and this has been one of the hottest

growing areas of financial services Adan

is not just a normal payment provider

while payments usually is a very unsexy

piece of our industry you guys made it

sexy growth in our Ona platform has been

very significant we investing for uh for

the future if you work with newer

technology you get to better quality we

completely rebuil the infrastructure

that typically is run by Banks and by

doing that we come to much better

conversion rates uh for our

customers ladies and gentlemen the co

CEO of

aen hi good see hi good see you hi good

to see you good to see you let me um

give just a little brief overview for a

second so Ingo has been with aen since

uh 2011 first as the CFO and now as co-

CEO since May of

2023 um aan is based in the Netherlands

uh founded in 2006 and is one of the

largest payment processors in the world

world today uh in 2023 Adan processed

nearly a trillion Euro in payment volume

uh they had net revenue of 1.6 billion

EOS and an e Jesus Christ a EIT 743

million EUR a 46% ea margin incredible

um it's a capitalist conference we

applaud for

Eva oh my God can you just say it one

more time

the company reported a 24% year-on-year

Revenue growth in

h124 they just expanded into India which

is really interesting we want to talk to

you about that um your market cap is

today actually I just checked about 45

billion American dollars um so it's one

of the most successful not just European

tech companies of all time but frankly

tech companies of all time so welcome

Mingo thank you thank you for having me

today um you're former CFO yeah I'm

going to put you on the spot

um you're no longer the CFO nor the

co-ceo of Aden you're an analyst at an

investment Bank yeah and J C your

managing director

says put together a spread trade you can

be long or short one of Aden and

stripe how do we construct the business

case that's a really good question just

just the parameters of how we construct

the case I would say if you look at this

industry um for ourselves and stripe

there is a lot to win because I think we

are the only two companies globally that

are investing in technology in financial

technology and if you look at where most

of the business currently is it is with

the traditional players it's the banks

it's incumbent players so I would

certainly go for long for both of us

because I believe that we together going

to change this industry uh that's how I

look at aen versus tripe we come from

different angles uh but what I really

appreciate about them is the fact that

they also innovate and uh competition is

good we're a company of a lot of

athletes we like to compete and

competition is good so when you do

compete in the marketplace are you

competing then with stripe or you

competing more with incumbents where

traditional players are looking for

payments and then yeah I would say like

of course there are areas where we

compete with stripe uh but if you see

where we win most of our business it's

with the traditional businesses so

indeed the incumbents the banks that's

where volume comes from U so that's and

and what do they find they find both the

cost is too high and then they find the

technolog is too brittle for what you

need to do today exactly I think if you

look at this industry um Banks

incumbents haven't invested for for ages

uh we build everything from the ground

up so we have a single platform globally

uh and what we can do is we can

basically uh lower total cost of

payments and uh increase your

authorization rates and that combination

is very powerful um and the reason why

we can do that is because we have lots

of data in a single platform now at the

end of the day you guys still sit on top

of these fundamental rails right like

meaning is there a way where we are in a

world where the traditional payment

infrastructure and then you know the

traditional credit card rails is there a

world soon where all of that disappears

or will that will there is there enough

like specifically the networks like

Swift the banks themselves El what role

why these people why ex why exist well

it's a good question I think indeed what

we try to uh to replace is the

fundamental infrastructure uh so in the

US uh we have our own access to the fat

we have a li a banking license in the US

uh so we don't need commercial Banks to

be successful uh and I think that's very

crucial in our development if you take

long term also on the platform side a

lot of small businesses they struggle to

work with banks uh and a lot of the uh

software service providers they of

course build banking as a service and

there are only a few companies globally

that can offer this and we want to be

that player that that that partner for

these type of companies to help them

sell Financial products uh so that's

also why we have expanded from payments

to broader Financial technology do you

have you ever had a conversation

internally which said something along

the following lines ah 46% DEA that's a

lot we don't need that you know how much

of that 743 million would grow the

business if we just took it to zero to

our investors for the next few years

like could I grow twice as fast is that

better in the long run how why why be

this profitable I guess maybe yeah I

think profit is for me the same as value

so if we deliver value and also have

premium pricing uh Merchants are willing

to pay a premium and pay the B basically

for the value that we bring and I would

be afraid that if we would just go for

the lowest price because I think we

potentially could uh we run at the

lowest cost as an infrastructure um you

would basically destroy a lot of value

that's in uh still in there and um I'm

not sure if you would just go for price

um that you have the right conversations

about the value that you bring so that's

the reason why we haven't done that so

far um but it's of course a question

that you should always ask yourself like

can you invest more in the business to

accelerate growth and that's still the

trade of the making every day our main

focus is on Revenue growth if we can

invest if we see an opportunity we will

but we have a long-term view there

what's it like building a company based

in the Netherlands what is it like

hiring people where do you hire people

do you make them come to the office yeah

how the culture changed yeah so building

