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Lisa Walgenbach

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Ludger Bieberstein

Senior Manager Payment Strategy

Christina Hammerath

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Maximilian Kaczor

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SEPA direct debit

American Express

Alipay

UnionPay

Apple Pay

Google Pay

Girocard

PAYBACK PAY

Visa

Mitarbeiterkarten

Retailer cards

PayPal

Händlerkarten

SEPA Lastschrift

Mastercard

Employee cards

Fast and contactless payments at any vending machine

Contactless reader

Also available with an additional high-contrast OLED display

Simple integration in kiosk systems and vending machines

Low-power stand-by mode for solar-powered solutions

PCI 5.1- and EMVCo-certified

An innovative security concept with crypto plug-ins supports symmetrical and asymmetrical encryption, key derivation and remote key loading

cVEND box+ TOPP

Secure payments anywhere

Contactless, chip card and magnetic card reader

TFT colour display with 480 x 320 pixels

Video accelerator with H264 codec

Additional barcode and QR code scanner available

Bluetooth, WLAN, 4G/3G/2G

Automatic switch over between the mobile network and local wireless LAN

Battery with external mains adapter and charging tray

Graphics-capable thermal printer

Dimensions: 78 x 57 x 169 mm

SSL/TLS and bitmap encryption

EMV- and PCI 5.x-certified

Satisfies all German credit industry requirements

Move 5000

The compact solution for every checkout

TFT colour display with 320 x 240 pixels

Privacy screen

Lane 3000

The pocket terminal

TFT colour display with 240 x 320 pixels

Available in three versions

Bluetooth, WLAN, 3G

Works on a stand-alone basis or connected to a smart device (Android, iOS)

USB cable and USB-C connector

With integrated or replaceable battery

Dimensions: 70 x 129 x 13 mm or 70 x 129 x 17 mm

Link 2500

Payment processing with a lot of additional applications

Touchscreen

Separate communication box

Seamless connectivity to external devices

Add-ons, e.g. loyalty applications, are possible

Desk 5000

All-in-one payment processing and customer interaction

NFC touchpoint

Signature capture

Digital document management

Processing of business services such as contracts,  warranties and bonus programme applications

Lane 5000

Some time ago, we explained what a Payment Service Provider (PSP) is and what its tasks are. In short, a PSP takes care of connecting a store (retail or e-commerce) with the various payment methods. Usually, companies use a single PSP. But that doesn&#039;t always have to be the case, and that&#039;s when so-called payment orchestration comes into play.<h2>Take a look behind the scenes and into the backend</h2>If there were no tax office and no accounting, the payment issue would be resolved quickly. But a company also wants and needs to know how much it cost to process the payments. Also for control reasons, to ensure that everything works smoothly. The store causes quite a few account movements and settlements. There are the compilations of the PSP and the bank statements, a merchandise management system, and a customer database. And the settlements must all add up plausibly, taking into account the various types of taxes. This balancing of accounts is called &quot;reconciliation&quot; in technical jargon. And this process should require as little effort as possible. As already shown here, the check-out is also part of the risk management of every retail company. So it&#039;s not just a matter of finding an optimal payment mix for the target groups. Ideally, all customers will see an individual compilation of payment options. Depending on fraud detection systems, order history and risk class of the type of goods. And not every PSP offers a comprehensive fraud prevention system (or exactly the one the merchants want for their store).Therefore, Payment a thoroughly complex matter.<h2>One PSP is often not enough</h2>If a retail company wants to expand into new markets, experience shows that the online store must then also offer the payment methods customers there prefer. However, if the current PSP does not offer these, payment proves to be a limiting factor for expansion. The company can now wait until the PSP also offers the desired methods. Or it has to sign another contract with another PSP, which then has to be connected to its own systems again. After all, no retail company will want to change its internal processes or put another store system into operation because of a PSP.However, with the additional contracts, accounts, connections and additional services, the complexity of the processes just mentioned increases.<h2>Payment Orchestration solves many problems</h2>

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This is exactly where Payment Orchestration comes in. On an abstract level, it is an intermediate layer between the processes of the store or the merchants and several payment services. In the most beautiful German language of software development, this is a &quot;stack&quot; of its own. Companies that master Payment Orchestration have framework agreements with various PSPs, acquirers, service providers for fraud prevention and may even have a small banking license. Payment Orchestration bundles the various services under one interface and enables access via a few interfaces. From the merchant&#039;s point of view, this results in a whole range of advantages:<ul><li>Starting in the backend, the complexity of payment reconciliation and reporting is reduced, especially when multiple stores in different target markets need to be managed.</li><li>The number of payment methods is greater than when working with only one PSP.</li><li>Payment Orchestration also allows active control of payment flows, e.g. towards a specific bank. This can be useful for liquidity planning.</li><li>The integration of new payment methods and complementary services is much faster.</li></ul>Thanks to this construct, the complexity of payment is reduced in many places and payment loses its limiting character in the development of new markets or the integration of additional payment methods. Payment orchestration is therefore not a new form of payment, but is becoming a necessity, especially for larger retail companies with correspondingly strong activities in digital commerce.

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knowledge

What is Payment Orchestration?

