• Luke Trayfoot, Chief Revenue Officer at Mangopay


• 01.06.2023 05:17 pm

1. What can you tell us about your career in payments and role as Chief Revenue Officer at Mangopay?

Before joining Mangopay, I led the European region at Hyperwallet and played a crucial part in turning it into a global payout company servicing platforms and marketplaces global disbursements. PayPal acquired Hyperwallet in 2018 to further enhance its payout capabilities for marketplaces and platforms. During the 4 years I spent at PayPal we revolutionised how this segment was serviced and though this I further honed my expertise by heading up PayPals EMEA platform and marketplace organisation and strategy.

In Spring of 2022, I joined Mangopay as Chief Revenue Officer after the business was acquired by Advent International. In this critical leadership role, I’m responsible for accelerating our go to market, sales, marketing and driving further international expansion. A critical part of this was improving the various revenue streams for the next phase of the company’s growth across product lines, pricing and cost efficiencies. It’s been great to bring my deep knowledge and experience to such an exciting pioneer in digital payment solutions. Unlike other payment solutions that service marketplace and 2 sided platforms, Mangopay's infrastructure is platform native, meaning it is tailored to meet the specific needs of growing global platforms across all commerce types (c2c, b2c and b2b). Along with the broader leadership team, I’m helping Mangopay solidify its position as the authority in our space to power the platform economy.

2. What is Mangopay doing to enhance the payment process for marketplaces and platforms?

At Mangopay, we offer marketplaces and platforms a modular payment infrastructure that provides flexibility, control and scalability. Centred around our e-wallet solution, Mangopay’s end-to-end infrastructure covers all platform payment needs. We enable a wide range of platforms across Europe to accept payments, hold funds, send payouts and onboard sellers seamlessly. Mangopay’s payments technology is flexible, meaning it can be used across many different sectors, commerce types and customer sizes. Since our creation in 2013, we’re proud to support over 2,500 platforms from entrepreneurs and startups to big names such as Vinted, Ticketmaster and Wallapop. 

3. Why are platform payments such an important topic in 2023?

Marketplaces and platforms represent the future of B2B, B2C and C2C commerce. During today’s economic uncertainty, these business models are an attractive offering for consumers, businesses and platforms alike with lowering costs, driving wider supply and offering more choice for demand. This is also an opportunity for businesses to expand their product and services portfolio whilst reaching new audiences. An example of this is that 75% of B2B companies are actively developing marketplace strategies, as more recognise the business benefits such as accelerating growth, streamlining operations and enhancing customer satisfaction and engagement. What’s more, many traditional B2C and D2C retailers are now also launching marketplace offerings. Considering the increasing rate of online marketplace and platform adoption, it’s crucial that these businesses have the right payment processes in place.

4. To what extent is security an issue for online marketplaces?

The growing popularity of the 2 sided platform business model has inevitably also drawn the attention of fraudsters. As such, it’s important that platforms as well as their supply and demand users are protected from potential scams and cyber fraud. Platforms require more robust protection against fraud than traditional digital commerce sites, as multiple parties being involved in each transaction makes it more challenging to orchestrate accurate and effective fraud detection. This means operators need to be armed with the right tools and technology to effectively detect and prevent threats in real-time across payments and user accounts. 

As strategic partners to platformed businesses, we equip customers with sophisticated tools to shield their activity from fraud risk at every step of their journey. Our recent acquisition of Nethone, a leading fraud detection and prevention company, is a testament to our commitment to continue offering tailored anti-fraud solutions to the platform economy to drive their success. 

5. What opportunities do marketplaces and platforms create for other growing industries?

Looking to the future, we’ll see continued use of fintech to further fuel the platform economy in the UK and abroad. We have seen the likes of Amazon create fantastic growth of sub industries via the buyers and sellers of their platform - the true sign of a great business. The democratisation of commerce is powered by platforms who drive growth of multiple parties across their supply and demand. We have seen significant advances in the B2B space through the digitalisation of platforms and using fintech to fuel the trust of online trade. To enable the movement of money in this ecosystem both locally and globally, fintechs will play a critical role in allowing for cross-border cash flow in a cost effective and flexible friendly way and ensuring users are protected with sophisticated fraud detection tools. 

6. What’s next for Mangopay?

We’ve had a strong start to 2023, with our latest acquisition of WhenThen marking our second acquisition in four months. This will advance our position on providing best in class payment capabilities, data APIs, money movement and giving power to the platforms to self service. These acquisitions enable us to rapidly accelerate our growth, while providing the best payment experiences in the market specific for 2 sided platforms. We are excited to continue this same trajectory and are focused on developing and implementing strategic plans that will help us to navigate our ambitious global expansion plans.