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volume 9 • fall 2016
Kriya Patel may have been voted one of the payments industry’s smartest people,
but The Bancorp managing director credits his success largely to hard work, collaboration and learning from those around him. Born and raised in Leicester, England, Patel got his start in payments with an entry-level sales role in the branch network of the Newcastle Building Society (NBS) in the mid-’90s. From there, he became chief operating o cer of the bank’s Newcastle Card Solutions a liate, the largest prepaid issuer in Europe. In 2010, Patel joined The Bancorp, where he now serves as European managing director of the company’s Transact Payments e-money and prepaid services subsidiary, overseeing a team of nearly 40 from his current home base of Gibraltar.
During Patel’s time at NBS, the bank played a key role in the develop- ment of the European prepaid industry, becoming Europe’s rst issuer of a prepaid Mastercard contactless card and prepaid debit Mastercard, and helping launch the initial Mastercard RePower reload product. It also was at NBS that Patel began working with the bank’s operations director, Colin Greaves, whom Patel cites as a mentor.
“Colin was very in uential in my early career and helped shape my attitude to being solution-focused, with client relationships at the heart of my approach,” Patel says. Among the other payments professionals Patel seeks out for advice and co- strategizing include Locke Lord LLP
the Best idea in payments
“Recognizing the importance
of creating a support and delivery infrastructure that enables our partners to take their amazing ideas to market.
... I call it free consultancy.”
partner Robert Courtneidge, former paysafecard CEO David Hunter, Mike Smith of Raphaels Bank and The Ban- corp’s own Jeremy Kuiper. “Never be afraid to surround yourself with people smarter than you or with expertise di erent than your own,” he says. “Successful groups don’t center on an individual—it’s about working as a collective.”
Eye on the Future
That collaborative spirit extends to Bancorp’s work to promote pay- ments innovation. The company has invested in ntech organizations, including the Emerging Payments Association (EPA) and Finovate. Patel sits on the EPA advisory board and co-leads the association’s n- tech incubator, the Catalyst. “Great people with great ideas need sup- port to realize how best to deliver their desired solution to market,”
he says. The Bancorp’s work with incubators enables the company “to better understand how our potential customers of the future think and operate, what they need and how best we should evolve to support these game changers.”
Among the technologies Patel expects to signi cantly change
the game in payments is block- chain, which has “endless use cases” for the industry, he says. However, a regulatory framework for blockchain-based operating models is needed to drive estab- lished nancial services and infrastructure providers to embrace the technology, he adds. Increasing access to nancial accounts and faster payments is another trend that will shape the industry— especially if it’s bolstered by regulation that “favors and en- courages competition and choice,” Patel predicts.
When he’s away from work, Patel enjoys spending time with his wife, Michelle, and their three children. “We all love to travel and I always try and nd the time to enjoy sports, especially football.” But after more than 15 years in the business, Patel’s passion for payments remains as strong as ever. “I’m pleased to say I still love what we do in our industry and feel very fortunate to be part of it.”
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KrIyA PATel
Managing Director, europe, The Bancorp