The many monetary transactions around the car are so deeply anchored in everyday life that hardly anyone really thinks about them. Only when it becomes a nuisance because the parking machine unfortunately does not accept card payments and the search for small change begins. A typical situation that In-Car-Payment wants to solve by having the car itself pay the fees due. But the concepts that some companies are working on go far beyond parking fees.<h2>What does in-car payment actually mean?</h2>The term in-car payment summarises various concepts that have in common that a payment is made directly from inside the vehicle. This can, but does not have to be initiated by the driver. Those who talk about in-car payment often mean the direct processing of payments between two technical systems, i.e. machine-to-machine payments (M2M payment).<h2>Typical scenarios for in-car payment</h2>There are already a number of very obvious application scenarios and use cases for in-car payment:Payment of parking fees: certainly one of the most obvious scenarios. It works similarly to contactless payment. When leaving the car park, the payment is automatically triggered and presented to the driver on the dashboard for authorisation.<ul><li>Contactless (electricity) refuelling: In-car payment could also make things much more convenient at the pump or charging station. </li><li>Toll payments: Road or bridge tolls are the exception in Germany. Abroad, things are different. And here, too, a transaction is necessary that could be handled by the car.</li></ul>Once a direct payment option is integrated into the vehicle, additional options for monetising offers and developing new business models arise from the perspective of manufacturers and service providers. Whether this will ultimately appeal to the drivers is another question entirely. In any case, in-car payment can form the basis for &quot;pay-per-use&quot; services. Ideas already exist, for example:<ul><li>Activation of additional functions within the vehicle, such as things that were previously purchased as a one-time &quot;extra&quot;.</li><li>Booking of infotainment packages, as with streaming services on the internet.</li><li>Upgrading map material for navigation or simply adding a navigation system for individual journeys.</li></ul>Driving a car can therefore become more expensive (or cheaper if various things only have to be paid for during use). And if the car becomes a wallet anyway, so to speak, it could also take over paying at the rest stop or fast food chain.<h2>Potentials of in-car payments in the B2B sector</h2>Refuelling or charging, parking and toll charges are incurred regardless of whether the vehicle is used privately or commercially. These charges are also regularly incurred by the cars of logistics, parcel and courier services, but entail an enormous administrative and accounting burden. This is so great that &quot;fleet management&quot; is a central task in the companies.In-car payment offers logistics companies the opportunity to have transactions carried out by the vehicle end up directly in billing systems and fleet management solutions without any major time delay. This explains why these companies are interested in the approach.

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Bezahlen an der Zapfsäule: Künftig direkt aus dem Auto

<h2>High willingness for in-car payments</h2>Are these all pious wishes and ideas of the industry and companies? MasterCard wanted to find out and commissioned GfK to conduct a survey. 46 percent of drivers in Germany can imagine making purchases and payments directly via the display in the vehicle. Those in favour of in-car payments would also welcome the application scenarios mentioned. For the majority, parking fees (74 percent) and the refuelling of cars or charging of electric vehicles (72 percent) are at the top of the wish list. Many can imagine paying for car washes (61 percent) or tolls (58 percent) by car.<h2>The technology is already there</h2>For in-car payment to become an everyday mass phenomenon, paying with and from the car must become just as natural as paying by card and smartphone at the checkout. Many technical components are already in place, but a few detailed questions still need to be clarified. For example, in order to check the authorisation for a subscription or to be able to quickly upgrade a card, the car must be able to go online at any time. And since there would be a lot of data to transfer here, it would have to be a fast connection. This is exactly what the 5G mobile radio standard promises, but it is not yet available nationwide. We are all familiar with wireless transmission technologies for payment information from everyday life. However, the NFC technology used in smartphones only bridges short distances. But with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or Long-Range RFID, there are already alternatives. In addition, it should of course be avoided that every petrol station chain cooks its own soup. Here, however, the large schemes and also PSP will certainly play an important role in ensuring compatible systems. Not to be forgotten is the aspect of security, after all, the car should only pay what the driver wants.The effort and energy that companies are putting into this topic should be worthwhile. After all, in-car payments are expected to generate a turnover of 537 billion euros per year by 2030. At least that is what the analysts of the Belgian Ptolemus Group predict. <h2>First projects for in-car payments</h2>The topic of in-car payments is still in its infancy: Mercedes-Benz Mobility and VISA have entered into a partnership to promote in-vehicle payments. Hyundai has created a payment for the Ioniq 5 model that allows drivers to pay not only for parking, but also for food. And Škoda has launched a &quot;Pay to Park&quot; service. So if car manufacturers, infrastructure providers (such as petrol stations) and payment providers can get together at one table, then the car will also take care of payment.<h2>Conclusion</h2>Even though in-car payment offers many possibilities for more comfort and convenience, it is a bet if and when it can be used by the masses. After all, it takes almost a decade for a new technology to have mass penetration, as people own their cars on average between 7 and 9 years. Moreover, there are doubts about whether the car will actually be used as a wallet for refuelling, parking fees and road tolls. Instead, the future of in-car payment may look more like vehicle commerce, the provision of value-added services such as insurance, roadside assistance, fleet management and financing.

