GoCardless appoints Mastercard’s Paul Stoddart as president

GoCardless has strengthened its leadership team with the appointment of Paul Stoddart from Mastercard as its new president.

In his new role at GoCardless, Stoddart will have global responsibility for the direct bank payment solutions company, including the strategy, sales, product, marketing and customer teams.

He joins with a view to helping accelerate the company’s growth in its bid to become “the world’s bank payment network”.

GoCardless intends to release its variable recurring payment (VRP) feature in both sweeping and non-sweeping forms in the coming months in the UK and has plans to expand instant bank pay, which is its solution for one-off payments, across Europe.

At Mastercard, Stoddart was president of its new payment platforms, executive chairman of Vocalink and a member of the Mastercard management committee.

He was named CEO of Vocalink after its acquisition by Mastercard and was subsequently promoted to president of Mastercard’s new payment platforms, leading a business unit that saw Mastercard expansion into account-to-account payments.

Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless, said: “This year marks an inflection point at GoCardless as we expand beyond recurring payments to serve a broader range of customer segments and payment use cases.

“Having the right people to lead us on this journey is critical as we scale our business, develop new products and services with Open Banking and explore new markets.”

Takeuchi added: “Paul has a unique depth of experience across both card and non-card payments and is well-positioned to help us seize the opportunities that will make GoCardless a force to be reckoned with in the payments space.”

Prior to working at Vocalink, Stoddard was co-head of corporate finance at Barclaycard and also spent 10 years at NatWest.

Stoddart said: “Hiroki and the team have already built a successful business by solving real customer problems. They have the foundations of a global bank pay network that will go from strength to strength as more businesses and people embrace account-to-account payments, from bank debit to Open Banking-enabled payments.

“We will continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible in payments.”

By mid-2022, GoCardless plans to integrate ‘PayTo’ into its global bank payment platform ahead of its regulated launch in Australia.

Yesterday (4 May), NatWest announced that GoCardless was one of three payment providers it has signed agreements with to being offering VRP for customers.