an a company in the nland OR starting in

the nland at least at least um makes you

aware that you need to go International

from day one like the nland is a super

small country uh you can never build a

very successful business just based on

population there so we immediately went

uh International but in the beginning uh

we hired mostly into Amsterdam so we had

a very strongly focused amdam operation

and that shifted like uh 10 years ago so

10 years ago we uh went to the us we

started to build our team here uh

there's a very significant base here now

in the US we have more than 800 people

uh working in the US uh so it's our um

largest Market outside of Europe uh

growing fastest is already onethird of

our total revenues the US and I find

that um very interesting to see also how

that has changed our company we have a

different perspective on how we should

serve um Merchants I think not being

local uh in the beginning did not help

to solve the real problem so you need to

have product and Engineering very close

to where customers are and I think when

we made that shift um we got more

traction and with the current setup with

like over a third of our revenues

already in the US uh we see that we win

a lot of domestic Brands um and I think

we're also proving that payments is not

a commodity because do you do you find

it um is there differences in employee

issues employee quality between America

and Europe I think there are very

talented people in both markets um I

think the honestly the technology Market

of course in the US is way more

competitive than Europe I think we

benefit from the fact that in Europe we

are one of the few companies um so yeah

it's relatively easy we're our brand

awareness in in in Europe is higher than

in the US that's one of the things that

we're working on right now to make sure

that more people get to know us in the

end we're business to business brand uh

so that requires additional um push to

uh show what we do but we work for the

the largest companies globally whether

that's online with we work for Google

meta Microsoft for retail H&M Nike Gap

so there we work for the Best Brands and

by also having them as referral

customers it is better to get

into a country like the us if we were

sitting here sorry some of the like

challenges with being based in Europe

maybe not on the commercial side but

just on the shareholder side uh American

investors kind of public investors

private investors are mostly investing

mostly in private American and public

American companies is it hard to attract

a shareholder base does that affect the

valuation because it's challenging to do

so and if you look at the valuation

difference in the private market for

stripe versus your public valuation

there's a gap there's a difference in

the multiples your it's a 2X gap on

numers that look very similar and your

numbers are similar some of your metrics

are much better maybe I don't know if if

you want to explain the valuation Gap

difference or maybe just talk about the

challenges of building a shareholder

base and shareholder interest as a

European company yeah that's a good

question like when we uh our biggest

private round was in 2014 and then uh we

realized that we want to have Global

investor base that's when iconic uh

General Atlantic but also TASC from

Singapore came on board there's still uh

they have been very supportive in the

Years up until the listing we listed in

2018 and when I worked on the listing we

were quite convinced that we would list

in the US uh given the fact that um most

of Technology stock list here but we

when we looked at valuation and also

index inclusion Etc we realized that

listing in uh Europe was as easy as the

us or even e easier um and that from a

valuation perspective also if we

benchmarked it to other IPOs at that

time that we even got a premium for

listing in Europe because we have a

fully us uh almost like 60 65% at the

listing us investor base so it was

almost like a US

IPO um and we got a premium for being a

scare tax stock in Europe um and I think

that combination worked really well for

us there is a difference I think between

uh public and private Market

and I think that is that explains for me

a bit the difference in in valuation you

think that'll get rationalized over time

I think so ultimately if uhe TR if we're

if we're both public um you're going to

compare the same numbers and it's a

combination of growth rates and

profitability you ever do a deal would

you list in the US as well if if I would

list in the US like if there would be no

liquidity in Europe I would list in the

US but there's sufficient liquidity in

Europe so um you need to have certain

size but we have the size there is

liquid liquidity so it's not

yeah these valuations will merge at some

point when the people who are betting on

promise versus performance you know one

more the public market is performance

priv Mark these EIT margins are bananas

yeah it's fantastic so if we were

sitting here 10 years ago this entire

conference um would be you know uh

centered around crypto and this amazing

impact and how your business would

absolutely be destroyed by crypto and

there would be no need for banks or for

countries or for nation states

everything was going to be blockchain

yeah it was just everything's going to

be solved by blockchain and everything

goes away um and that obviously none of

that has happened but one thing that has

happened that's really promising um or

interesting is stable coins you have

Circle in the United States doing really

well going public um I believe they're

still on track to do that then you have

tether obviously banned in a bunch of

countries bunch of problems um and being

used for a lot of um illegal activity

I'm curious what your thoughts are

though on the concept of stable coins

and you know their their impact on the

industry and the business because it

does seem to be working especially

internationally we don't see it here in

the United States but in other countries

tether and circle these things are being

used for lots of transactions and people

believe they'll ultimately be used for

business transactions in a major way

what are your thoughts on stable coins

yeah so I think the question is like are

you looking at indeed domestic payment

flows and then of course I don't think

that there is a high need for stable