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In-car payment: When the car pays for itself

On 17 November 22, the third Transactions took place in Offenbach (Frankfurt am Main) and Paymenttools was there for the first time as a sponsor. For us, it was not only an opportunity to raise awareness of our brand, but also a welcome opportunity to talk about the developments in the payment, banking and digitalisation industry.For one day, Transactions 22 discussed trends, developments and the current practice of digital ecosystems and all the players involved. The core topics were of course payment and banking, but also topics beyond the horizon, such as tech, digitalisation and the platform economy were discussed here.Top-class international speakers gave deep insights into innovative digitalisation projects, talked about successful implementation strategies, gave suggestions and presented unique solutions for the digital challenges of the payment and banking industry. And right in the middle: Paymenttools. But not just as a logo on a napkin, but as an active part of the discussion on stage. To this end, our CEO Salah Zayakh spoke on the panel of Sibylle Strack (Deutsche Bank BizBanking) with Hedi Krüger (Mastercard), Mirko Krauel (Otto Group), Mounaim Cortet (Innopay) and Julia Körffer-Höhne (Netflix) about the topic &quot;Payment in upheaval: What moves the financial industry&quot;.<h2>We have to think for the consumer</h2>The core topic of the panel was the question to what extent the payment industry has changed - what impact do topics such as &quot;buy now, pay later&quot;, Request2Pay or the digital euro have on payment transactions. Future developments in payment were also examined. &quot;We have to think for consumers - so that we help them and don&#039;t stand in their way,&quot; said Salah Zayakh at the panel on the question of where the industry is heading. This sentence reflects our value proposition of Paymenttools 1to1 and picks up on our customer focus.

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CEO Salah Zayakh at Transactions 22 (Photo: Julian Schulz)

Not only on, but also in front of the stage, we as Paymenttools were welcome talking guests and were able to hold some exciting conversations, e.g. in our own lounge, in the Paymenttools look &amp; feel. It was great fun for us. Special thanks go to Payment &amp; Banking for organising the event, which was really something to behold. We hope to be part of this community again in the future. Last but not least, we are also happy to have been nominated for Fintech of the Year, even if it didn&#039;t work out in the end. Congratulations to <a target="_blank" href="https://vermoegensheld.de">Vermögensheld</a>! By the way: You can also read about the event! Payment &amp; Banking has provided a<a target="_blank" href="https://www.transactions.io/live-blog"> live blog</a> about it. <h3>Impressions</h3>

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(Photo: Julian Schulz)

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(Photo: Maik Klotz)

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insight-paymenttools

Transactions 22: we were there!

You would think the Fintech industry is forward-looking. Taking a look at the numbers in regard to gender equality, you will see a different truth. Women in management positions make up only 14 percent! But what are the challenges in a male-dominated finance and technology world? As a startup, how can we create a space to overcome these hurdles and be an active part of social change?So, why do we care about this topic at Paymenttools? Evolving diversity creates an exciting work atmosphere, better teamwork, and increased employee retention and satisfaction. And incidentally, gender-diverse companies have a significantly higher probability of being more profitable than average (McKinsey). Missing skilled workers also affects the IT industry. Yet, in short jobs in our field are future-proof, lucrative, and career-enhancing.Why is gender diversity important in general? The female economy is the world’s largest and fastest growing market. A few numbers compiled by the Financial Alliance for Women: 80 percent of household purchasing decisions worldwide are made or influenced by women (Deloitte), 73 percent of women worldwide are unsatisfied with their banking services (BCG), and 68 percent of women-owned businesses in emerging markets have unmet credit needs (IFC). By the way, figures also support the following: Women are frugal, prudent in loans, and loyal customers. So why is an industry with women as core customers dominated by men? We want to see a fintech scene that is more feminine, or at least more welcoming to women, and we want to be a part of that.

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Quelle iStock Rudzhan Nagiev 

<h2>The status quo for Paymenttools</h2>In a nutshell: The proportion of women at Paymenttools is unsatisfactory. We know that, and we are working on it. Paymenttools has a total female quota of 40 percent. Especially as Scrum Masters and Product Owners, a large part of our meetings are led by women. At the management and leadership level, there are currently no women.That&#039;s exactly why this topic needs more space in the fintech industry. We would also like to increase the proportion of women among our techies from 4 percent at present. The igniting start is usually made by one&#039;s self-initiative.As an independent start-up within the REWE Group, we use resources of the entire group to help us get started and focus on our further development. The network f.ernetzt, for instance, offers women from all companies of REWE Groupa platform for exchange, support, and networking. The employee development programWomen&#039;s Drive is designed to help women to identify their career ambitions even better and motivates them to realize those.

