PCM vol. 3 issue 3

startup Spotlight
PCM: Why is Payr needed?
There has been too little real competition in the financial
space, and this is still very true for personal banking and
finance management. Incumbent banks have been dominating
the space, moving very slowly and not listening to what their
customers really want. The legacy players have been trampling
all over their customer relationships and decimating trust,
overcharging for everything and anything they can and so
forth.
For most people paying bills is boring and takes time and
effort. Payr offers a faster, more convenient and independent
way to do this. And we even let people save while they are
paying! Similarly, to the way peer to peer payments have made
it much more convenient for people to send money between
friends, we want to empower consumers and businesses to
efficiently pay their invoices while acting on and improving
their financial situation through product & price comparison.
“In short, Payr customers can pay invoices any way they want,
whilst save money and get better services. All this in a faster
and more convenient way than before, independently of their
existing banking relations”
PCM: What makes Payr different?
Our big advantage is that we are able to give truly independent
and actionable advice in a market dominated by the big
banks. As we are not a bank or a large incumbent financial
player, we are free to give objective advice and help people
improve quality and cut costs on expenses that really matter,
like mortgage, insurance and a whole series of utilities and
services such as electricity, internet connection and mobile
phone plans. To put it this way: Your bank won’t suggest that
you move your loans to a competitor that offers better terms.
Ever. We make it our business to do just that. Simply put; Our
independent position as a non-bank and our business model
makes us able to combine payments and savings in the same
mobile app.
PCM: What were some of your biggest challenges for
launching this business?
We first began validating our hypotheses and concept, building
the team, started work on design and UX etc, and this was
pretty much a normal lean startup process. But as soon as we
initiated the process of navigating the regulatory minefield and
applying for the necessary payment operator licenses from the
Financial Supervisory Authority, it was clear that this would
be consuming lot´s of time and a good deal of money.
Also, to be able to operate in the payments space, one obviously
needs to connect to and use many of the legacy infrastructure
platforms and components. This is not straightforward and
required us to negotiate partnerships and contracts with large
banking infrastructure companies, that are not exactly moving
at the speed of light.
We also needed to learn a long list of different regulatory and
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