coins in well-developed markets and

ultimately we are processing

well-developed markets at the moment um

if it's about inde crossborder type of

transactions we still work with

relatively old systems like Swift um

with all their challenges they try to

innovate like that's the area where I

would see there is a a future for stable

coins indeed if you need to would you

ever consider launching one no I think

we would consider working with stable

coins so you might partner with a ex

yeah that's always been our model like

we we want to bring Financial technology

to our customers but also working

together with the partners that we have

because they are ultimately also making

the a lot of success and and that's

where we want to help them Ingo one of

the things that we talk a lot about is

censorship um but beyond idea censorship

there's an even more probably corrupting

thing which is financial censorship and

deplatforming and the the way that I

think it came on our radar

was there was these truckers in Canada

that were protesting Co a few years ago

and they effectively got deplatformed

from Financial Services um how do you

balance that as a company that becomes

this critical artery to send you know

money back and forth and process money

for millions and millions of people yeah

I think one of the ways how we want to

do this is work with a lot of platforms

that basically have these um truckers as

an example as a customer

and I think the unique thing of these

platforms they have a lot of knowledge

about these people and I think combining

that knowledge with uh providing

Financial technology is a very good

outcome because they have their

knowledge about the industry about um

the business data of these people uh

combined with what we know uh is needed

in the financial industry everything

around uh money laundering prevention

terrorism financing if you combine that

I think you have a very strong

proposition um and I think that that's

the answer to the more traditional

players like the banks that also don't

always have the knowledge to do this at

skill I think that's what we have been

timating uh from the start like

everything around AML machine learning

we we've invested highly in that to to

build something very scalable and that's

what we want to offer to our companies

is is it complicated being a European

company more than an American company in

that context where there's a lot of

points of view that Europe has and do

they try to exert that pressure or not

no I I think we have really shifted from

being a European company to a global

company and uh we need to comply with

local regulations everywhere we see

ourselves as much as a US company as a

European company uh if you look at the

operations that we've built here we want

to make sure that we can compete with

each and every uh competitor here in the

US on a uh on the same level so it's

needed as you that you comply with tell

us um tell us you're moving to India I

mean not you personally but the company

yeah the exposure in India is incredibly

dynamic as you know lots of varying

regulations as you also have probably

dealt with tell us about the journey in

India yeah it's a long journey um I

think we started to work on this in 2018

2019 and one of the most difficult

things is all the data localization

rules in India uh so if you have a

global platform uh we have distributed

database around the world and then you

need you realize that you you can't

store data in of of Indian people people

outside of India so we had to really rep

platform the data infrastructure that we

have but we did that we have local data

centers now in India we got all the

licenses and we're one of the few

International companies maybe the only

one right now that can offer this to

International companies that want to go

domestic or International companies that

want to go cross border and of course

this is um a relatively Niche U play in

India today today um but it's a high

need of our biggest customers totally

and and that's what we've always focused

on we follow our customers if they want

to go into a new country we make sure

that we're ready for it and this is a

long-term investment so this is already

six years going on um I mean to me India

is like China Circa 2005 so if you just

closed your eyes yeah and just bought

the entire country index in 2005 you'd

look back in 200 even now and you'd be

way way ahead and I think India's on the

verge of that multi-decade kind of

Renaissance with less regulatory risk on

the back end yeah well at least the

regulatory rules are very clear from the

start and I think that's what we

appreciate like ultimately our company

is a combination of Technology

regulatory knowledge and the right

banking licenses and if we play that out

well we are in such a unique position so

everybody is you know bling oh sorry Go

go Jason no no finish go there

everybody's talking about Ai and you

have to have an AI answer but what's the

real on the ground experience of trying

to build stuff with machine learning and

and AI is there anything in production

that really matters and absolutely how

do you think about the future so one of

the thing so there I think two angles to

this the first one is how we uh optimize

uh transaction routing uh we uh just

also launched uh a new way of us debit

uh routing in the US uh where AI helps

us to make the best tradeoff for

merchants to lower the cost so you get

20% plus lower cost uh if you route that

well and at the same time higher is

intelligently figuring out these rails

are cheaper in this moment process over

here and it's a yeah and it's of course

a trade-off with the authorization rate

right and yeah we work with uh eBay

Microsoft Etc to uh to launch this um

and very good results so and that's in

production that's in production that

runs W the other part the other angle is

of course what we do internal for our

support functions that's more on gen

um we are uh we've always built a

company around open source also here

we're open sourcing um the uh the models

uh but we have a lot of uh data of

course internally that we can use for

that have you have you found enough

motivation to displace or Reason to

displace the humans that do the

equivalent work or has that not happened

yet or will it happen do you think or

does the business just grow and