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<h2>A women&#039;s network as a first important step</h2>However, in order to create an even more trusted safe space within Paymenttools, we’ve just founded our own women&#039;s network. Here we don’t only want to support each other professionally and privately, but also brainstorm for the future of our entire company:<ul><li>How do we make our industry more attractive?</li><li>How do we boost women within their fields?</li><li>How can we address needs to make female employees happy in the long term?</li><li>What initiatives can bring change, perhaps even outside of Paymenttools?</li></ul>With these small initial impulses, we are of course still at the very beginning, and it is important for us to learn as much as possible on our journey. And last but not least, there is a leverage in employer branding. Teams don&#039;t become diverse by simply saying we welcome everyone. We need to acknowledge that women experience different challenges and hurdles in some everyday situations and in their professional lives. Once you see that, you have to create supportive equal opportunity offerings.And we know that diversity needs to reach into many more areas. This is our first step.Little teaser on Part 2: We spoke with a few women from Paymenttools  that bring a variety of backgrounds, and asked them how they&#039;re doing. Also, we also spoke to our Talent Acquisition Manager Maximilian about challenges and ideas in recruiting. - Stay tuned!

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company

Women at Paymenttools - An Inventory (Part 1)

When I was a child, there was a small corner shop in our village. Everyone knew everyone else, which led to purchases often being put on the slate. The shopkeeper wrote the customer’s name and the value of the goods in a little book and the bill was settled at the end of the month. It was essentially the BNPL (buy now, pay later) scheme of the pre-Internet era. BNPL is now among the important concepts driving payment transactions. Who would ever have thought that putting goods ‘on the slate’ would one day be celebrated as an innovation?<h2>Payment – a luxury problem</h2>While 25 years ago people had to think about drawing out enough cash from the local bank or the ATM around the corner, today’s consumers have a luxury problem: there is not just one way to pay in-store or online, but a number of different ways. Besides payment in cash, consumers can pay using girocard, Mastercard, Visa, Amex, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, PAYBACK PAY and sometimes even the merchant’s own app. To put it briefly, there is the girocard and credit (or debit) card, app-based payment methods such as PAYBACK PAY or payment via dedicated merchant apps and mobile payment via Google, Apple and Samsung Pay. In other words, there’s no lack of options! However, the maxim ‘more is always better’ is actually a fallacy and a well-intentioned concept is unfortunately not always well implemented. The problem that all of these methods more or less have in common is the human factor. People want to shop, but they don’t want to pay. This doesn’t mean that people don’t want to spend money, but rather they prefer not to think about how to pay for the goods. In the best-case scenario the actual payment process is a completely neutral process, in the worst case people get annoyed because it takes so long or there are technical hurdles.

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<h2>Can’t get any more complicated than that? You bet it can!</h2>While the girocard and credit card work for contactless transactions, both cards can also be inserted into the terminal using the chip and PIN system. Depending on the setting, the PIN is then required to make contactless payments for amounts over 50 euros, while with chip and PIN it is needed immediately. A signature is sometimes also required. App-based payment methods work differently. A QR code or barcode is generated, which is then scanned by the checkout or vice versa. Either way, the user has to open the app, log in and manually start the payment process. Mobile payment using Google and Apple Pay works differently again. Here it is sufficient to hold the smartphone to the terminal and unlock it. The payment process is then essentially biometric and PIN entry at the terminal is not necessary because authentication has been performed on the smartphone. It is therefore hardly surprising when the odd consumer is somewhat overwhelmed by it all.<h2>Paymenttools: eliminating complexity</h2>Admittedly, we are not seeing desperate consumers curling up in a foetal position by the cash desk out of fear of not knowing how to pay. And the payment complexity described here does not require a degree in rocket science. We know from qualitative user research that it is nonetheless annoying and that is motivation enough for us to do something about it.At Paymenttools, we are convinced that the actual payment process, whether in-store or online, is a hygiene factor and should be as invisible as possible. Our mission is to simplify payment transactions and ultimately eliminate complexity – for consumers and our merchants. We achieve this by working with our merchants to offer the ideal mix of payment methods for consumers and ensure all transactions are processed smoothly. Even though it may still be a long way off, we want to make payment even smoother, even more invisible and even more inconspicuous in order to give our merchants’ consumers and customers an optimal shopping experience. Just like in the corner shop all those years ago. As if that weren’t enough, we are focusing on ways of offering merchants services that can help their businesses to flourish. Incidentally, ‘we’ refers to the team at Paymenttools. #wesolvepayn

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Why we want to make ‘payment’ less complicated

Spring is just around the corner and there is a sweet scent in the air! The evolving pandemic situation is allowing us to meet up again away from Google Meet, Zoom and Co and we are slowly daring to expose our skin to real daylight again. In compliance with the important hygiene protocols, more and more colleagues are venturing out of their home office and real people can once again be seen in some of our offices. We are a ‘pandemic-born company’ and we have learned how to work well together in the digital world over recent months. All the same, there are limits and even though many things can be sorted out via Slack and Google Meet or by email or phone, it is a different story for certain matters. Especially when it comes to working in teams on a personal level, it is always helpful to meet ‘in the flesh’.

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Paymenttools can be met in person!

