Payment Expert’s ID Check: Payments Professionals offers insight from industry leaders and experts on how they got their start in the financial industry, from their early years in education, to how they have been able to climb the corporate ladder.
This week, Matija Novak, Head of Operations, Neo, emphasises why the financial landscape is a lesson in understanding and keeping up-to-date with the latest innovations and regulations, no matter if it as early as understanding Bitcoin in 2013, or implementing ISO20022 last year.
Where did you go to university and what did you study? What impact did this have on your current journey?
I was born in Slovenia and completed a degree in money and finance at the University of Ljubljana’s School of Economics and Business. Having always wanted to go abroad, I later took part in an international exchange with Toulouse Business School at its Barcelona campus.
This experience was pivotal and where I first developed my interest in fintech, which was a fairly new industry in 2014. More than a decade on, I’m still in Barcelona and working in the industry!
What first drew you to the payments industry and why have you stayed?
It was largely coincidental. I started an internship at UniCredit Bank in the international payments department and was amazed to learn how the payment industry operates behind the scenes.
An ordinary user goes online to their banking interface, inputs the account number and BIC code, clicks “pay”, and there the story ends. But behind all this, there is a whole world of corresponding banking, different formatting and payment systems.
Another factor that attracted me to the industry was that one of the banks’ clients was a large crypto exchange. This was back in 2013, when very few people understood what a Bitcoin was. I became interested in how crypto could fit into the payments ecosystem and the problems it could solve.
Are there any lessons from your first role in the industry which you still draw on?
That no matter how mature the industry is, it never stops evolving. The exchange of money for goods is thousands of years old, yet the internet has fundamentally reshaped how it works.
Payments continue to innovate, develop and improve, whether that be in terms of new features and formats rolled out by SWIFT or the emergence of assets such as CBDCs. That’s why one of the very first lessons I learned – and keep in mind to this day – is that we must keep pace with innovation or we risk being left behind.
When was your first big break in the industry? Why was this such a significant moment for you?
My first role in the industry was as a back-office associate at a Barcelona-based startup that offered a software-as-a-service (Saas)currency management automation software. This gave me my first insight into the hectic world of startups, which can be very chaotic and challenging, but also provided excellent opportunities to grow professionally and personally.
Over time, I was trusted to build and lead a back-office team, primarily focused on payments. The role gave me valuable managerial experience and allowed me to see first-hand the organisational shifts that occur when a company grows from 20 people to over 100.
Was there a moment you faced in the industry which really challenged you? How did you overcome this?
One of my greatest challenges was my initial role at Neo, which I joined pre-launch. As with every early-stage startup, roles change considerably in a relatively short space of time, and this was the case for me.
In the beginning, my role was to design operational and process workflows that sit behind Neo. This was challenging because nothing had been built yet. That required a lot of product-oriented thinking, testing and iteration, often mapping ideas visually long before they were built.
Once we secured our payment licence, the next challenge was to work on the payment infrastructure itself and connectivity to SWIFT.
I wish I could say the rest was history, but the next big challenge was to find customers for the Neo platform. At the end of the day, they are the ones who validated whether what we built brought value to them. Once that was proven, we could focus on expanding functionality and continuing to innovate.
What are some of the skills you deem essential to starting in your industry and how have yours developed over the years?
Adaptability is key for payments professionals (and the firms they work for). It is vital to be able to absorb new developments quickly and translate them into real-world solutions for clients.
The recent ISO 20022 migration is a great example of why agility is also essential. The ones who could not yet migrate to the new format are facing challenges and falling behind, whereas the ones who did can take advantage of the features that this new format brings, such as structured fields, richer format and compliance improvements.
Who was your biggest role model – inside or outside of your industry – who continues to inspire you in your current career?
I don’t have a single role model. Different people excel in different areas. Some are experts in what they do professionally, some in dedicating their lives to help other people, and some are amazing parents or friends.
I try to learn from all of them, taking notes along the way and creating my own “collage” of what a role model looks like.
If you didn’t work in the industry, what other career option would you have pursued or would have loved to
Very cliché, but I would have loved to have been a professional football player or even a referee. It’s a sport I’ve always loved and played.
However, I am lucky that football is also a part of my working life. Neo is the official currency exchange partner for Wolverhampton Wanderers (Wolves) and Club Brugge KV, and we support these clubs in mastering the complexities of cross-border payments, from pricing to the speed of settlement.
Lastly, what is some advice you would give to an aspiring person looking to get a start in your respective industry?
Be curious, ask questions and go the extra mile. Many people are content to follow processes and do things because they were told to do so, but if you put in the extra effort to understand how things really work, you will have a sure footing to challenge ideas and propose solutions that will help you stand out.
