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Kani Payments adds two new hires to management team

Wednesday, May 22, 2024 — 11:39:35 (EDT)

Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 22 May 2024: Kani Payments, the disruptive global data reconciliation and reporting platform, has added two new hires to its senior management team as it forges ahead with its rapid growth ambitions worldwide. Carol Connolly joins as Head of Finance & HR, and Roger Binks joins as Chief Commercial Officer.

Kani Payments has enjoyed stellar success since its inception in 2018, empowering clients with enhanced and accelerated transaction reconciliation, payment and regulatory scheme reporting, merchant settlement and customer fund safeguarding through its award-winning SaaS platform. So far, it has reconciled more than €24 billion in processed payments volume for start-ups and scale-ups across the fintech spectrum, including Sodexo, Transact Payments, Osper, IDT, Moorwand and Paysafe.

With an impressive track record of driving organisational success through people-centred operations and implementing strong team cultures, Carol joins Kani Payments as its Head of Finance & HR, a newly-created role in response to the rapid growth Kani is experiencing. A member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD), her objectives at Kani include implementing effective recruitment, employee development and finance processes as the company scales amid unprecedented demand for its services. She will also build on Kani Payments’ networks with local universities and community relationships to enable more employment opportunities.

Commenting on her appointment, Carol says: “I’m so excited to join Kani Payments on its growth journey. When I came off my interview with founder and CEO Aaron Holmes, and COO Dan Clappison, I knew straight away I wanted to work there. It felt like a really welcoming, supportive and exciting place to be. That's what differentiated it for me, along with the unusual mix of finance and HR, which is sure to keep me on my toes”.

During her career, including stints at IT and managed service leader Claremont, Carol has been instrumental in securing ‘Investors in People’ platinum accreditations, plus CIPD and various industry awards for ‘Best Employer’, along with recognition for implementing better health and employee wellbeing initiatives in the workforce.

“I see my role as getting the processes in place to ensure that as we grow and spread globally, people still feel that sense of belonging and teamwork, where we’re all working for the greater good. That's something I'm really excited about translating into my role at Kani Payments.”

Also joining Kani Payments as its new Chief Commercial Officer is Roger Binks, a seasoned professional with 20 years of expertise in identifying transformational business opportunities, and scaling corporate, retail and property brands and SaaS enterprises to meet escalating demand. With a distinguished career that includes roles at renowned organisations such as ITG, Intu Properties and IWG.

On his appointment, Roger says: “Having first met Aaron and his investors about 10 years ago when they were running Flex-e-Card, I immediately recognised the potential for Kani Payments to make enormous changes to the reporting and reconciliation space. When you meet the people at Kani Payments, it’s obvious that there's a genuine passion for what they do, and an innate understanding of how they help people.

“Our biggest challenge is in articulating our core proposition to the market. We have a unique product that stands out as a true market leader. We eschew the transactional approach of merely onboarding customers and swiftly moving on; instead, we are committed to preserving our hallmark personalised service as we expand. Part of my role will be to ensure we replicate that personalisation on a larger scale, and to illuminate our true capabilities to a wider audience. Currently, we boast a clientele befitting of an incredibly successful start-up, yet our ambition is to amass hundreds, if not thousands, of additional customers as we forge ahead.”

Commenting on the new hires, Aaron Holmes, Founder and CEO of Kani Payments: “We’re really excited about what the future is going to bring. But of course, growth can produce new challenges. It’s important to me that Kani Payments retains the warm and friendly culture it’s renowned for and doesn’t lose sight of that, even as we are expanding so rapidly in response to market demand.

“Carol’s obvious passion for all things people and her demonstrated success in building effective relationships based on loyalty, trust and inclusiveness made her far and away the ideal candidate for this specially-created role at the company. Carol's expertise and influence in fostering employee motivation and engagement, grounded in shared values and culture, perfectly aligns with our organisational objectives.

“As Kani scales at a rapid pace, we will encounter new channels, new markets and new geographies. We are now firmly past start-up phase and are in scale-up mode. That means a very different mindset and deeper roles and responsibilities. Roger brings the experience to build the go-to-market strategy, make the big decisions and navigate challenges along the way. His proven ability to empower business transformation through brand and market expansion activities will be hugely valuable to us as we pursue international growth.”

Clients worldwide are tapping into Kani’s unique data-agnostic reporting and reconciliation platform. The platform ingests data from any processor or source and reconciles multiple complex and contrasting data sets in minutes.

To date, Kani Payments’ notable achievements include: Saving its clients $500,000 per year through automation of common reporting outputs and reconciliation​;

Accelerating Mastercard and Visa QMR/GOC reporting times (required to be submitted by all issuers of their cards) from three weeks to just three minutes – no other compliance reporting platform has this ability​;

Acceptance onto the highly sought-after Mastercard Start Path Global programme in 2022 (which has just a 2% acceptance rate) and the FIS Accelerator programme in 2023 as one of just 10 high-potential fintech companies. Only six UK companies (including Kani) have ever been selected for FIS’ programme in its eight years;

Securing key partnerships with some of the world’s most exciting fintech and payments players, including Brazilian issuer processing and core banking platform, Pismo, carbon intelligence platform Earthchain, and UK neobank Frost.

ENDS

About Kani Payments

Established in 2018 in Newcastle, UK, Kani Payments is a reconciliation and reporting platform specifically designed to reduce complexity for financial services businesses.

Named ‘Europe’s Leading Financial Services or Payments Start-up’ by the Emerging Payments Association in 2019, and having since been selected for the Fintech Power 50, Mastercard Start Path Global programme in 2022 and FIS Fintech Accelerator programme in 2023, Kani’s clients include fintechs, challenger banks, established banks, electronic money issuers, and gift card providers.

For more information, please visit: kanipayments.com/.

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Source: Company press release.