<h2>2022 we are at home outside</h2>We have undertaken to actively go out in 2022 and get together more as a team, but also meet other people in the industry. Where better to do this than at events – and we are happy to be already actively taking part in some of them! Events are really important to us because they help us to find new talent and generate interest in our company. We can meet potential new customers in person and show them what we can do and we can talk to our partners about how we can work together even better in the future.<h2>JavaLand in Brühl</h2>Anyone who wishes to meet us will have plenty of opportunity to do so over the coming weeks. We will kick off this year with JavaLand. From 15 to 17 March, you can meet us in Brühl on the grounds of Phantasialand. You can expect two fascinating days filled with talks, community activities, workshops, idea sharing and networking on the subject of Java. The traditional training day is held on the third day of the conference at JavaLand, giving you an opportunity to really consolidate your learning. We are looking forward to being in the thick of things, both as an exhibitor and on the stage, with Christina Hartmann as a speaker!Interested in meeting us there? Speak to us! We promise that you can’t miss us.<h2>Cirque de Payer, the Payment Exchange 22 in Berlin</h2>We move onto Berlin at the end of March. As sponsor of one of the most important events in the payment industry, Payment Exchange 2022, we are looking forward to two days of talks and knowledge transfer. Here, too, we will not only be in front of the stage, but also on it with managing director Jens Kohnen and marketing manager Maik Klotz. We are looking forward to being a sponsor at Payment Exchange, which is being held under the motto ‘Cirque de Payer’ this year!<h2>EHI Payment Kongress in Bonn</h2>In May, you can also meet us at the EHI Payment Congress 2022. The traditional payment conference is taking place on 3 and 4 May in the old government building in Bonn. We will be there and not just to check and see whether the federal eagle is still hanging on the wall! Fancy getting to know Paymenttools? Anyone who is interested in meeting us at one of the events is welcome to speak to us! We look forward to meeting you! Events where you can meet us over the coming weeks and months:<ul><li>JavaLand (15 to 17 March) in Brühl.</li><li>Payment Exchange 22 (31 March to 1 April) in Berlin. </li><li>EHI Payment Congress 22 (3 to 5 May) in Bonn. </li></ul>

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Meet and Greet with Paymenttools

Although there are already plenty of payment service providers, when you hear that an international retail group like the REWE Group is moving into the payment market, you sit up and listen. In the interview the two managing directors of Paymenttools, Jens Kohnen and Salah Zayakh, provide insights into the 2021 start-up, explain how they came up with the idea for it and talk about what the future holds.Jens Kohnen is a business administration graduate who quickly strayed from the not particularly interesting theoretical path to embark on a journey through the world of payments. For many years Jens was a management consultant, helping major corporates such as banks to gain a better understanding of payment transactions. He also helped them to design those transactions, to develop new business models and, more importantly, to build and optimise payment concepts. In recent years he has played an instrumental role in setting up a number of spin-offs and new ventures. Today, he manages the business of Paymenttools with Salah. Jens is a mountain biking enthusiast.Salah Zayakh has degrees in mathematics and IT, and a love of strategy, technology and entrepreneurship. He combined REWE digital expertise with the REWE Group’s finance department know-how, which is what motivated him to create the Paymenttools start-up at the beginning of 2021. Prior to that he held various roles at companies in different industries, where he developed strategies, organisational structures and digital products, including e-discovery, e-commerce, fulfilment and big data platforms. He enjoys sailing in his spare time, and he’ll rarely refuse a game of chess.<h3>Last year Paymenttools was established as a REWE Group subsidiary. How did you come up with the idea?</h3>Salah: Diamonds are formed by intense pressure and good ideas are formed under extreme conditions. That’s pretty much what happened with Paymenttools. You could say that the foundations for Paymenttools were laid at high sea under the most adverse of conditions – in the midst of a storm. Perhaps we were in port in calmer waters and the weather was better, but everything else is true. Some colleagues and I were on a sailing trip, taking part in a regatta on a 50-foot boat at Flensburger Förde between Germany and Denmark, in October 2019. Living together at close quarters the crew of experts from various disciplines were able to share inspiration and ideas on revolutionising payments in the REWE Group.It wasn’t the first time we’d considered similar ideas at the REWE Group but after the regatta, in 2020, we brought together a small and motivated team of volunteers to rethink the strategy and pad it out with details.There are three reasons why it made sense to start up Paymenttools.<ul><li>Expertise: We’ve been processing cashless POS payment transactions in our own network and systems since 2012. In recent years the REWE Group has set up successful new companies such as <a href="https://fulfillmenttools.com/">fulfillmenttools</a> and <a href="https://commercetools.com/">commercetools</a>, and we’ve already established a robust start-up culture in the organisation.</li><li>Ecosystem: The REWE Group operates 15,000 stores in various sectors across 22 European countries, where it cultivates very close relationships with its customers. Thanks to a vast global partner network, the REWE Group is part of a large-scale ecosystem that processed over a billion transactions in Germany alone in the year 2020.</li><li>Marktreife: Our high customer contact frequency gives us a precise knowledge of our customers’ behaviour – and not just their payment behaviour. We can honestly say that, today, we aren’t just payment market experts, we’re one of its architects. Cashless payments will continue to grow, which is why now is the right time to take the next logical strategic step.</li></ul>

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Salah Zayakh von Paymenttools: "Wir haben die Chance, Payment aus der Händlerperspektive neu zu denken"

