Interview with Mike Aldren, Credits Advisor

Credits team is glad to announce a new advisor - Mike Aldren

Mike is a specialist in Payment Services and Business Process Outsourcing with broad leadership experience and strong commercial acumen. Expertise encompasses the complete lifecycle from sales and program inception, through delivery, to production support with particular emphasis on tailoring solutions and building business cases. Since 1986, Mike has worked in financial services for companies including EDS, Fiserv (Senior Vice President), Unisys (Client Relationship Director) and PCT (Chief Operating Officer) covering Investment Banking, Core Banking Systems, Cheque Processing and, since 2008, Card Payments.

Comfortable operating at board level Mike has worked in many countries from North America, through Europe, to Hong Kong, Iraq and South Africa.

Could you tell us about an accomplishment that shaped your career? What challenges did you face while your working experience?
- I was asked to visit First National Bank of South Africa to see whether we (EDS) could bring value by outsourcing their cheque processing. During my 2 week visit, I also met the other major banks and suggested that they set up a shared platform. I spent a year working in RSA and this led to the 4 major banks adopting a common banking platform.

When did you familiarize yourself with cryptocurrency and blockchain?
- About 5 years ago, I attended a payments conference that had several presentations on the blockchain technology. Following this, I have read further articles in the press and online.

How do you assess the market development prospects?
- From the UK perspective, I see Cryptocurrencies have mainly been seen as a form of investment. This is gradually changing as people start to see the possibilities of using currencies as a payment channel. This would move them from a niche to a more widely used product and gradual acceptance by major players such as Mastercard and VISA will accelerate this.

What do you value most about Credits technology and goals?
- Credits are building an integrated platform to allow customers to manage their savings (Cryptocurrency) and payments (multicurrency payments).

What is Credits doing well, and where is there an opportunity to grow?
- The payments market is mature but the link to the fledgling Cryptocurrency market offers enormous growth.

What do you plan to accomplish with Credits?
- I plan to help Credits grow with the seamless integration of card payments and SEPA systems.

Credits team appreciates and carefully appoints each of its employees. We are attentive to the initiatives and ideas of our team members, which allows us to take new productive steps in the modern market of innovative technologies.