By Mike Robuck
T-Mobile US CEO Mike Sievert announced April 11 that former president of technology Neville Ray has assumed a new role as president and strategic network advisor while also naming John Saw as CTO.
Ray, who in February announced he was stepping down, was instrumental in building the operator’s network from 2G to 5G during a 23-year career with the company: CEO Mike Sievert also credited his work in assembling its technology team.
Sievert stated on LinkedIn that Ray still planned to retire later this year.
As previously announced, Ulf Ewaldsson, who was EVP and network chief for the mobile operator, took over as president of technology. The former Ericsson executive joined the company four years ago as SVP of technology transformation.
Saw was named as T-Mobile US’ new CTO after a previous stint as the mobile operator’s EVP of advanced and emerging technologies. Saw was CTO of Sprint prior to T-Mobile buying the company on April 1, 2020.
Saw replaced Abdul Saad as CTO. Saad had been with T-Mobile for over 19 years. He was chair of GSMA North America and a former member of the board of governors at 5G Americas.
My ride @TMobile‘s been incredible but it’s time for a new one as @MikeSievert‘s Pres. & Strategic Network Advisor. The Tech team is in 💪hands w/ @UlfEwaldsson & @JohnSaw.
Cheers to Abdul Saad as he steps away to focus on family & new opportunities. 🙏for all your critical yrs! https://t.co/15n2WFnl11
— Neville (@NevilleRay) April 11, 2023
Sievert stated Saad left the mobile operator to spend more time with his family.
“These leaders contributed so much to the Un-carrier, delivering what’s recognised as the nation’s best network for customers by independent third parties,” Sievert stated in a LinkedIn post.
Lastly, Mike Simpson transitioned over to the finance department. Sievert stated Simpson now leads an expanded procurement and supply chain organisation. He was named chief procurement officer in 2020.
In addition to that card processing payment gateway, the payments company also offers a white-label digital wallet solution that enables retail brands to access services from multiple banks in a single app, whether comparing microcredit offers or applying for a credit card.
“It’s more like a platform marketplace. If you want to apply for a microcredit loan from SipPay, you can apply for it from four different banks,” he explained, adding that the firm is replicating services provided by firms like Stripe and Revolut in the local market.
Demand for the digital wallet solution has skyrocketed due to the growing eCommerce market, he said, as customers look to benefit from an open-loop payment solution that enables them to make payments at different locations from one centralized mobile wallet.
“We are the only company in Turkey that has all these solutions under the one roof,” Sipahioglu said, pointing to the success of its in-house Sipay brand and the 30-plus brands that are using its white-label solution.
The company, which holds a Turkish e-money license, processes nearly US$200 million in monthly transactions and has a 10 per cent market share in the payments space, he further noted. The firm also claims close to 1 million users of its white-label services and about 100,000 Sipay brand customers.
The next step now, he said, is to expand to the UK and other European markets by leveraging Sipay’s open banking license while increasing collaboration with banks to offer more banking services to their customers. “We are not going to be a classic super app with only one financial provider, we are going to be a financial super app with multiple banks integrated.”
Resolving Bank-FinTech Challenges
Despite the progress made to advance bank-FinTech collaboration worldwide, Sipahioglu said Turkish banks still see FinTechs as competitors, which has sometimes strained relations between the two sides.
“When I started [Sipay], it was a nightmare to work with the banks. Some banks even refused to open a bank for us even though we had obtained a license,” he noted, adding that the situation has improved over the years as the firm’s market share increased.
However, the challenge remains, and according to Sipahioglu, FIs need to recognize the value they stand to gain from partnering with FinTechs, which are increasing bank customers by offering banking services to their platforms.
“We are not their enemies,” he argued. “At the end of the day, any funds we are holding for merchants are held in the banks or we are acquiring POS services from banks and reselling them to the merchants.”
Moreover, unlike other FinTechs, he said Sipay is not looking to replace banks but is rather focused on strengthening collaboration with FIs. “There are already too many banks in Turkey that offer really good services, so our main focus is to get services from the bank and have customers use us as a single point for their financial needs.”
Moving forward, Sipahioglu predicts that Turkey’s faltering economy and the challenging global macroeconomic environment will lead to a wave of consolidation in the FinTech market, with smaller, money-losing firms increasingly absorbed by larger companies with deep pockets.
He noted that maintaining a positive EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization] will be key to keeping firms profitable at an operational level to survive in the cash-strapped local economy.
For Sipay, that goal is made easy by its multi-product strategy. “We are lucky to have business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) services on our platform as well as a B2B2C service through our white label. So, even if we have less clients on the consumer side, we can rely on our merchant business and vice versa,” he said.