If you consider all three together – expertise, ecosystem and market maturity – it’s obvious why we founded Paymenttools. We have the opportunity to reinvent payments from the retailer’s perspective yet remain focused on our customers. The fact that we’ve been able to win internal and external customers for Paymenttools in our very first year shows that we’re on the right track.<h3>What segment does Paymenttools operate in and what are your future plans?</h3>Jens: The name is a pretty good clue that we operate in the payment transactions segment. We want to offer our customers a one-stop-shop payment service with Paymenttools. Starting with the operation of networks and modern pay terminals at the stores through digital e-commerce payment solutions, we want to cater to all aspects of the payment transactions market. We believe that the customer experience and the payment options that are available to customers will change significantly over coming years, and we want be an active contributor to these developments. We’re also working on a new payment solution, a Payment Operating System, with the help of REWE Group customers and colleagues. It will serve as the central payment hub for retailers.We don’t believe in limits and we’re convinced that seamless payment transactions across all channels, from the POS at the store to the e-commerce online check-out, are the way forward. Our omnichannel approach will make it possible to process transactions in all channels via one single payment platform. That will allow us to cater to all existing and future business models and to optimise both the transaction costs and the technical integration.

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Jens Kohnen über die Zukunft im Payment: "davon überzeugt, dass der Zahlungsverkehr in allen Kanälen funktionieren muss"

Summing up, I’d say that we’re a technology company ‘for all things payment’ with a Payment Operating System that unites all commonly used payment methods for all channels. But that isn’t the end of the road for us. We’re just getting started. We’re excited about cryptocurrency developments, and about how we can use consumer insights to develop payment transactions that deliver value to our customers. In other words, there’s no lack of ideas! <h3>Yet another payment service provider? Why does the sector need Paymenttools?</h3>Jens: When Salah first told me about the idea I asked myself the same question. Why do we need another payment service provider? The market has been pretty saturated for a good many years and it’s very competitive right now. A lot of capital is being pumped into the market, new start-ups are attempting to revolutionise it and existing players are regrouping. So it’s a challenge.But, when you take a look behind the scenes, you see that it makes a lot of sense: Through our parent company the REWE Group we have first-hand experience of where existing retail payment solutions work – or don’t work. Let’s take the example of a delivery service or quick commerce (Flink, 10-minute deliveries in the city via app): These companies currently use e-commerce solutions, although their transactions are face-to-face. The same applies to new concepts such as self-checkouts or checkout-free stores. I think the payment industry is currently undergoing a significant change that is associated with a great deal of potential for innovation. <h3>So it’s about more than just payments. How does Paymenttools differ from other payment service providers?</h3>Salah: Primarily in terms of our DNA. We know what the retail and tourism industries need and we have a profound connection with our customers. How often do people visit their bank? How often do we take out insurance? How often do we buy a new car? On the other hand, we eat several times a day and our customers visit our stores daily. In 2021 alone we recorded a billion customer contacts. That’s unprecedented in the payment transactions sector. And, as a network operator we have many years of market experience. Our platform is contemporary, cloud-native, microservice-based and API-first. Our network is organised in accordance with the principles of technology first, product driven and, above all, customer centricity.Jens: I definitely agree. We have a very retailer-oriented payment mindset. As a cooperative society with many different retail models we have food retail experience and customers who visit our supermarkets on a regular basis. And in the tourism segment, where there are different business models, we are experiencing many new innovations first hand and know exactly what the payment challenges are. These challenges are our primary motivation. One last thing: when we talk about retail, we’re also referring to e-commerce.<h3>What special challenges have you encountered up to now?</h3>Salah: One of the main challenges we face is sourcing talented individuals to join our team. The technology labour market was already hit by shortages before the pandemic arrived, and then it got worse. Our ‘Paymenttools’ brand is also still young, so it isn’t very well known in the market. And the switch from office to remote working is still a challenge for us. We’re tackling all these challenges by putting people first and doing everything we can to ensure satisfied customers, employees and partnersJens: We’re a start-up, so our name isn’t widely known and the people who do know us tend to place us as the REWE Group’s internal payment services provider. However, we have managed to build a lot of trust over the past few months and we’ve gained our first external customers. Now we want to repay them for that confidence.<h3>2021 is over. What are your positive and perhaps not-so-positive take-aways for this year? What’s on the agenda for 2022?</h3>Jens: Last year, as a new start-up, we grew our team to almost 50 people despite the pandemic. Obviously, COVID-19 hasn’t made collaboration easy, but on the whole we’re satisfied with the way our company and our products have developed. We’re also embracing the work models that were introduced during the pandemic as an opportunity because we believe that distributed teams will continue to be necessary in the future. Looking back over the past year that strategy worked very well, and we’re confident that we can continue on the same path this year.Salah: Starting up a company is tough. In a pandemic it’s even tougher. But, as I said at the outset, diamonds are formed under intense pressure. We’ve got ambitious plans for 2022. We’re expanding our top team of experts and optimising our processes. We’ll be delivering an excellent service to our partners and customers to increase their satisfaction and build our market reputation. We want to drive the development of digital, contactless payment processes with cards, smartphones and wearables across all channels. When people think about payments they often associate them with a complicated process of long queues, searching in purses and wallets for small change, entering incredibly long credit card numbers and addresses, or coming up with the hundredth secure password. And then there’s always the annoying question at the end: “Do you have a bonus card?” We want to eliminate this stress for consumers. In other words, “We want to remove the pain from paying”.

