UK Edition
Banking technology start-up GoCardless expands to America
British payments technology start-up GoCardless has launched its online direct debit service in the US and will open a new office in San Francisco.
The financial technology start-up said the decision to expand its service, which allows businesses to receive direct debit payments online, to America has taken several years of planning and negotiations with regulators.
Pranav Sood, GoCardless’ head of international expansion, likened the firm’s ambitions to global credit card networks.
“For credit cards, there are some pretty well established global networks, Visa and Mastercard, there is no equivalent for direct debit,” Sood said. “That's what we're building.”
GoCardless raised $75m (£60m) from investors including Alphabet and Salesforce in February which has helped to fund the US expansion.
The US is a “particularly big, complicated and expensive” country for the payments firm launch in because of its fractured regulatory landscape where states regulate their own financial markets, Mr Sood said. “In many ways there's not one regulatory environment, there are 50,” he said.
However, he said that the expansion to America was key for GoCardless because of the political uncertainty around Brexit.
“In these uncertain times in the UK, we want to make it as easy as possible for UK companies to do business around the world,” he said. “In uncertain times, what we need to do is make it as easy as possible for people to do business.”
The start-up was launched in 2010 by co-founders Hiroki Takeuchi, who remains the company’s chief executive, Tom Blomfield and Matt Robinson.
Mr Blomfield is now the chief executive of digital banking start-up Monzo, which has raised more than £320m in funding. Mr Robinson now runs property technology business Nested.
Mr Robinson temporarily rejoined the company as interim chief executive in 2016 after Mr Takeuchi was paralysed from the waist down after a serious cycling accident in Regent’s Park. He rejoined the company as chief executive after several months of rehabilitation.
GoCardless is just the latest UK financial technology firm to expand to the US, after international payments firm Transferwise in 2015 and challenger bank Monzo earlier this year.