Currencycloud appoints new CEO and CTO
Currencycloud, the fintech company that helps companies and businesses to launch services for currency conversions and cross-border payments, has announced the appointment the industry veteran Mark Ledsham as the new COO.
In addition to this, another veteran, Neil Drennan, has also joined the company as the new CTO. It may be noted that Mark was the CEO of XE.com before joining Currencycloud while Neil was the CTO at 10X Future Technologies. The pair of industry veterans are expected to help scale the company’s infrastructure and help it to expand globally. They would also be expected to lead the new strategy and build for the Currencycloud platform in the coming months.
Mike Laven, CEO, Currencycloud, said, “Mark and Neil are top-quality talents and we’re extremely pleased to welcome them aboard. These new roles will allow the business to focus on key areas of development as we aim to continue our ambitious growth plans.”
It may also be noted that Visa had recently acquired Currencycloud for $983 million and it was clear at that time that there would be a shakeup at the top as the new owner, Visa, would like to bring in old hands with a lot of industry experience to align the company growth and expansion into Visa’s overall strategy for the industry. Visa and Currencycloud had already been working closely together as each of them was helping the other in moving funds across borders and with a minimum of hassle and charges as well and this acquisition was expected to improve this partnership further.
Cross border payments have always been a bottleneck for many retail and institutional clients and over the last couple of years, this industry has faced a lot of disruption through the introduction of crypto and other forms of digital payments which have made the cross border payments much more secure, faster and smoother for all involved. The costs involved in this movement of funds have also been brought down to a large extent during this period which has also helped to reduce the barriers of entry for other players into this industry. This has placed established players like Visa and Currencycloud under a lot of pressure to partner together and upgrade their systems and infrastructure to keep pace with the competition.
