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PCM
YOUR GATEWAY TO THE WORLD OF PAYMENTS
Vol 4. Issue 1 | February 2018
SUBSCRIPTION BILLING

CONTENTS
4
8
12
14
16
20
21
2018: A Seminal Year for the Future of
Payments?
merchants and billing services
startup spotlight: commerce signals
Increase Your eCommerce sales with a
successful payment page
access point Financial Poised for Growth
hot jobs
industry events
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Editor
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2018: A SEMINAL YEAR FOR THE FUTURE OF PAYMENTS?
by Matthias Setzer
The payments industry is in a constant state of
transformation. Long gone are the days when it was
dominated by innovation in cards and terminals.
It is – quite expectedly – now under the influence
of digitalisation. Technology companies, fintechs,
untraditional currencies and banking models are
pushing the drive towards a more sophisticated,
decentralised, customer- and security-driven approach
in what was once considered a straight-forward
industry: payments. This revolution has been hailed as
golden among analysts and investors, with its appeal
to put security and users at the centre, amid growing
consumer demands and expectations.
With so many developments ahead, one would wonder
- what’s the ultimate goal of this transformation? Is it
to fully digitalise an industry that still runs virtually on
cash? Is it to facilitate P2P, P2B or B2B2C payments?
Or is it to simply ensure that eventually, everyone,
everywhere, will be able to make and accept payments
when (and how) they like? Looking at the latest figures
by The World Bank, the latter presents a massive
challenge. It’s almost universal for consumers in highincome
economies to have a bank account and use
it at least three times a week for online and offline
payments (94%). Still, only slightly more than half of
all adults in developing economies have access to the
same convenience in payments.
With so many important developments unfolding this
year, 2018 is shaping up to be a seminal year for the
payments and fintech industry. Here’s a look at what’s
ahead:
Regulations will define the pace
This year is all about compliance and requested
permission and nowhere is the hype more prevalent so
than in Europe.
While tech giants are taking precautions to ensure they
comply with strict new policies, especially as the EU’s
General Data Protection Regulation comes in effect this
May, the payments and fintech industry has its eye on
PSD2. As of January 13, 2018, the Revised Payment
Services Directive (PSD2) is in fact in place.
In short, PSD2 mandates the use of open APIs, allowing
financial transaction information to be shared with
explicit permission from the account holder.
What’s interesting to explore is that PSD2’s mandate
carries a hidden opportunity – it’s a chance for banks
and traditional financial institutions to co-operate with
fintechs, rather than see them as potential threats.
Built with security and customer protection at their
core, fintechs have the ability to facilitate the struggles
banks have when adapting to PSD2, as they’re already
leading the way with the latest security components
such as tokenization in place.
Tokenization came to exist as a way to encourage
fraud prevention; it’s where payment credentials are
tokenized to ensure the uselessness of data should it
happen to fall into the wrong hands. One of the ways
in which tokenization is already shaping the year is the
impact that it has as a fraud reduction measure and
the ability it has to improve the user experience. As
more consumers make mobile purchases, tokenization
enabling one-tap payments is creating a new way to
pay online.
It’s All About Customer Experience – It always has
been, actually!
Ask any business owner about their main business goal,
and they will wholeheartedly say that nothing comes
close to ensuring a high level of customer retention.
4
4 THOUGHT LEADERS CORNER

No matter the type of merchant – online or offline,
B2B or B2C, every business is working on controlling
and reducing churn to ensure a stable customer base
and predictable cash inflow. This task can become a
challenge of massive proportions if the business model
of this merchant is based on recurring payments. And
why is that?
Recurring payments are a win-win for both sides as
they allow consumers to easily and effortlessly plan
their expenses, and in return help merchants smooth
out their revenue stream and ensure long life-cycles.
