Paycon Payments & Banking Advisory

Go-to-market strategy

Whether you are launching a new acquiring proposition, taking a digital banking product into a new market, or repositioning an existing platform against newer competition, GTM is where most payments businesses leave value on the table. Paycon helps with segmentation and ICP definition, pricing and packaging, channel design, partner economics, sales-process build, and the messaging needed to actually win the deal — not just generate a meeting. The advice is grounded in years of carrying number across thirteen SEE markets and building from zero to market leadership in adjacent niches.

Product design

The most expensive product mistakes in payments are made in the first six weeks — before a single line of code is written, when the spec is being shaped by whoever shouts loudest in the steering committee. Paycon supports product design for card acquiring, orchestration, payment gateways, digital banking, BaaS rails, mobile wallets, ATM and unattended-retail networks, and embedded finance. Output is whatever your team can use: PRDs, scheme- and PSP-mapped requirements, build-vs-buy assessments, scope-of-work documents for vendors, or a written second opinion on a roadmap that is already in flight.

Core & digital banking, Banking-as-a-Service

Banks and fintechs come to Paycon with three recurring questions on the banking stack. Which core banking platform fits the business model and the growth trajectory? How do you stand up a digital banking proposition (or BaaS rails for partners) that customers, partners, and regulators take seriously? And what does the sequencing look like for SEPA Instant, PSD2 and PSD3, and the operational shifts they keep dragging in?

The advice is drawn from direct delivery experience: leading multi-country core and digital banking implementations as CEO of a regional banking-technology group, building a cloud-native Banking-as-a-Service and bank-in-a-box proposition integrating Mambu, Tuum, and SumSub, positioning a digital banking product as a regional category leader in SEE, and supervising SEPA Instant Payments and PSD2 implementation across the client base. Engagements cover platform selection (build vs buy vs partner), implementation supervision, operating-model design, partner integration, and the regulatory horizon (PSD3, open finance, instant-payment scheme evolution).

RFP & vendor selection

RFPs in payments and banking technology fail in predictable ways. Buyers write requirements they cannot evaluate; vendors answer questions they were not asked; the scoring matrix gets reverse-engineered to fit the favourite. Paycon runs RFPs from either side of the table. Buy-side: requirements definition, longlist research, RFP authoring, structured evaluation, commercial negotiation. Sell-side: bid qualification, response strategy, demo and proof-of-concept design, win-loss debriefs. Both sides benefit from someone in the room who has been on the other one.

Payments & banking strategy

Strategy work covers the questions that determine where the business goes next: multi-acquiring rollouts, orchestration adoption, channel mix, pricing under interchange and scheme-fee pressure, regional expansion sequencing, partner-versus-build decisions on BaaS rails, and the regulatory horizon (PSD3, instant payments, SCA evolution, open finance). Engagements typically begin with a sharp diagnostic and end with a written set of options, each with the trade-offs the executive team actually needs to choose between — not a single recommended answer dressed up as inevitability.

Stablecoins, deposit tokens & the digital euro

Stablecoins (USDC, USDT, EURC, PYUSD) and bank-issued deposit tokens are no longer a crypto sideshow — they are a payment rail being integrated by PSPs, networks, and tier-one banks alongside cards and instant payments. The right question for most banks and fintechs is no longer whether to engage with on-chain money, but where the rails belong in the existing stack and which form (regulated stablecoin, deposit token, tokenised MMF) fits the use case.

Paycon supports clients on integration design (PSP and acquirer-side stablecoin acceptance, on/off-ramp architecture, treasury operations), regulated path-finding (MiCA stablecoin and EMT/ART obligations, the GENIUS Act in the US, deposit-token frameworks in the UK and EU), commercial sequencing (which corridor, which counterparty, which rail first), and partner selection (custody, issuance, orchestration, settlement). The work is grounded in the same operator lens as the rest of the practice — a stablecoin integration is a payments project, not a science experiment.

The digital euro adds a third dimension. As the ECB moves the project from political commitment to operational reality, banks, PSPs, and merchant acceptance providers will need to integrate it alongside cards, SEPA Instant, and (for some) stablecoin rails. Paycon’s current work on digital euro readiness covers stack-readiness assessment (which parts of acquiring, issuing, wallet, and acceptance need to support which flows), sequencing decisions against existing roadmaps, partner-versus-build choices for distribution and wallet integration, and the regulatory horizon as the ECB framework finalises.

M&A advisory

Paycon supports the commercial and operational sides of payments and banking-tech M&A: target identification and screening, commercial due diligence, technology and product DD coordination, integration planning, and the first hundred days post-close. Drawn from direct experience leading two acquisitions on the buy side — one banking-tech firm and one custom software development company — and integrating both into a regional group.

Interim & advisory roles

For founders or boards who need senior payments judgement in the room rather than a written deliverable, Paycon takes on a limited number of interim CRO, Head of Product, or non-executive advisor roles per year. Engagements are typically two to four days a month and structured to end with the practitioner working themselves out of a job rather than into a permanent fixture.

Not sure which fits? Describe the problem and we will tell you whether Paycon is the right shop, and if not, who is.