everybody is growing and and like we've

always had such a high uh focus on

automation if if you ask where does iida

margin come from that's because we if

you look at our volumes and the number

of people that we employ it's a it's a

really low number relatively um and we

will continue to do that so AI is going

to help us to further

scale um and I don't think that we are

come on okay Engle I have to push you

yeah I mean do you look at these

American companies burning this kind of

money to do a business that's smaller

than yours of this and like do you

scratch your head thinking how do they

what is going on over there do you think

that these are huge Investments and we

are uh closely following it like where

can we benefit from it but we're always

a bit of a smart follower I think that's

that's always been our strategy yeah

like what can we use and what can we

actually apply in production we are so

much focused on execution I think that's

also the only way to prove to uh like we

started the company with Enterprise

Merchants the only way to prove to the

biggest Merchants out there is to show

that you can do it and just talking

about it it's also not really European

just to talk about it we are doers we

like to build things and that's how

we've created it Ino I'm wondering um

how you look at um authoritarian

countries dictatorships monarchies

whatever um and providing Services

inside of those uh this has been a very

polarizing issue obviously um some

companies have chosen to not operate for

example in China because of Human Rights

issues and having to you know hand over

dissidents in the case of a social

network let's say or they're outright

band in them um and then you have this

Alliance starting uh the brick bricks

has expanded and added a bunch of

countries and there's talk about hey

maybe Swift we're going to get off of

Swift and we're going to create our own

brics version of Swift um are you

operating in those countries how do you

think about that and and there's a lot

of hand ringing about oh we're going to

be off the US dollar and and off of

Swift um what what are your thoughts on

that entire space take it where you'd

like so the way how we uh approach this

that we ultimately look at like what are

the markets that we want to be active in

China as an example I think the Chinese

domestic Market is a super difficult

Market to be active uh but we have a

huge team in China selling basically to

Chinese Merchants that want to go here

in the US uh and that's a very

successful route so we try to be

pragmatic here um ultimately if we can

comply with the local rules uh we will

um and it's it's a tradeoff like can you

do business somewhere there are

countries where we have chosen not uh to

go so far also because the demand is

limited also maybe it's an unstable

country um it's we do it on a country by

country bases at the moment now what

about this sort of anti- Swift movement

America has too much influence the West

has too much influence over the movement

of money they can do things like

sanctions as David's talked about on the

on the podcast a couple of times is that

real is it is there really going to be

an alternative to

Swift I think there is a there is a

likelihood there will be Alternatives

yeah and Al I think to your example on

stable coins like that could be an

alternative longer term also if there

are issues with with SH with uh Swift it

just may not be a legislative

alternative it may be more technological

like yours and others yeah yeah but I

think there are companies that also try

to solve this like to have less

depandance on Swift even in in in this

Western World yeah um do you guys run

sentiment inside of all these payment

flows or getting a sense of like the

economic health of certain countries and

um has there been any thought to sort of

sharing those so that um you know like

in America we go through these things

and Europe too unemployment rate comes

out you revise it uh GDP numbers come

out you revise it and nobody can

actually act on these things until

you're looking back 6 months which is a

ridiculous way to run an efficient but

I'm sure companies like your or stripe

Shopify yeah have you guys ever thought

of working together to create a a more

Dynamic view of economies it's certainly

something that we want to do with the

data I think currently what our

challenge is that most of our growth

comes from um share of wallet winds so

it's very hard to to um separate this

from the underlying growth yeah the

moment we become a more stable company

and that that's years away then I think

that's more possible but it's like the

data set that we sit on like we have I

think over a billion unique Shoppers in

our platform so it's a billion humans

yeah that that's a in that's yeah so

there there's certainly more to tell um

and and and that's absolutely

interesting topic do you ever see PayPal

in the market I'm just curious what ever

happened to it

yeah well PayPal is an important partner

of us so uh we work closely with them

also offering um we just did a press

release on their new Express checkout

that we do together with them so we see

them more as a partner as than a than a

competitor I think that's how how we see

them yeah um last question you we've

made a lot of fun of this whole thing

this past week founder mode manager mode

whatever um but precisely for you you

work as a co-ceo yeah which is a bit of

a unique setup um but when it works it

can really work and can you just

describe us to us how you guys have

built such a great business and how you

divide and share and conflict resolve

and what does it mean founder mode

versus manager mode yeah I think the way

how we built the company together so

Peter is the founder um he focuses

currently more on culture of the company

um and is doing a lot of founder

conferences meeting our uh Merchants we

all meet our Merchants quite often I see

a couple of merchants on on Thursday in

San Francisco so that's an important

part I think that's how we uh do this

but it's a partnership already like

for 13 14 years like that's the time

that I know Peter so it's very natural

way of doing things and we have both our

strengths and we have both our

weaknesses and we know it from each

other and I think that makes it a

successful combination thank you you

guys please join me in thanking ino for

joining

app thanks