Q1: Tell me about your background 
Born and bred in Portlaoise, I am an Executive Director at Square and responsible for leading our European and International commercial operations, payments, and industry relations team. I joined Square in November 2019 and have over 20 years experience in financial services and payments, I spent six and a half of these as the General Manager of Ireland at Mastercard, prior to joining Square. 

Q2: Tell me about the beta announcement into Ireland - what products and services will this include? What business-sectors are you targeting?
We have publicly announced the launch of our Early Access Programme which brings Square’s suite of business tools to Irish businesses of all sizes. This marks the first time Square is available to Irish merchants, introducing our full ecosystem of products and services to offer all the tools that sellers need to start, run, grow and adapt.
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Space in Square’s Early Access Programme is limited and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Interested businesses across Ireland should visit squareup.com/IrelandEAP to learn more and secure their spot. Merchants who enroll in the Early Access Programme can get started with Square products in just days, with no long-term contracts or start-up fees, and qualify for free Square hardware.

The goal is to have as diverse a group of businesses as possible to make sure we have holistic and well-rounded feedback that will enable us to confidently and successfully launch our products for general availability in Ireland later in 2021. 

Q3: How long does Square plan to be in beta-phase for? When can we expect a full launch?
The plan is to offer our products for general availability in Ireland later in 2021 - hopefully soon, depending on a successful Early Access Programme.

Q4: How will Square’s presence and ecosystem impact Ireland’s business landscape?
Covid-19 has had a significant impact on small businesses and we think now is the right time to launch in Ireland with a product suite that will help them to recover faster. Throughout the pandemic, we’ve taken steps to support our sellers through free advice issued on our customer dashboard and by making available services designed to help them adapt to the changing market demands. We want to bring these benefits to Irish businesses and understand more about how the pandemic is impacting Irish businesses, so we know how best to support them.
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​Q5: Why have you chosen Ireland as your latest market launch?
We know that Ireland has a very entrepreneurial small business landscape, in 2018, SMEs generated over 46% of total turnover in the Irish business economy, while micro accounted for 91.9% of all enterprises. By launching our ecosystem of products in Ireland, Square can help meet demands and support businesses to grow and adapt. We also have our European HQ here in Dublin which made expanding here a natural choice for us. 

Q6: What makes Square different to its competitors?
There are multiple payment providers out there - but no other company offers what Square does. We’re the only comprehensive solution of our kind when you consider omnichannel selling across in-store and online, which is more important than ever due to the impact of the pandemic. Square has a suite of products that fully integrate to save businesses time and offer solutions to a multitude of problems, all in one place.

​Q7: How would you describe the culture, diversity, inclusiveness and ethos of Square.  Is it a competitive advantage when it comes to recruiting talent?
Lots of people talk about values and when I joined Square, I was genuinely looking for a company that had a strong ethos for why they existed and I don’t think there’s a more authentic brand when it comes to values and belief systems, particularly when it comes to the economic empowerment of businesses. This is reflected in the sheer diversity of talent at Square and the attitude we collectively hold of wanting to learn and having both the skill and the will to work with our sellers in the best way we can. 

When it comes to recruiting talent we do see this as a competitive advantage. We’re hiring all the time and currently have around 20 jobs live on our website. These include business development, customer success, finance, marketing, and software engineering, so across almost all functions here in Ireland. 

​Q8: At Fintech Ireland, we are all about the Fintech ecosystem.  Do you think that there will be opportunities to partner/collaborate with young, hungry and fast growing Irish fintech?
​At the moment we are laser-focused on ensuring that we have a successful beta phase and Early Access Programme, however the possibilities are endless when looking to the future.

Q9: We spoke about your background earlier, what are three bullet points of advice you’d give to your younger self (and budding fintech entrepreneurs out there?) 
The three bullet points I would give myself are:

• Authenticity is underrated: Doing something you enjoy for a living where you can stay true to yourself, and your own value system is probably more important than anything else 
• Focus on having a Growth Mindset: Openness to learning, making mistakes and stepping out of your comfort zone will pay dividends
• Calmness, patience and embracing problems trump anger, frustration and stress on most occasions!

​Q10: When Square invested $50mn in bitcoin, you said was the purpose was driven by ‘economic empowerment’. What does Square see as the economy of the future and what role do you expect it to play/
Our purpose of ‘economic empowerment’ is what we stand for, it’s what inspires us and connects us across business units, teams, offices and drives our mission. Over the course of Square’s history and its future, we’ll have many missions and each mission will eventually end. But each mission serves a greater ending purpose, which is to empower people to participate in the economy.  Read more on this point at  https://squareup.com/us/en/press/2020-bitcoin-investment

Thanks to John Gilligan and Joe Singer of NovitasFTCL for sharing with Fintech Ireland this research on Growth, Profits and Valuations of Fintech Companies with us.  