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Paymenttools: more than a payment service provider. An interview with the management team

You know the story. Every day you run into people in the office, at Google Meet or on LinkedIN and you think: Who the heck is that? That&#039;s why we&#039;re introducing the people who make Paymenttools what it is: a start-up with a soul.<h2>Eight questions for</h2>Lars Hofmann, 44 Jahre, Senior Sales Manager at Paymenttools<h2>Lars, since when have you been working at Paymenttools and why?</h2>I joined Paymenttools in September 2021. Of course, the first talks started much earlier and I was skeptical at first when I heard that they wanted to build a new payment service provider. However, I quickly realized that it was not just a crazy idea, but that the whole topic had a lot going for it and, above all, that there was an incredibly motivated team behind it.  Since then, I&#039;ve been on fire and didn&#039;t need much convincing in the end. Now I&#039;m working on the &quot;one-stop PSP&quot; mission at full speed<h2>As Senior Sales Manager, you are responsible for sales. What is important and what is particularly important to you?</h2>As the interface between technology and finance departments, payment is a sensitive area, and trust therefore plays an essential role here. Providing the right advice to partners and coordinating the scope of services, in addition to the terms and conditions, are important points that are decisive in solution sales. The greatest compliment for me is when a partner tells me, &quot;I will gladly do business with you again at any time.<h2>Paymenttools aims to rethink payments. Why do you need to do that?</h2>Even if it sounds a bit nerdy, payment is dynamic, sexy and innovative in my eyes. At least when you get it right, and this is where Paymenttools come into the game. Shopping habits have changed massively in recent years, driven first by digitalization and not least by the pandemic development. Even in Germany, customers are paying less and less in cash and using a variety of different payment methods at the POS and in e-commerce. In my view, payment transactions have become more complex for customers and retail partners. In addition, new players are emerging, existing players are merging or disappearing, some are experiencing a second spring, and others are walking through history as the undead. Ongoing technological advances also mean that entirely new options are on the horizon that could impact all of our payment behaviors. In short, there is a dramatic amount happening in payments right now, and in an environment that is changing so fast and so much, you naturally want to influence the direction.<h2>When you look at your own professional career, where did you really miss the mark?</h2>A long time ago, at the beginning of my professional career in the payment industry, I once believed that customers and their payment behavior could be controlled effectively and that mobile payments would quickly become established. Since then, more than 10 years have passed and it unfortunately took a pandemic to slowly move transaction numbers in the right direction.<h2>Where can we find you when you are on vacation?</h2>Mostly far away in another culture. In any case in the sun, mostly at, on or under water. I love diving for my life and am anything but a shade plant.<h2>Organization is everything, or only the genius masters chaos? How do you organize your everyday work? </h2>My working day is perfectly structured and organized, until the first customer phone call and then reality rules. Fortunately, in an agile start-up like Paymenttools, that&#039;s how it should be ;-)

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Lars gadgets

<h2>What gadgets do you need to survive on the job? Lets take a look in your bag</h2>Does coffee count as a gadget? Because I need it like an engine needs oil. There are also a few things that are indispensable in my life:<ol start="1"><li>My smartphone, an iPhone 12 (are there other smartphones).</li><li>Solid headphones. Since I&#039;m not that careful with my stuff, I opted for the Jabra Elite.</li><li>My Macbook Air</li><li>Credit cards. I pay everywhere with card, accordingly I have many cards. Even a girocard.</li><li>A notepad</li></ol><h2>Who would you like to have an organic grape soda with?</h2>Dr. Snuggles or Elon Musk. For me Dr. Snuggles is cooler because I am a child of the 80s.

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team

We are proud to present: Lars Hofmann

We spend a not insignificant part of our lives working, and that&#039;s not always fun. And even though a work-life balance now plays a significant role in most people&#039;s selection of a job, one in four doesn&#039;t get along with the job environment and corporate culture. Employees want to experience a sense of purpose in their job and not feel that their monthly salary is a pain in the ass. Money is important, of course, but not everything. Respect, a positive job environment, a good team and fun at work are important factors for an optimal work model.<h2>Showing respect is more than just an invitation to a Christmas party</h2>Showing respect is not a cuddle factor, but an important basis and can be expressed in a variety of ways. One of them is trust. We are not talking about basic trust, i.e. trust that an employee will do the work assigned and come to work on time, but trust that employees will make the right decisions for the company.This is where it gets complicated, because the sooner you have the subjective feeling that you have a say, the easier it is to fall into the mode: &quot;Trust is good. Control is better&quot;. To clarify this, an example. When a worker paints a wall, most people quickly come to the conclusion that they can judge it well. Painting a wall is not a complex task, so a judgment is easy. In the auto garage, it takes a great technical understanding to really be able to judge whether the repair that was done was necessary or correct. So we tend to have a say in fields where, on the one hand, the results are visible (a white-painted wall) or the task to be done does not seem particularly complex. But anyone who has actually painted a wall knows how complicated that can be with all the associated tasks, such as removing old wallpaper, filling the wall, wallpapering and taping.

