Interview: Mohamed Mousa, VP-Euronet Worldwide and chairman – Euronet ME

Can you outline the unique solutions that you offer? 
Euronet Worldwide is an industry leader in processing secure electronic financial transactions. The company offers payment and transaction processing solutions to financial institutions, retailers, service providers and individual consumers. These services include comprehensive ATM, POS and card outsourcing services, card issuing and merchant acquiring services, software solutions, cash-based and online-initiated consumer-to-consumer and business-to-business money transfer services, and electronic distribution of digital media and prepaid mobile phone time.

Euronet has built a unique platform of networks that drives transactions in the quickly evolving global payments landscape through diverse cash-based and digitally driven services for consumers and businesses. Combined with our networks’ worldwide reach and real-time power, these capabilities provide us – and our customers – a presence in every level of the global payments value chain across countries worldwide.

As of July 2021, this extensive payment network includes 46,246 ATMs, approximately 375,000 EFT-POS terminals and a growing portfolio of outsourced debit and credit card services which are under management in 61 countries; card software solutions; a prepaid processing network of approximately 748,000 POS terminals at about 333,000 retailer locations in 60 countries; and a global money transfer network of roughly 490,000 sites serving 160 countries.

How long have you been with the company? Also, can you elaborate on its presence in the MEAP region?
Having been with Euronet for 20 years, I have been privileged to launch operations in Africa and the Middle East in 2001 and 2005, respectively, and in Pakistan in 2011.

What are the main challenges being faced within the payments industry? 
The payments industry is facing multiple challenges, including uncertainty, regulations, fraud and disruption. The pandemic has affected the ability of institutions to adopt short, medium, and long term plans and altered the way the whole industry is operating. On the positive side, it has accelerated the rollout of digitisation. We have seen giant steps taken in these directions, with some projects being completed within a year that might have taken decades without the pandemic.

At the centre of the speed and scale of this digital transformation are fintech companies, which are moving with giant steps to meet consumer demands for real-time payments and other payment services. In addition to the challenges created by these rapid changes, regulations imposed by the government to streamline the relationships between providers and consumers to ensure the security of operations and to legalise the digital transformation. Finally, all the new processes and increased dependency on digital operations has increased the possibility for fraud. Fraudsters are now highly sophisticated and complete business units are being built within the payment industry to fight the issue through new processes and techniques.

Every business or sector has been affected in some way or the other by the ongoing pandemic. How did Euronet Worldwide manage to maintain business continuity during this crucial period? 
Like all other companies worldwide, Euronet was affected by the pandemic. At the same time, the company took a very positive approach and adopted an expansion strategy where it looked at these challenges as opportunities. Since day one of the pandemic, it started with taking a conscious call not to let go of any of its employees worldwide. Instead, the company looked for opportunities to acquire companies to complement its portfolio and expanded its ATM/EFT business to enter new countries and deploy additional ATMs.

As a result of the accelerated dependency in the market for payments digitisation during the pandemic, Euronet continued its focus on digital products, accelerating its deployment of new products, resulting in record sales for its epay business segment and money transfer segment. Also, Euronet accelerated its focus on its state-of-the-art payments software, REN, which fulfils the needs of the fintech sector and real-time payments deployment worldwide. By adopting these strategies, Euronet has effectively managed the pandemic situation despite the challenges.

What makes Euronet Worldwide stand apart from the rest of the competitors in the market? 
Euronet is one of the few players in the world that is a true one-stop shop for any financial institution, providing it with everything it needs, including software, EFT outsourcing, digital products and contents, money transfer systems, ATM/POS networks around the world that can accept its cards, and unique access to 3.6 billion bank accounts where funds can be sent and received. Furthermore, Euronet has offices in over 60 countries and is one of the few financial providers in the world that uses the same software that it licences to customers.

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