Moreover, as reported by The Economist Intelligence
Unit, consumer demand for new consumption models
– subscriptions, sharing or leasing - is hitting the roof
at over 85%. In a world where online purchases for
goods and services are dominating, businesses have
to find ways to ensure seamless online purchasing
experiences. With that in mind, offering recurring
payments and subscription options can help lead the
way to a necessary change.
Moreover, the advent and uptake of eCommerce also
means cross-border sales now represents one of the
biggest opportunities available to merchants around
the globe. With the accelerating shift to subscription/
new consumption models, companies who want to
grow their business or remain leaders in their industries
will increasingly explore cross-border opportunities,
especially in high-growth markets such as LATAM and
India.
A pressing issue to take into consideration is involuntary
churn: a worry for any subscription-based business.
What is specific for high growth markets is that when
we look into a terminated subscription because of a
payment issue in those markets, the problem does not
only come in the form of fraud, expired or lost cards.
In some cases, subscriptions could be cancelled and
payments could not be going through if the preferred
method of payment of customers is not supported by the
merchant, resulting in unnecessary cancellation, even
if the consumer might still want the product or service.
Merchants should ensure their payment processor can
offer a strong solution for subscription business models.
MATTHIAS SETZER
Chief Commercial Officer at PayU
Matthias joined PayU as the Chief Commercial
Officer in October 2016. In this role he is
responsible for PayU’s cross-border business,
global sales, key accounts, strategic
partnerships and marketing & PR. Before
joining PayU, he worked with PayPal for over
12 years in various roles, most recently as
their Senior Director Strategic Partnerships &
Biz Development EMEA, based in Luxembourg.
Matthias holds a Masters degree from WHU in
Vallendar, Germany.
PAYU
PayU uses its payments heritage and expertise
to deliver financial services in emerging
markets. Our local operations in Asia, Central
and Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle
East and Africa enable us to be experts in these
countries and provide the best solutions for
the local market. PayU is the leading online
payment service provider in 16 high growth
markets, dedicated to creating a fast, simple
and efficient payment process for merchants
and buyers. Our 250+ payment methods and
PCI certified platforms are designed to meet
every consumer’s needs. The markets in which
PayU operates represent a potential consumer
base of nearly 2.3 billion people and a huge
growth potential for merchants. PayU has more
than 1,800 payment specialists based in these
local markets supporting PayU’s 300,000+
merchants and the millions of consumers
making online payments.
5

What else is on the line?
Mobile payments
The growth of mCommerce will also influence the
increase of mobile payment methods and wallets. This
trend is supported by the increase in consumer habits
of using multiple devices in their path-to-purchase –
using their desktop when gathering information about
a product or service, followed up by an offline visit to a
shop, and finalisation of the deal via a mobile app.
Need for Payment Services to Talk to One Another
Looking at the rise of mobile payments, we will also
see the need for payment services and platforms to
communicate to one another in a synced, frictionless
way. Use of open, third-party APIs for payments
will become a trend, with fintechs, merchants and
technology companies collaborating to deliver smooth
customer experience.
Blockchain
Blockchain has been raised to dizzying heights as
predictions claim that the decentralized database will
alter technology as we know it.
Moreover, both financial services and payments, two
of the most complex and highly regulated industries
in the world, are under the strong influence of the
developments of blockchain and distributed ledger
technologies. Distributed ledger technology, first
showcased through the Bitcoin cryptocurrency network,
has the potential to redefine the complex pipelines that
make payments possible. In the coming months, we
will certainly see a lot more clashes between banks
and DTL technologies in addressing customer needs.
We will also see an increase in use of blockchain
technologies for clearing and settlements, as well as
seamless, intermediary-free, peer-to-peer transactions
that correspond to data privacy requirements.
Conclusion
Digitalization is reshaping payments at a rapid pace.
The implications of this changing landscape require
a more agile, customer- and data-centred approach.
Whether it is by rethinking the business models to offer
more attractive and worry-free payment plans; by
complying with regulations that ensure data privacy
is top priority, or by building payment systems that
correspond with the ways consumers behave, 2018 is
shaping up to be the year that puts customers’ specific
needs behind the wheel to drive the payments industry.
