Global Fintech Series Interview with Deepak Gupta, EVP of Demand Fulfillment and US Faster Payments Council Board Member at Volante

What does it take for modern financial teams to ensure better security for end users of digital payments? Deepak Gupta, EVP of Demand Fulfillment and US Faster Payments Council Board Member at Volante shares a few thoughts:

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Hi Deepak, tell us about yourself and your fintech journey so far.

I’m the EVP of Product, Engineering and Services at Volante Technologies, a Payments as a Service (PaaS) provider and digital transformation leader in the financial sector, where I previously held the role of global head of the PaaS business unit. I lead Product, Engineering, Services, Cloud Infrastructure, Research & Development, and Support teams. My focus has been on driving innovation and enhancing the configurability and AI capabilities of our solutions, enabling faster speed-to-market for our customers. This approach has also fueled both revenue and customer growth for Volante. Along the way, I’ve worked to enhance our margins and dramatically improve the customer experience, both in terms of Net Promoter Score and referenceability.

I’ve also served as a Board Advisory Group Member on the US Faster Payment Council for the last year. I work alongside other industry leaders and fellow board advisors to help shape the future of U.S. faster payments and guide the FPC in its mission to facilitate secure, efficient, and ubiquitous faster payments in the United States.

Prior to joining Volante, I held senior technology executive roles across three decades at companies such as PeopleSoft, iSpheres Corp, Oracle, and Workstream Inc.

How have digital payments evolved over the years in the global fintech market, and what views do you have for the future of digital payments?

Digital payments have become much more integrated into our everyday lives over the past decade. We’re now in an era where payments are not just digital, but real-time, available 24×7, and often embedded seamlessly into non-payment customer experiences. For instance, in a rideshare, you don’t actively make a payment after your journey—the transaction is automatic once the service concludes. This shift toward frictionless payments reshapes customer expectations and pushes financial institutions to accelerate their adoption of digital payment solutions. Instant payments are a direct response to these demands, driven by the broader digitalization of financial services, and they’ll remain a top priority for the industry moving forward.

The ISO 20022 migration readiness testing deadline is top of mind for most major banks and financial institutions. With its technological capabilities in instant payments, cross-border payments, and security, it’s mission-critical that we continue working with our customers to ensure they meet the deadline.

ISO 20022 will be the new global messaging standard for all financial communications protocols. In addition to many companies and countries using different messaging standards, ISO 20022 will also allow enriched, extended data to be attached to payments, opening up numerous transformational opportunities to its users due to this data prominence. Traditional payments systems, like FedWire, do not allow much-needed data to be attached to payments (information like purpose of payment, services provided, etc.). ISO 20022 is poised to fix problems that arise in payments due to a lack of data. Thus, financial businesses can deliver customers better, simplified, secure, and data-rich services.

Lastly, it’s important to consider the impact of evolving demographics on the future of digital payments. Gen Z is becoming a larger and more prominent presence within the workforce, and having grown up on social media and formed differing privacy perspectives, their outlook on payments will be very different from that of previous generations.

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When securing online and digital payments, what can fintech innovators do better, and what can end users do to protect themselves?

Fintech companies can always improve by educating both businesses and consumers on the value of initiatives such as instant payments, ISO 20022 migration, and cross-border payments. However, fintechs also have a responsibility to enhance security measures, which requires ongoing collaboration with independent analysts and research groups to stay up to date with the latest insights into security improvements.

End users play a critical role in securing their online payments. They can protect themselves by following the security guidelines recommended by their payment service providers, such as enabling multi-factor authentication, using strong passwords, and staying vigilant for potential phishing attempts. It’s essential for consumers to adopt these basic security practices to reduce the risk of fraud.

For fintechs and financial institutions, one of the most effective ways to prevent fraud is to leverage customer data and implement fraud detection mechanisms, much like credit card companies do. These institutions use advanced data analytics to identify potentially fraudulent transactions before they occur and have built-in protocols to protect their customers. Fintechs and financial institutions should adopt similar approaches, using technology to analyze transactional data in real-time and prevent fraud proactively.

In addition, fintechs and financial institutions should partner with payment technology providers that have the right security certifications—SOC1, SOC2, ISO 27001:2013, and PCI DSS are a few key ones to look for. Not all providers are created equal when it comes to security, and cloud-native providers like AWS and Azure can offer higher levels of protection thanks to the significant investments they make in their cloud infrastructure. By choosing the right partners, financial businesses can provide an extra layer of security for both themselves and their customers while ensuring compliance with industry standards.

How are you seeing AI impact the overall payments landscape today across global fintech?

The proliferation of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies, particularly generative AI, has become the most disruptive trend in the fintech sector in recent years. However, its impact on the B2B payments and fintech industries is still in its early days.

There are a few reasons why AI has not instantly disrupted payments like in other industries such as software development. Simply put, payments are heavily regulated, and any changes must go through a regulatory process. Additionally, AI works best on large sets of public data, and financial data, such as healthcare data, is also heavily regulated and protected, meaning any adaptation must be careful and measured.

That said, it’s safe to say that just as seemingly mundane technologies like the internet and mobile phones have changed payments, AI is positioned to be transformational for payments. The big question is how.

Can you discuss some of the payments innovations you’ve seen in fintech recently?

PaaS technologies are playing a crucial role in helping financial businesses meet the growing demand for services like real-time, instant payments, and cross-border payment capabilities. Payments modernization is essential for enabling financial institutions to evolve and innovate with minimal disruption from their technology. One of the significant advantages of PaaS is its ability to accelerate time to market. Financial institutions can launch new payment services more rapidly because they can simply activate the necessary capabilities in the cloud, which provides a higher level of agility and speed.

Additionally, PaaS transforms CapEx into OpEx, allowing financial institutions to modernize without the need for large upfront investments in hardware and infrastructure. Instead, they can scale their processing capabilities sustainably and continuously over time.

Another key benefit is regulatory compliance. PaaS providers take on the responsibility of keeping up with the latest regulatory updates, ensuring that financial businesses remain compliant without having to invest heavily in maintaining these measures themselves. This includes maintaining current security, privacy, and compliance measures while continuously delivering regulatory updates to keep customers safe from bad actors.

Finally, the extensibility of PaaS platforms means that financial institutions can easily add new capabilities and payment types as needed, enhancing their service offerings without significant delays or complications.

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