On the sidelines of the Global Cards & Payments Innovation Awards 2024, The Digital Banker sat down for a chat with Hugo Remi, CEO and chairman of London-based card and acquiring firm Cardaq, as well as CEO of Pridepay, which claims to be the first LGBTQ+ fintech unicorn.
How has Cardaq’s partnership with Visa, Mastercard and China UnionPay benefitted your clients in terms of global payment acceptance?
By becoming the direct participant or principal member, you can significantly reduce prices for your customers and increase the service level by moving out the middleman from the processing scheme. That is what we have done and that is what is driving us forward. The service level and high product quality together with compatible pricing gives us opportunities to grow and attract new customers. It is also important to mention that the direct membership gives access to the card schemes technologies and features that we further provide to our merchants that significantly increase the security and conversion ratio.
Please share with us Pridepay’s unique features and innovations that distinguish it from competing payment propositions.
Pridepay is more than another e-wallet and projects around the actual topic in the society – it is about the people and the actuality of human rights and equality. We are building a high-tech product without any investor for funding with features that have not been seen before in mobile banking. Features such as live interaction with the customers, personal approach, gamification of the financial features and joint accounts with friends and relatives will be presented in a completely new way. We should also mention the technology that would apply for a patent – PrideID – the first gender and sex identification compliance tool that would open the door to many opportunities for people and make daily life easier and more secure. Right now, we can’t disclose more features due to confidentiality reasons and sensitivity of the project.
What impact has Pridepay had in driving financial inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community and what can customers expect next?
We are still in the development stage and in the early alpha version testing of the mobile application. The long journey awaits us, but the closed loop customer base that has managed to see the product themselves have given us great feedback. We believe that Pridepay should merge the border between people’s understanding of the LGBTQIA+ and make everyone feel equal and respected.
How is Cardaq’s technology mitigating fraud risks and ensuring safer and secure payment transactions?
We are using only the most modern technologies available on the market provided to us by MasterCard, Visa, UnionPay and other world leading companies. We spend more than 40% of our budget on compliance and security to protect our customers and prevent any fraud opportunities. Of course, it is a challenging process that requires constant development, but we are always on top of that.
Finally, how does United Space Finance (USF) intend to facilitate non-terrestrial financial transactions and what use-cases are you considering?
We are moving the USF from the United States and Canada to the United Kingdom and are planning to make it the first British space fintech startup by launching to the earth orbit the satellites that will work using the solar energy from the panels and process financial transactions using blockchain-based technology with the unique algorithm of the stable currency that has the particular mathematical formula. In other words, what I am allowed to disclose, is that USF (ex. Spacefex), would be the most stable financial instrument in the world that is risk free, completely isolated from natural disasters, and available for the people all around the world and outside it. That goes with the NASA plans to build the first space moon base and Elon Musk’s Mars exploration program. We strongly believe that we can do it, and we will do it.