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Appreciation is not a cuddle factor, but an important foundation in the team

In a generic sense, this can be applied to many areas. A software developer is more likely to be trusted for lack of knowledge than a screen designer. The work of a software developer is invisible and supposedly more complex than the creation of a graphic design. The problem is that people start to categorize employees and to judge the results of their work on the basis of a more or less existing half-knowledge. This is usually not based on suspicion, but on the problem that there are fewer people who can judge the code of a software than there are people who believe that they can evaluate a website, for example. The extreme form is known in psychology as the Dunning-Kruger effect, the cognitive distortion in the self-concept of incompetent people to overestimate their own knowledge and ability.<h2>The job environment is the ecosystem in which we work</h2>A government agency has different framework conditions than a corporation. A corporation, in turn, has different conditions than a start-up. A start-up works completely differently than a family business, and a freelancer has completely different working models. None of this is bad or good. An employee who needs a lot of structure for themselves may be better off in a corporation or government agency than in a start-up. Here it is important to make it clear in which area one is on the move and it becomes complicated above all when a company or the employee puts on a face that has nothing to do with reality. No one, neither the company nor the employee, does themselves a good turn by selling themselves as something they are not. In the end, unfulfilled expectations lead to frustration that can only be sorted out with difficulty. A fish feels bad on land, and not every job environment suits the employee. The more the individual needs of the employee match the expectations of the company, the more confetti and glitter. Since our headquarters are located right in the heart of the carnival stronghold of Cologne, you can imagine what we think of confetti. A lot.<h2>A bit of fun is a must</h2>Life is not a pony yard and you can&#039;t always be on the rainbow, but you can try to get closer to it. You may not be able to dictate how much fun you have on the job, but you can encourage it by creating the right conditions. Agile working, decent work tools, and large scope for decision-making are fun and help to motivate and promote innovation. Successful companies usually offer their employees precisely<h2>Our claim</h2>We at Paymenttools love challenges. This applies to our desire to change the world of payment transactions sustainably as well as to our claim to value the daily commitment of our employees and to offer a good ecosystem in which it is fun to work together on the topics as a team. Because without a good team, a company is nothing.

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work-culture

work.work.work.fun.work.work

Yet another start-up with its own blog. The question of &quot;why&quot; automatically arises. Why yet another blog, with even more self-congratulation and smoothly polished buzzwords? Legitimate doubts.Don&#039;t worry, we don&#039;t have the time and energy to polish every word and constantly give ourselves a thumbs up because we&#039;re working on something great. What we are working on and why we are doing it, we would like to talk about on a regular basis. Unpolished, that&#039;s a promise.Instead, we want to take our audience, you, on a journey with us. Whether you are interested in our solutions or our company, we hope you will be inspired by our enthusiasm. In this sense: welcome to the Paymenttools blog.<h2>The world of payments</h2>Not many people are happy to pay for something, because it always leads to less of their own money. Even less people want to think about how to pay. They prefer to pay simply and quickly, and in Germany they still like to pay in cash. The options for paying, whether at the POS (Point Of Sale), i.e. the store checkout, or online in e-commerce, are diverse, to say the least. Girocard, credit card, Apple or Google Pay or Paypal - there is no shortage of ways to get rid of your money. What causes confusion among customers is no less challenging for retailers, because they don&#039;t want to offer too many payment methods, nor the wrong ones. The right mix of payment methods is something like the holy grail of the industry, because what is good for customers is not necessarily the same for retailers, because every payment has to be processed in the end and there are not only complex processes behind it, but also costs. Relationship status: It&#039;s complicated.

<h2>Can payments be done any other way?</h2>Rhetorical question, of course it can be done in other ways. But another way is not necessarily better, neither for customers nor for retailers, whether they are brick-and-mortar or online. In recent years, we have seen a number of efforts to revolutionize payment transactions in Germany or Europe. Most of these efforts wanted to start this revolution either without the customers or without the retailers and this is where we think the mistake lies. We at Paymenttools do not believe in a revolution, do not believe in reinventing the wheel. But we can do it better and that is what we are working on with a motivated team of first-class developers, product people, payment experts and people who simply want to make a difference.<h2>Payments can be done differently!</h2>Paymenttools was not founded in a mountain village in the Andes, not in Silicon Valley by the guy who shook Steve Jobs&#039; hand or by a secret consortium. Paymenttools was founded by REWE Group. The retail group that plays a role in the world of twelve million customers every day. The group that is represented in 21 countries and employs 384,000 people. In other words, we at Paymenttools, with REWE Group at our side, believe we have a good understanding of how payments work and what the needs of retailers and customers are. In a now fully digitized world, where the boundaries between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail are blurred, we need a payment system that can cope with this constantly evolving change. We believe in a payment OS, an operating system for payment transactions that bundles all services. A system that is not only easy for retailers to put into operation, but also much easier to administer. A system that can be easily extended and provides answers to the most important questions, resulting in customers having to worry less about which is the best payment method.We are looking forward to our task. We are Paymenttools. We solve payn. ♥️

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We are here to stay