6
THOUGHT LEADERS CORNER

7

MERCHANTS AND BILLING SERVICES
PCM: What challenges do merchants managing
subscription billing have that typical merchants
don’t have to face?
Roney: In general, merchants that provide subscription
billing have to handle challenges like managing failed
transactions, keeping customer payment details
updated, upgrading and downgrading service packages,
handling the combination of discounts of subscriptionbased
programs with regular purchases from the same
customer, and specially for merchants that operate over
multiple locations with different currencies, managing
exchange rates and applying the correct price.
If those challenges by themselves were not enough,
customer awareness on the importance of online security
is constantly increasing. Therefore, whenever storing
payment data
from a customer,
merchants need
not only to comply
with regulatory
requirements,
but most importantly,
provide
such assurance to
the consumer as
well.
PCM: What are some interesting ways you have
seen merchants overcome these challenges?
Roney: The solutions for these challenges can be quite
diverse, and they are facilitated by the flexibility that
online environment offer.
Sometimes, the solution for these issues can be even
facilitated by services that are offered directly by the
merchant’s payment service provider.
Some payment service providers offer tokenization
services that allow the merchant to replace the customer
data (including card number) by a token.
By having to store just this token, which is only useful
and can only be processed by the payment service
provider, the cybersecurity risks the merchant is subject
to is significantly reduced. Another example of an
interesting solution is the application of risk engines to
determine whether or not a subscription service should
be interrupted in case of a failed transactions.
In case a credit card is “blocked” and replaced by a new
one, the card on file information stored by the merchant
will need to be updated. In case the consumer forgets to
update this information the recurring payment will fail,
what could lead to service interruption.
As service interruption may lead the customer to
question the continuation of the subscription, merchants
are applying customer scoring techniques to choose
whether or not allow the service continuation for a short
timeframe to allow the customer to update the card
details.
PCM: How does EMVCo tokenisation being offered
by the payment networks impact subscription
billers?
Roney: The service offered by the schemes can be
really helpful to solve the problem I mentioned in the
previous question, about outdated card on file details.
Such services enable an issuing bank to inform that
the original card number associated with a token
needs to be updated. This can significantly reduce the
amount of failed transactions due to outdated card
on file information, as the tokenized information used
for transaction initiation will no longer be linked to a
blocked, cancelled or expired card.
8
EXPERT INTERVIEW

PCM: What are some of the new technologies you see
coming up in the new year and how will they change
the outlook for subscription billing merchants?
Roney: There’s currently a lot going on in this space,
but I believe it may be worth to mention two trends. The
first one is 3D Secure 2.0. Although the first version of
this protocol is usually associated with some criticism,
this new version introduces new features like nonpayment
use cases, which could be used for instance
for authenticating card on file transactions or enabling
card details to be used for future transactions. This
authentication layer could represent less risk in this
type of transactions which can potentially result in lower
transaction fees.
Next to that, the second trend is definitely the new
possibilities introduced by PSD2 and the emerging
payment initiation services. I expect that these services
will pave the way for new methods of enabling
subscription or recurring payments with increased
customer authentication, oversight and management
possibilities on its subscriptions.
RONEY CASTRO
Roney Castro is a Principal Consultant at
UL’s Transaction Security division. He is
responsible for knowledge development
within the banking and payments domain
and has extensive experience in Payments
(EMV, Mobile and Cloud-Based) and
Authentication and Identification related
technologies such as Biometrics and
secure documents.
PCM: Are there any additional trends or themes you
are seeing in subscription billing?
Roney: Not directly related to subscription billing, but
a trend that will impact this modality of payment is the
growing number of connected smart devices and IoT.
Merchants will need to be able to manage payments
and orders that are triggered not necessarily involving
a consumer action.
