy and build model so that a lot of tools that obviously we build by ourselves but also we buy the best in the market when we see that we will not compete with somebody that already does it really well. Let's say in terms of fraud solutions or AI integrated plants for fraud. Why go in and invent the wheel if we can also make the selection for those uh set clients. So uh, we choose it, uh, we deliver and the client can just enjoy and not worry about whether doing a scope study to see which ones are the best. For example in the case of fraud

Charlotte Lustin: and you just touched upon the hottest topic probably discussed in Fintech and payments in 2026 which is a. Oh no yes.

Lugna Burasiny: Why did I say that? So sorry.

Charlotte Lustin: So how do you see AI um, disrupting uh, or being like you know, a catalyst as you think about payment

Lugna Burasiny: infrastructure, Um, I think of it as a sort of double edged sword. Um, so it's great for many things. Uh and definitely there's a lot of use cases that are already being implemented. And for us as a payment service provider we use uh, um we use multiple AI tools for fraud prevention and all of this. But the other side is that uh, also AI can be used from negative sense as well. So the fraudsters are getting uh, extremely well educated. And if you see the use cases that can be done with uh, fraudulent AI, uh tools, uh, it's quite a significant, let's uh, say issue. So there is a balance of basically good and I suppose uh, evil in this, in this sense. And I think we don't really yet know the full uh, capabilities of both. Uh, but it's very interesting to see how the companies will manage that. And uh, we are definitely doing um, I would say strategically placing AI as a quiet focus for the company but we're really focusing on the operational and fraud side for the time being. And we're closely following also all of the agentic e commerce and all of this which is happening. Um, but as anything in payments, the adoption and um, um, making it really good takes time. Uh, because it is a very complex environment and even if you talk about a gentic AI for example payments, um, it will take a lot of reiterations for it to really work. So we are always on the side looking to see how all of the participants are uh, resolving some of those uh, issues. And then when the time is right and we see that this is already something that we could really jump into then uh, we do. That's our approach, approach. And then for everything else that we see that is really a big benefit, you know that today uh, then we do invest and we invest in those tools and in partnerships as well. And we have a very cool partnership later on coming up as well for AI makes sense.

Charlotte Lustin: I mean I agree, uh, especially in the fraud space. It's where we have seen AI really kind of changing a lot right in terms of machine learning, et cetera. And you're also right, it's where we see like you know, a lot of thought being reinvented with like now it's not only transaction fraud with account protection whatnot because fraudster is effectively like becoming way more sophisticated.

Lugna Burasiny: We did a study actually on uh, fraud and uh, 80% of or 85% of the businesses uh, were affected in 12 months time of some type of scam or fraud activity. It also takes businesses 22 working days a year to deal with uh, fraud or scams. So meaning fraudulent ah returns or anything related to that. So it's a huge proportion uh, uh, of time when you think about it. So this is something that uh, um. If we talk about specific types of uh, fraud there's the deep fakes that uh, are happening and uh, almost every other business gets uh, hit by it. Uh, they're getting really uh, advanced. Um and it's uh, very difficult also for businesses to understand what is basically real, what is not. So that's something that you know that's definitely to watch out for. And uh, we are also taking, taking notes for sure.

Charlotte Lustin: No, absolutely. I think it's the right focus and indeed like 22 days is an enormous figure.

Lugna Burasiny: Right. It's, it's a full working uh, full working month. So the, and also fraud in general is not only about the financial loss, it's, it's a reputational loss and it's also the operational time loss that you know that uh, these companies are spending. So this is something that you know should be always a priority in our mind. And whenever we test anything or you know, whenever something new comes, you know into the industry we should be very careful because I said it's a double edged sword. Something that you know, it's made to simplify. Maybe someone's life will not really simplify the life of uh, the merchant. Uh for example in this case.

Charlotte Lustin: No, fully agree And UCNA would love to, to go back to one of the real um, disruptive topic as well. Interesting topic uh in Europe as it comes to Veronica. How do you see Vero impacting uh the European payments landscape?

Lugna Burasiny: I think it's very needed and it's a really great initiative. Uh, we are the early adopters. We were one of the first um financial uh institutions to integrate Veru. Uh we are for uh choice uh to clients and uh, we really wish that it will succeed. But adoption of course takes time as with everything uh and uh, it needs a little bit of adjusting. Uh but, but the most important thing that it is European and this pan European the banks are joining, the countries are being opened up uh, slowly, slowly. So I think it's a great place to be and account to account payments in general is a good option for clients and we're happy also that we can offer that selection to our clients as well.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, I agree. I think it uh, was an important Sovereign step as well needed in Europe.

Lugna Burasiny: Absolutely. And uh, it works. I think what also differs from other initiatives as well that the way that is set up is set up more of a uh, payment scheme uh than anything else uh which also resolves some of the issues let's say with some other account to account uh payment uh, let's say providers uh, uh. So I'm really looking forward to having more payments than through Vero and uh, our clients already have that option and uh, we're offering it to everybody as well.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, no, absolutely looking forward uh to the next couple of years and see how adoption is going to be. Um, if you were to have like a crystal ball um what do you think is going to be the biggest shift in the payment infrastructure landscape uh over the next couple of years and like you know what should merchants effectively be on the lookout for?

Lugna Burasiny: Um, I love that question and I hate that question because I think I answer it every year almost the same and I've been in the payments for I think almost 17 uh years, 18 years. Um, I don't feel that anything dramatic is changing. Yes, there's ah a lot of interesting things going on in terms of the agentic AI and all of that uh, which is cool and uh, we will see how that space develops. But ultimately uh, all of the issues that we discussed about complexity for argumentation still remains. So we're by far not yet done having uh, something that works really flawlessly and that the merchants really uh need uh, and they're happy to say okay I will not need to go look for another provider or really uh resolved uh a certain uh problem for them. So I think what I will see, and I'm sure that that's what's basically going to continue for the next couple of years is that uh, what we have now but uh, uh uh, in a better execution form. So uh, better streamline better uh improvements and uh, in the infrastructure layers as well. Right. And on the offering side uh to the clients as well. So I think we will see a lot of that and maybe some consolidation a little bit in terms of maybe some payment service providers and all of that. But in general I don't expect something to be as a huge shift uh if we talk about um, alternative payment methods or account to account, yes there is growth um, but in order to be a really significant shift it needs to have a really fast adoption rates as well. I think it's just what I see is that we're getting better uh and hopefully uh in a couple of years time we will be even better than we are, uh, today.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, I agree with that. Um, we are coming to the end of the podcast, and, uh, let me just ask you a question. Is there anything I haven't asked that you would like to add to our discussion today?

Lugna Burasiny: Good point. No, I think we covered quite a lot of things, and, um, I think, in general, MP was, uh, as always, is a great show. Uh, it's always good to be here and also to hear all of these things that are happening and also just to have a reality check. So, uh, happy to be here today on the podcast.

Charlotte Lustin: Yeah, thanks a lot, Ugni. It was great, uh, podcasts. And, uh, thank you very much for listening and watching, and, uh, see you at MP this year or the following year. Thank you.