Fintech company Vodeno has appointed two payments industry heavyweights as CEO and chair.
The European banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider this week named Philip McHugh as chairman and Noah Sharp as CEO.
McHugh and Sharp will steer Vodeno’s next phase of growth. The company, which partners with banks and payments service providers, has more than 30 BaaS projects delivered or in development.
It comes hot on the heels of NatWest Group making a £50m equity investment into Vodeno, along with a separate investment from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
McHugh and Sharp have a combined 50 years of experience in the international banking and payments industry.
McHugh is the former CEO of Paysafe, an online payments company. Prior to Paysafe, he was the senior executive vice president and president of TSYS Merchant Solutions.
McHugh also spent 20 years working for two of the world’s leading banks, most recently as CEO of Barclaycard Business Solutions and a further 10 years at Citigroup, where he held several senior management roles within the credit card division.
Sharp joins Vodeno from UK FCA-regulated payments firm BCB Group, where he served as deputy CEO. He is also the former chief banking officer of Paysafe, responsible for global financial partnerships and operations across international, digital banking, card acquiring, e-money wallets and embedded finance.
A career fintech banker and payments expert, Sharp has held several senior roles within global banks, including Standard Chartered Bank, where he was responsible for building and advising the Bank’s fintech client franchise in Europe and North America.
Prior to this, Sharp worked at Deutsche Bank for 11 years across several continents, where he most recently led global relationships for European and US-headquartered fintechs and other non-bank financial institutions.
“Philip and Noah bring deep payments, banking and financial services expertise to Vodeno. Their impressive track record of scaling businesses, alongside an intrinsic understanding of how to successfully support large-scale BaaS projects positions the company well for its next phase of growth,” said Wojciech Sobieraj, founder and board member of Vodeno.
“Our ability to attract Philip and Noah, alongside key investors Warburg Pincus, NatWest Group and EBRD, demonstrates the strong belief in our ability to become Europe’s leading BaaS provider.”
Vodeno currently partners with ECB-licenced, Aion Bank, to offer B2B and B2C solutions to European e-commerce, fintech and corporate clients, as well as banks, and Vodeno recently announced a strategic partnership with NatWest Group to create a BaaS business in the UK.
This partnership will enable UK businesses to embed financial products such as payments, deposits, point-of-sale credit and merchant cash advances directly in their ecosystem by leveraging Vodeno’s BaaS platform, and NatWest Group’s banking and clearing infrastructure, as well as its UK banking licenses.
“BaaS and embedded finance are not only changing the way people access banking and card products, but they are also creating an entirely new financial ecosystem for banks, fintech and e-commerce,” said Sharp.
“Vodeno’s platform is unique; it can work with multiple partner banks across many countries and with companies across multiple sectors to enable a comprehensive suite of embedded banking, payments and lending products.”
McHugh added: “Wojciech and team have built an incredible business at Vodeno. The technology the team has built is second to none, and the client wins and partnerships created to date are truly impressive.”