For instance, smart devices that could detect products
reaching their expiration could automatically trigger
an order for new items. To manage this, merchants
would need to enable a whole new set of features on
the customer account level, and set new policies for
consumer consent on such transactions. This is necessary
as not only new challenges for subscription billing will
be introduced, but also the challenges discussed in the
previous questions will be amplified.
UL TRANSACTION SECURITY DIVISION
UL guides companies through the complex
world of electronic transactions. UL is the
global leader in safeguarding security,
compliance, and global interoperability.
Offering advice, training, compliance and
interoperability services, security services,
and UL Test Tools, during the full life cycle
of your product development process or
the implementation of new technologies.
UL’s people proactively collaborate with
industry players to define robust standards
and policies. Bringing global expertise to
your local needs.
9

$
$
“ WE EXPECT MOST CLIENTS TO SEE IMPROVEMENTS IN SALES LIFT FROM 30%-150%
BY USING COMMERCE SIGNALS AND ACTING ON THE NEAR-REAL TIME INSIGHTS.”
PCM: Tell us about Commerce Signals. How did this
idea come to be?
Thomas Noyes, the founder of Commerce Signals,
recognized that banks had incredibly powerful
consumer behavior data in payments, but did not have
a controlled and privacy centric way to share that data
back with their merchants.
PCM: Why is it called Commerce Signals?
We leverage aggregate payment data to help retailers
and restaurants know if their marketing is driving
incremental sales.
The payment data (Commerce) is the signal to the
merchant that their marketing is working or where
improvement is possible.
PCM: Why is Commerce Signals needed?
Many marketers still measure the success of digital
marketing campaigns with sales proxies such as clicks,
impressions, likes and views because understanding
the impact on offline sales is too slow and complex.
Commerce Signals solves this problem.
In near-real time, we help merchants know if their
advertising is working so they can optimize it to drive
more sales.
PCM: What makes Commerce Signals different?
With under 72-hour response time, we are the fastest
way to measure digital advertising’s impact on in-store
sales. Our speed enables merchants to optimize their
digital media campaigns mid-flight to drive more sales.
PCM: What were some of your biggest challenges
for launching this business?
We have built a unique set of data relationships with
the world’s leading payment pro-viders and banks that
provide 70% coverage of US purchase transactions.
For a host of privacy and reputational reasons, these
data partners have tight controls on how their data is
used.
We’ve done the hard work of developing a patented,
privacy centric model with the necessary controls that
enable delivering near-real time insights through our
self-service tool.
This allows a new client to be up and running with
Commerce Signals in just a week or two rather than
spend years working through all the legal and IT
complex-ities themselves.
PCM: Tell us about your expansion plans and how
you go about choosing the next region you expand
into?
The U.S. is our current biggest priority, but we will enter
new geographies as customer needs dictate.
PCM: What are the 3 things you want people to
know about your company?
(1) We are the fastest way to know if your digital
12
4 STARTUP SPOTLIGHT

marketing is working to drive in-store sales
(2) By knowing faster, you can take action to
improve sales of each and every campaign
(3) We expect most clients to see improvements in
sales lift from 30%-150% by using Commerce Signals
and acting on the near-real time insights.
PCM: Any exciting news / announcements you
would like to share?
We recently hired four new executives to help meet and
exceed client expectations. You can read more about
them here.
TOM NOYES
Founder and CEO of Commerce Signals
Recognized as one of the Top 25 Innovators
in Financial Services, Tom Noyes is also the
founder and CEO of Commerce Signals.
Tom’s resume includes roles with NASA,
Citigroup, 41st Parameter and Starpoint LLP,
where his team worked with Google, Amazon,
Amex, Verizon, Mastercard and more.
COMMERCE SIGNALS
Commerce Signals connects advertisers and
publishers directly with near-real-time insights
from financial institutions.
Advertisers use these insights to optimize media
tactics and measure the incremental crosschannel
sales driven by their advertising.
