PPRO, a top global provider of local payments infrastructure, powering global growth for payment firms, announced the appointment of Bernie Miles as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Bernie’s main objective will be to scale up PPRO’s platform to support the firm’s hyper-growth trajectory.
Bernie, a product-centric leader, has 20 years of professional experience, having worked at major ecommerce and fintech brands including Wayfaukr, Expedia, Hotels.com and Klarna. In his most recent role, Bernie served as the regional technology leader at Wayfair. He was the Head of Engineering for Europe where he helped boost Wayfair’s engineering capabilities on the continent.
Simon Black, the CEO of PPRO, talked about the appointment and said: “This has been another transformational year of growth for PPRO. We’ve already seen the expansion of our leadership team with new, exciting appointments, and now we round out the team with Bernie as our CTO. His expert knowledge of technology, product culture and experience scaling up high-profile companies will enable us to propel PPRO and digital and local payments forward.”
Meanwhile, Bernie Miles, CTO of PPRO, talked about the development and stated: “This is an exciting time for the payments industry. We’re seeing greater demand for cross-border e-commerce and a more diverse payment ecosystem, where both businesses and consumers have greater choice when it comes to how they buy and pay for online products and services.”
PPRO has established its business as the most trusted infrastructure provider in the cross-border payments space. The London-based startup has helped power international growth for payment services providers and platforms such as PayPal, Mollie, Worldpay, Citi, Elavon and Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, among others. PPRO’s API-based local expert services and payments platform assists its clients in getting the industry’s best conversion rate in markets around the globe.
Early this year, PPRO raised a $180 million funding round, a fundraiser that put the company’s valuation to over $1 billion. The global firm, with offices in Munich, Berlin, Sao Paulo and Singapore, planned to use the funding to continue expanding in newer markets.
Improving Financial Services for All
The development by PPRO comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has influenced a shift of most businesses embracing e-commerce in the last year. And, that has made a new focus on startups that are assisting in enabling that process.
PPRO is not the only firm targeting that opportunity. Overall, there is a significant fragmentation in the financial services. That has led to the increase of firms offering what is referred to as 'fintech as a service' or 'banking as a service' to make it easier for their customers to get better services. Others in the wider space, including payments and other fintech services providers such as PayPal, Block Inc (formerly Square), Stripe, Mambu, of Rapyd, Mambu, Thought Machine, Temenos and others, strive to offer better services.
Understanding in-depth technology, business models and risks associated with fintech is key to where companies work to promote innovation, enhance security and serve customers better. These firms strive to foster an environment that enhances security while expanding opportunities for customers across the globe.