By analysing the historical financial performance of 819 fintech companies, the research provides guidance to owners and managers of Fintech companies on their relative performance, enabling them to see how others in the sector are doing in terms of growth and profitability

It examines the relationship between financial performance and valuations by considering the correlations:

• between share price movement and underlying performance for public companies,
• between the valuations achieved for private companies and their underlying performance prior to exit  
  

Complimentary copies of the research can be downloaded from www.novitasftcl.com

I think that the research will be well received by owners and managers of, and investors in, Fintech companies on their relative performance, enabling them to see how others in the sector are doing in terms of growth and profitability.  It should also prove useful to regulators trying to understand the burgeoning fintech industry.  The Report covers 22 topics, see below:

• Private Fintech Financial Overview
• Private Fintech by Company Age
• The Performance Of Publicly Listed Fintech
• The Performance Of Public Vs Private Fintech: Revenue Growth
• The Performance Of Public Vs Private Fintech: Profitability
• What about the Performance of Individual Companies?
• Software Including Banking & Liquidity, Capital Markets And Wealth & FundsTech
• Data & Analytics
• Payments: Including Cross Border Payments
• Services & Other: Including BPO & Consultancy
• Does Performance Vary By Company Size?
• Does Performance Vary By Company Age?
• And What About By Ownership?
• Growth of Small Fintech
• Individual Performance Of Small Fintech Vs Established Fintech
• Individual Performance Of Small Fintech
• Individual Performance Of Small Fintech By Ownership
• How is New Fintech Doing
• Individual Performance Of Small Fintech Vs Established Fintech Vs New Fintech
• Correlation Between Growth In EBITDA And Share Price is strong
• Financial Performance Drives Valuation Multiples
• Performance Of Acquired Private Fintech

Complimentary copies of the research can be downloaded from www.novitasftcl.com

 NovitasFTCL - has been advising the shareholders of European financial technology companies for over a decade and we hope you will find the information in our research interesting and informative.  NovatisFTCL is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Fintech Ireland is part of an international fintech network and promotion group which includes Fintech UK and Fintech Oz. The primary activity is Fintech Ireland for the time being. Founded by former Central Bank of Ireland director Peter Oakes in response to difficulties technology firms were experiencing with the previous Central Bank’s licensing process, Fintech Ireland provides guidance and advice to fintech start-ups and established financial institutions which want to enhance their offerings to increasingly tech-savvy customers.


“We run seminars and meet-ups to help cultivate the digital innovation happening in Ireland,” Oakes adds. “Having worked as a central banker and board director of Bank of America’s European payments business, I am very much aware of the impact, challenges and benefits from the cumulative impact of technology, the internet, big data, and future regulation in areas such as cyber security, banking, payments, and MiFID on business and consumers. Importantly, through our network of international angel investors, venture capitalists, private equity funds, innovation hubs and technology accelerators we can help match start-up tech firms with investors.”


"Simply selling a mortgage online or enabling a customer to see their account balance on their smartphone is not fintech. Fintech is about disrupting, through innovation, existing banking, payments, investment, and insurance services. Equally it is about identifying new services"

Looking at future trends in the sector he says that fintech is a broad church and there are many components to it. “It is more than just the marriage of finance and technology,” he says. “Simply selling a mortgage online or enabling a customer to see their account balance on their smartphone is not fintech. Fintech is about disrupting, through innovation, existing banking, payments, investment, and insurance services. Equally it is about identifying new services.”

Looking beyond the standard payments area, which tends to command most attention, he notes some other critical infrastructure changes. “In banking there is the instantaneous opening of retail and business bank accounts delivered by challenger banks, such as the UK’s Monese, Mondo, Atom, and Starling Bank. Further innovation is being driven by new banking platforms such as Cogni in Ireland and Holvi in Sweden which take advantage of recent EU open bank initiatives to bank data and customer geographic locations in order to offer each customer tailored and unique business and personal banking experiences. We are seeing the traditional bank model coming to an end as they morph into utility companies. Although the traditional banking model may come to an end, it is just the start of a new banking service paradigm.”  He also points to the investments and pensions area where companies like Roboadvisers, Nutmeg in the UK, Robin Hood
in the US, and Rubicoin in Ireland are providing a range of services online and through apps. In the loans and
peer-to-peer or crowd-funded personal and business lending space fintech companies think of Funding Circle in the UK, OnDeck in the US, and Grid Finance in Ireland are bringing innovative new services.

The emerging area of insuretech is bringing about some potentially hugely disruptive concepts such as peer-to-peer car, personal or business insurance. “Similar to peer-to-peer lending, peer-to-peer insurance sees a number of policyholders pool together,” Oakes explains. “When the insurable risk happens, the policyholders support each other financially. If there is no claim, the insurance premiums are reduced. Effectively we are seeing all the benefits of the co-operative insurance, or lending, model being accelerated by the efficiencies and speed of the internet and technology. Examples of this include FriendSurance in Germany and Guevara in the UK. There are also a number of innovative insurance people in Ireland looking at entering the market.”

"Technology is critical. Without technology there is no way a central bank or a bank can be confident that they have the sufficient capital required to insulate them from the economic risks they undertake on a daily basis"

He believes regtech, or regulatory technology, will be an area of significant growth. “As more and more regulation and law comes into effect, the organisations subject to those laws such as banks, insurers, investment houses and other financial providers and those that administer the laws and regulations including central banks and regulators will need to adopt technology to analyse the huge amounts of data about the stability of systemically important institutions and important compliance obligations,” he contends. “These processes cannot be performed manually. Technology is critical. Without technology there is no way a central bank or a bank can be confident that they have the sufficient capital required to insulate them from the economic risks they undertake on a daily basis. Technology is being deployed in the fight against financial
crime and financing terrorism. Without technology it would simply be impossible to analyse trading and payments patterns to identify fraud, criminal behaviour, and stifle the flow of money which terrorists use to attack society.