5
13

INCREASE YOUR ECOMMERCE SALES
WITH A SUCCESSFUL PAYMENT PAGE
The success of your online shop depends on many different
factors. As an online retailer, you certainly know, that
beautiful images and informative product descriptions must
convince the customer; even a clear and cleverly designed
customer journey through your store ensures that your
clients feel comfortable and are pleased to return.
Therefore, it is more than important to make the entire
payment process transparent and user-friendly too. With a
user-friendly payment page, you can reduce unnecessary
purchase breaks and increase your conversion rate instead.
On top, you offer your customers a pleasant shopping
experience and provide them with a convincing reason to
return or recommend you to their friends. Check out the
following blog post to help you build your perfect payment
page.
Offer different payment options
Adapt to the payment habits of your customers. Most online
shoppers have preferred payment methods that make them
feel safe. Some people prefer SEPA Direct Debit; others
choose payment by credit card, again others swear by
PayPal or Sofort Überweisung. Whatever the most popular
payment methods for your customers is - you should know
it and offer them some options to choose from. To get more
informations on this, check out this article.
The must-have attributes of your payment page
Your payment page should make the entire payment
process as transparent as possible. This includes a clear
summary of the articles, simple indications of their prices,
the total sum and currency, as well as understandable
information on shipping costs and shipping method. If the
payment page displays your company logo, this creates
additional confidence. Always keep it in the back of your
mind: the easier and more understandable the page is, the
faster your customer will complete the purchase.
Show the customer all the information he needs to have
In the payment details, you should always use the current
original logos of the payment providers, which also creates
trust on the customer‘s site. Please also take the chance
to inform your customers about your terms of cancellation,
return and shipping as well as about your general terms
and conditions and data protection regulations. Find
out here what information you should provide on these
pages. Maximum transparency and customer friendliness
are a success guarantee for your purchase transactions.
Therefore, please give your customer especially at this
point all the information he needs to complete the payment
process with a good feeling.
What should an ideal payment page look like?
For online payments, it is important to gain your customers
trust. This includes for example that you do not redirect them
to external pages during payment processing but integrate
the payment page in your shop instead. For this, you can be
supported by a payment service provider such as PAYMILL.
Lower your chargeback rate
What are the benefits of all your successful sales deals when
you have to retreat later on high rates of chargebacks? In
the first step, it is certainly important that you as an online
trader carry out a solid chargeback monitoring and analyze
their reasons. When analyzing your chargebacks, you can,
for example, get support by your payment service provider
to help you eliminate market segments where chargebacks
are particularly common.
14
PAYMENT COLLECTIVE

Provide a reliable 24/7 support for your customers,
to make sure they can contact you directly with any
questions about the product, the method of payment and
the shipping status, and not contact the bank. If you see
a high rate of repayment in the medium to long term, the
credit card institution can impose higher transaction fees
or even refuse permission to offer card payments.
Your eCommerce stands and falls with a good
support
To avoid such an annoying situation, you should meet
your customers with an excellent support and make this
service clearly visible on your payment page. In case
of dissatisfaction on your customers site, you have the
chance to offer a compensation on the telephone - and
thus avoid bad evaluations in the social media.
Display security standards
A frequent reason for chargebacks is fraud. Therefore,
when choosing your payment service provider, make
sure that it has the highest level of fraud protection.
This includes matching of the transaction data with
a global blacklist or the verification of the BIN (Bank
Identification Number).When using Visa and MasterCard,
you can introduce additional protection measures.
With 3D Secure, make sure that your customer is the
legal owner of the card. This is how you lower your
chargebacks and offer your honest customers optimal
protection. These security measures should be presented
in the form of certificates on your payment page. This is
how you create confidence in your valued customers and
scare fraudsters.
These security measures should be presented in the form
of certificates on your payment page. This is how you
create confidence in your valued customers and scare
fraudsters.
LENA SEYDAACK
Head of Marketing at PAYMILL
She is responsible for marketing since 2016.
