Vibrant’s new tech solutions changes the payment market för SME businesses
As a small and medium sized business owner, you need a universal payment solution that is flexible and reliable – something Danish fintech company Vibrant is all about. With their technology, an Android device can be turned into a contactless payment terminal that easily integrates with other systems. Their vision is to roll out the technology across Europe with the help of Visa’s global payment network.
New consumer behaviours have emerged in the wake of the pandemic. For example, the share of Visa transactions that are contactless in Sweden has increased by 20 percent between June 2020 and June 2021.1 As the payment market changes and evolves, it is important that small and medium sized businesses continue to be given the opportunity to offer flexible payment solutions that customers like using.
This lies at the heart of tech entrepreneur Kasper Krog’s corporate commitment. In the spring of 2020, he was sitting in a café in the Danish city of Århus and noticed how the cashiers took payments. First, the barista had to calculate what everything cost before the total was keyed into a card terminal.
He then decided to make it easier for business owners to charge for their goods and services. To get a more comprehensive picture, Kasper visited about 50 traders in Århus to better understand their situation.
“As a small and medium sized business owner, it’s absolutely crucial that everything works and that your income ends up in your account within a reasonable period of time. But it can take time before you get help with a faulty card terminal,” explains Kasper.
When Kasper heard about Near Field Communication (NFC), which is installed as a chip in today’s payment cards, through his fintech network he began to develop an app that enables merchants to receive contactless card payments with Android devices.
Together with the team from Visa, we can do things that are truly innovative and change the payment market.
- Kasper Korg, Business Owner at Vibrant
“Our competitors struggle to bring hardware and software together. Vibrant focuses entirely on software and developing it. This is a huge advantage and is more in line with how we believe the payment market will work in the future” says Kasper.
A collaboration was launched with Visa early in the Vibrant story, which Kasper describes as a “match made in heaven”. The companies share the same vision of building infrastructure that delivers flexible and smart payments for customers. Visa’s global network also creates opportunities for the company to grow and expand its offering to customers in the European market.
“The support from Visa’s team in the Nordics and Baltics has been phenomenal from day one. We feel confident that we’ve found a global partner with insights about each individual market that can also help us scale up our fantastic product. Together, we can do things that are truly innovative and change the payment market.”
The next step for Vibrant is to establish itself in more markets. In addition to Denmark, the company is already present in Spain, Sweden, Norway and Cyprus, where a law has been introduced that all merchants must be able to accept card payments. A similar trend is underway in more European countries, which opens up opportunities for Vibrant’s payment solution.
“We don’t charge a fixed fee for the technology itself; fees are only incurred for transactions. This means that our business model depends on us delivering when our customers are doing well. Together with Visa, with their expertise and knowledge, we want to continue to help small and medium sized businesses to get paid for the services they provide. This means that we can continue to have a glass of wine with our friends or buy bread from our local bakery.”
1 VisaNet transaction data, Europe, June 2020-21
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