Payments firm GoCardless names its new president

Payment processing firm GoCardless, which works with peer-to-peer lending platforms such as Lendwise, has appointed Paul Stoddart as president.

Stoddart was previously president of Mastercard’s new payment platforms, executive chairman of Vocalink and a member of the Mastercard management committee.

Prior to Vocalink he was co-head of corporate finance at Barclaycard and also spent 10 years at NatWest where he held a number of senior roles including in their merchant acquiring and e-commerce business, Worldpay.

At GoCardless he will be responsible for the strategy, sales, product, marketing and customer teams, with the aim of accelerating growth.

GoCardless, which has also worked with former P2P platform Funding Circle, will use Stoddart’s expertise as it focuses on account-to-account payments. The firm plans to release its variable recurring payment feature shortly in the UK and expand its one-off payments product across Europe.

Read more: Payments firm GoCardless valued at £1.5bn after new funding round

Read more: New ESG hires at fintech payment provider GoCardless

“This year marks an inflection point at GoCardless as we expand beyond recurring payments to serve a broader range of customer segments and payment use cases,” said Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and chief executive at GoCardless.

“Having the right people to lead us on this journey is critical as we scale our business, develop new products and services with open banking and explore new markets.

“Paul has a unique depth of experience across both card and non-card payments and is well-positioned to help us seize the opportunities that will make GoCardless a force to be reckoned with in the payments space.”

Read more: European venture capital firms focus on fintechs

“GoCardless is in an incredibly exciting place right now,” said Stoddart.

“Hiroki and the team have already built a successful business by solving real customer problems.

“They have the foundations of a global bank pay network that will go from strength to strength as more businesses and people embrace account-to-account payments from bank debit to open banking-enabled payments.

“We will continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in payments.

“In this new role at GoCardless I’ll have the opportunity to be part of the team building the new generation of payment solutions to do just that, with customer needs at the forefront.”