Strategic finance for payments and fintech
I advise payments and fintech businesses, from PE-backed companies to start-ups, in the UK and Spain. The work covers commercial, product and AI decisions, often around an exit or a merger.
When I set up ScalePoint in 2024, fintech valuations were still well below their 2021 highs, but it was clear to me that AI would change how payments and fintech businesses make money and how buyers value them.
Before ScalePoint I spent ten years in payments at Citi, Mastercard and Luup, then nearly a decade at Edgar, Dunn & Company, latterly as a Principal, on more than 75 engagements for banks, fintechs, card networks, private equity firms and merchants.
I work with two groups:
01Payments, fintech and PE-backed businesses→ 02Fintechs moving between the UK and Spain→Payments, fintech and PE-backed businesses
I work with payments and fintech companies across the ecosystem, and with the PE funds and corporate finance advisers around them, usually at a specific moment such as just before or just after a deal.
Around a deal
Buying, selling or merging, and the plan that follows.
- Equity story: the growth plan and the numbers behind it, for buyers, investors or the board.
- The deal itself: the case for an acquisition or a carve-out, and which revenue and cost go with each part.
- After the deal: the value creation plan, the synergy case and which clients migrate first.
Product and commercial
Where the margin comes from, client by client.
- Unit economics: margin by client, segment and product, and which ones carry the rest.
- Pricing: fees set against margin, and the clients that cost more to serve than they bring in.
- Go-to-market: markets, segments and partners, and the payback on each, with a focus on a move between the UK and Spain.
AI economics
What the AI spend is returning, and what to build next.
- Plan versus actual: what the approved AI spend was meant to return, and what it returns at full volume.
- Model choice: which model does the job at the price, and how much data and lock-in come with it.
- New use cases: which ones are worth building, tested with a working prototype before the full build.
Fintechs moving between the UK and Spain
I work with Spanish fintechs moving into the UK, and with UK fintechs and investors looking at Spain. I live near Barcelona and work in London.
Market entry: Spain and the UK
- Into the UK: the licensing route after Brexit, then the first partners and customers.
- Into Spain: the same for UK fintechs, and local contacts for UK investors and advisers looking at the Iberian market.
Introductions and business development
- Partners and customers: acquirers, PSPs and banks, through to merchants and software platforms.
- Investors: VCs and angels for early rounds, and corporate venture teams for later ones. Happy to look at the pitch first.
Reviews before it goes out
- Business cases and pitch decks, before they go to investors, banks or card schemes.
- After years inside Mastercard and Citi, I can usually tell you how a bank or a card scheme will read it.
ScalePoint Labs
What can AI do in payments and finance operations?
Labs tests AI models on real payments tasks and scores every mistake in money, next to what each model costs to run. The first paper tested 34 models on UK card acquiring statements. With good instructions, a model at half a cent a statement matched one at 25 cents.
Latest writing
Fintech and Venture Capital in Spain: A View from Barcelona
How big Spain's fintech and payments scene is, what Barcelona adds to it, and where Spanish companies tend to get stuck.Read → ArticleThe Plan You Inherited
A signed-off plan leaves most of the commercial decisions unmade. Two lenses on what happens next.Read → ArticleFintech Moats in an AI World
Why the next decade of fintech will be defined by infrastructure and operational embeddedness.Read →How to start
Drop me an email and we can talk it through. Every piece of work is agreed in a fixed-price statement of work, signed by both of us before anything starts, and I do the work myself.
martin@scalepointpartners.com
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