She brings years of experience in the field
of content marketing. She has built up the
content strategy for CANCOM as a team
lead and advised as a free consultant B2B
companies in Online Communications.
Summary
Now, you have got the right information to set up your
successful payment page. In the following I summarize
the most important benefits for you, which you will
receive with your perfectly designed payment page:
• You create transparency and trust with your customers;
• You increase your conversion rate, and so do your
purchase deals;
• You reduce your return rate and thus achieve a more
sustainable business;
• You get the reputation, and will be recommended. I
wish you much success!
PAYMILL
PAYMILL is one of the top payment processing
companies in Europe. PAYMILL will allow
you to accept PayPal and credit/debit card
payments directly in your online shop. You will
be able to accept mobile payments, recurring
payments and online payments globally,
enabling you to scale internationally from the
get-go. PAYMILL was founded in 2012 and has
been part of the CYBERservices SA Group since
2016. Further information at www.paymill.com
15

ACCESS POINT FINANCIAL POISED FOR GROWTH
by robert green
On October 5th, Atlanta based hotel lender Access Point
Financial, Inc. (APF) announced the recapitalization of
the company in a transaction led by WPC Investments
(WCPI). The recap saw the successful exit of Stone Point
Capital from the business in a $350 million transaction.
The new investor has also committed to facilitate further
expansion of the company. “We are excited to gain
exposure to this unique asset class,” said WCPI’s Chief
Investment Officer Michael Gontar, “and are looking
forward to continuing the tremendous growth that APF
has achieved since its founding.”
Commenting on the transaction, Jon S. Wright, APF’s
chairman and CEO, said, “We are delighted with the
success we have achieved since our initial capitalization
in 2011 and will now move to grow the platform to even
greater heights with WCPI as our financial partner.
The APF management team will be forever grateful
to Chuck Davis and his investment team at Stone
Point for their forward-looking and pioneering rational
when earmarking the initial 2011 investment. Our new
partners at WCPI share our passion for integrity as well
as verifiable results driven by operating partners with a
25 year track record of risk adjusted returns.”
The successful transaction was another in a series of
wins for Wright and his team - the result of hard work
that began attracting notice some time ago. Last year,
when Wright first learned his company had been named
the 17th fastest growing private company in the country
for 2015, by Inc. magazine, he was both humbled and
gratified for the honor. “It’s extremely important to me
that the management team receives the recognition that
they deserve when such well-regarded counterparty
assessment as Inc. Magazine determines such results,”
he said.
Born and raised in the college town of Fayetteville,
Arkansas, Wright was one of two sons of post grad
educators (Library Science and Musician). “My mother
earned a Masters in Library Science, after herding my
brother and me to lower school, and my father was a
brilliant musician who taught music in the high school,
church and University of Arkansas,” he said “Growing
up, my entire existence consisted of sports, music and
church.” His father handed him a guitar at age fifteen,
informing him that, “the gals will be able to see you
better without that helmet on your head,” (after suffering
a spinal injury, which ended his football aspirations). He
now likes to live vicariously through his son, Luke, who
is currently a quarterback for the University of Kentucky
and his daughter, Kate, “who sings like an angel and
is academically light-years ahead of my GPA down the
road at the University of Alabama.”
As a pre-teen, Wright worked as a vendor at Razorback
Stadium on game days selling Cokes and kept a steady
lawn care business which was his means to pay for his
first car. During high school and college he worked at
the local mall from 5:00pm – 9:00pm. “I knew one day
I wanted to run my own business, and in order to get
ahead, I would have to work harder than others to
The break up actually inspired him to write a country
song, “Going through the Big D” (Don’t Mean Dallas).”
Wright’s brother, Mark, co-wrote the song and produced
it with Mark Chestnutt recording it. The song went to
number two on the Billboard Country chart and number
one on Radio and Records Charting Service. “While it
was very satisfying to write a hit song, it also helped
me impress my future wife, Paige.” Now married for 23
years, Wright shared, “We met at a hotel convention.
