Laurent Le Moal. He brings extensive knowledge of digital payments in emerging markets to PayU where he serves as the CEO. He culminated an 11-year career at PayPal as general manager for continental Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa, leaving a billion dollar development vision across diverse geographies. Prior to PayPal, he founded an Italian startup called Talent Manager. He built a 40-person team there and now the startup has expanded to France and Spain. He also has experience in McKinsey and Antal International. He leads PayU’s strategic direction and development and is currently building on the company’s position and high-growth markets all around the world. Given the company’s focus on being an expert in a local market in which it operates, Le Moal leads the creation and implementation of payment methods which best suits PayU’s customers all around the world. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things What CEO do you follow? – Chris Skinner Favorite online tool? — The Top Inbox How many hours of sleep do you get?— 6-7 If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Just go and experience more”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:19 – Nathan introduces Laurent to the show 02:22 – PayU is a payment gateway which is basically serving merchants 02:43 – PayU has their own original platform 02:53 – “I believe that payments are extremely local and regional” 02:58 – Since Laurent joined PayU, they moved from pure payments to actual financial services offering credit solutions 03:22 – Payment is still the bigger market for PayU 03:34 – Laurent thinks that financial services is strategic move for payment companies 03:56 – Nathan had Monish Anand in Episode 617 who talks about data science 04:25 – “The ability to offer credit is the ability to manage risks” 04:38 – All banks are using the same credit score model 04:48 – If you go to India and want to address 90% of the population, then have the means to repay their debt 05:16 – If you have a technology that does credit scoring, then the rest of credit is just mechanics 05:40 – Talent Manager is Laurent’s first company 05:54 – Laurent started small in Milan 06:39 – Laurent was 25 when he started Talent Manager in 1997 06:56 – It was easy to get consumers 07:20 – Laurent raised around €5M for their first round 08:01 – It was growing fast 08:22 – Laurent goes to India and sees companies with a high burn rate, which is a couple of hundred million rupees a year 09:26 – Talent Manager was able to have a couple of million in revenue 09:36 – Talent Manager’s software was sold 10:29 – Paypal started in 2004 with 3 people in Europe 10:35 – They were looking for someone to do a market study about the potential for PayPal outside of eBay 11:00 – PayPal expanded outside of eBay 11:22 – When you go to a high-growth market like India, most of the companies are still trying to increase the engagement of consumers 11:47 – Laurent had different stock options with PayPal 13:01 – PayU is part of Naspers, which is a diversified group and one of the biggest technology investors for the high-growth market 13:28 – PayU has their payment business and a fintech arm which is investing in interesting startups 13:56 – For PayU, the opportunity is not to just be an operator, but an investor 14:04 – Laurent believes that in fintech, it is difficult to scale your business 15:08 – Laurent invested Monese who is building the new bank for “unbanked” people 16:11 – Laurent shares how he got into PayU 16:30 – Laurent join Naspers and PayU on the basis that he’d manage the business and transform it into a financial service company 16:53 – In 2016, PayU ‘s total payment transaction was around $18B 17:12 – Growth rate is around 40% year over year 17:20 – PayU forecasts to maintain their growth rate 17:24 – PayU sees a really big push in India where the growth is around 70% 17:30 – Laurent sees India as the most exciting market in the world 17:50 – Laurent