She was similarly employed by a specialty lender
based in Dallas. She knew the business and the key
players very well. And although Paige hung her ‘cleats”
up to raise our children, I still continue to lean on her
expertise daily to provide HR feedback, which as any
businessman understands can clearly benefit mental
well-being as a sounding board.
16 8
EXECUTIVE PROFILES

JON S. WRIGHT
Chairman and CEO
accomplish those goals.” At Sears, he was soon
promoted to the electronic and automotive departments,
where he was compensated primarily by commission on
gross sales. He was mesmerized by the fact his income
had surpassed that of most recent college graduates
or those serving the public sector, (part-time no doubt).
For college, Wright decided to remain in Fayetteville
and attend the University of Arkansas. He joined
the Sigma Nu fraternity. “I liked the idea of joining a
fraternity and instantly meeting roughly a hundred new
frat brothers, but unfortunately, couldn’t afford the full
tab or so I thought. My parents termed it ‘Sigma Sin’
and made sure I was aware that all financial obligations
were on my shoulders. A couple of the older brothers/
officers suggested that I work part time to help with the
landscaping for relief of monthly dues. I mowed the
lawn and assisted the gardening crews for two years
while also maintaining my 5:00-9:00 shift at Sears,”
said Wright, “more importantly, I swallowed a lot of
pride.”
After college, Jon accepted an offer from Pitney Bowes,
where he worked in its sales and finance division,
followed by corporate real estate and ABS financing for
Ford’s commercial ABS leasing division. In 1988, he was
recruited to Holiday Inn Worldwide in Memphis to work
for its Real Estate financing arm.
“Fortuitous timing for me, indeed, launched my
career in commercial real estate and specifically the
hotel financing business. I was blessed to meet the
first generation of hotel developers. Most of them
were in their sunset years, and were in the process
of successfully passing their investments to the next
generation. I got to know them intently and learned a
lot from them.” What was most surprising to Jon was
how easily he got along with these businessmen away
from the nuts & bolts of business.
Jon Wright, a 25-plus year veteran of commercial
real estate and hospitality finance, began his
career with Ford Motor Credit’s CRE and ABS
division. He joined Holiday Inn Worldwide
(today known as InterContinental Hotels Group,
“IHG”) where he managed the company’s
finance subsidiary and strategically facilitated
franchisee growth and quality across all IHG
brands via senior and sub debt origination and
syndication.
ACCESS POINT
Access Point Financial (APF) is a direct lender
focused on the hospitality industry. We offer a
full-service lending and advisory platform that
provides financing to qualified hotel franchisees
of all major brands and independent boutique
hotels throughout the United States and Canada.
APF’s extensive experience in hotel bridge
financing, mortgage and CapEx lending,
combined with our consistent track record
makes APF the leader in this specialty finance
sector. Our executive team has more than 100
years of combined hotel financing experience
and has worked together for more than 10 years
to establish an excellent reputation and strong
performance history.
17
5

“We got along splendidly. A lot of them had garageband
mentalities, working hard to do just that little bit more to
impress the audience. They had amazing passion for work
and family.”
At that point in time, UK-based Bass PLC (Bass Ale) bought
Holiday Inn brands and kept the financing arm that he
eventually led (whilst Bass promptly moved the company to
Atlanta in 1990.) Thus Wright moved to Atlanta with his then
girlfriend and found that he loved Buckhead/Atlanta more
than a committed relationship.
In 1997, Wright was recruited to leave Holiday Inn to launch
a new hotel financing unit for GMAC. He was recruited by
one of the top finance managers at GM, who was a mentor
then and is still today as well as a current Board Member.
Now he could make loans to the entire hotel industry and
not just Holiday Inn hotels. He would be starting from
scratch and taking a fifty percent pay cut. But he had great
upside potential as a Junior partner if the new venture was
successful growing to $4 billion of assets. “And we were
successful,” he stated.
In 2005, GM found itself in financial trouble and Wright ended
up selling his division at a profit, yet after a fantastic four
year stint and roughly $2 billion of loans, the parent bank
had problems of its own, ended up being closed and placed
in receivership by the FDIC in 2009. Wright’s unit, though still
highly profitable, was now owned by the FDIC and remained
open and operational for the next two years. Wright found
an entity that would buy his unit from the receivership for
a premium when the parent company shuttered, however,
“the FDIC was a tad bureaucratic, to say the least,” and
could not get the FDIC to act fast enough on a stellar Wall
Street proposal. Two years later, Blackstone bought the bulk
of the unit’s assets for eighty-two cents on the dollar, which
he says was still the highest value obtained by the FDIC for
the bulk sale of assets in receivership.
By 2011, Wright exited the receivership entity owned by
the FDIC and formulated his next steps. The big decision
that he had to make was whether or not to start all over
again. He was very fortunate that his corporate insurance
coverage was in force and available from his insurer. He
never had a lender liability claim in all his years in business
– but to keep his policies in effect he would have to pay
the six figure premium out of pocket. “I knew without a
doubt that our team was the best in our space” he said,
“so it ended up being one of those hard decisions that was
easy to make. I covered the premium, subsequent start-up
costs and overhead out of my own pocket and got back
to work sourcing recapitalization via the Private Equity
Funding.”Wright closed the recap with a well-regarded
private equity firm (Stone Point Capital) for funding the
enterprise within forty-five days, initially utilizing $50 million
of the overall commitment of $250 million and Access Point
Financial was born. He rented office space for the team
and bought furniture from the FDIC for ten cents on the dollar.
“I told the landlord to leave our space
‘as is’. We were ready to go, and I had
a great management team in place.
My CFO, COO and the balance of the management
team had been with me for over a dozen years,
long enough to know they were passionate to keep
moving forward as well.” “Our biggest milestone came
when I was able to tell the team that we had broken even
and then in the black making a profit of $100,000 for the
month. We celebrated briefly and immediately got back to
work,” Wright said. “The profits each month continued to
mount, and in 2016 Access Pointearned record revenues.
That’s why we had such a high ranking on the Inc. 500
magazine list I suppose.” In five years, the company has
lent on 550 assets (with $3.5 billion in asset valuation) and
has combined debt/equity of more than $1 billion. Access
Point makes hotel loans that range from $250,000-$25
million. It makes bridge loans with capital improvements
included.
The company’s expertise makes the loans they originate
quite liquid since they are so well respected in the financial
market place. “One thing that I’m very proud of is that
we recently produced the first hotel only asset backed
security and is ’A’ rated by two agencies. We have a stable
of well-regarded Investors who appreciate the quality,
velocity and integrity of our product delivery and the fact
we remain as principal in all executions.” APF issued “A”
rated securities and increased its stable of bank leverage
partners to include JP Morgan, Key Bank, East West Bank
and several other world class banks.Due to their success,
(which Wright always credits to his management team)
banks are especially interested in APF because its loyal
customer rapport of high net worth. Cross-selling financial
products to such individuals is very important to banks
today, so at least one path to a major liquidity event is clear
for the company.
When time came for the recap, Wright and his team first
analysed a list of 100 investment banks, then narrowed
it down to a list of 20 to meet in person. Early on, WCP
seemed like a good fit.
“They had already been doing some specialty lending,”
said Wright, “and they made clear that they would take an
autonomous approach to management. It also helped that
they liked our innovative lending efforts.” The company
will have a lending budget of more than $6 billion over the
next three years. “This transaction provides a platform for
us to grow in the future,” said Wright. “We may start doing
SBA lending. We will also look at additional asset classes.
However, whatever we do will stay within the confines of
our current client universe – our hotel owning customers.”
“Most important of all, we will continue to have a high touch
client experience.”
18
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