Ex-Visa Exec to Chair Credorax Board

Today, digital merchant acquiring bank Credorax will announce Joshua Floum as the new chairman of its Board of Directors. Today’s announcement follows one last fall in which it was reported that the startup nabbed $40M in funding to expand its cloud-based, cross border payments processing platform. Over the last six years, Credorax, which is based in Massachusetts, has been building an integrated, international architecture for online retailers to receive payments, no matter their location.

Floum comes to Credorax with a pretty interesting payments pedigree. Floum served as the executive vice president and general counsel at Visa, Inc. from 2007 to 2013 and was a key part of guiding Visa through its journey toward becoming a global public company. He is also credited with creating Visa’s “retrospective responsibility” plan, which shielded the new organization from legacy legal liabilities.

“Visa was a fantastic experience and a terrific company,” Floum told Karen Webster, who caught up with Floum yesterday (Feb. 3). “ I was fortunate enough to be part of the change in that company from a group of bank associations to a single global company and then to a public company. That was a great experience and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

According to Floum, that’s the appeal of the position with Credorax. “The opportunity to drive some change in the payments space” by leveraging “Credorax’s business models and platform is “exciting and different in many senses.”

So far, that platform has raised $130 million to support its quest to streamline and simplify the process of processing payments cross border, a space that has become hotly competitive and in which several strong and well-positioned players already exist.

However, Floum notes, as e-commerce continues to boom, commerce itself is becoming increasingly borderless. He believes Credorax is uniquely suited to serve that marketplace.

“Most acquirers only operate in certain countries while Credorax’s aspiration is to be a truly global acquirer,” Floum explained. Credorax’s “secret sauce,” according to Floum, is something that Credorax calls smart acquiring – which tries to marry a better understanding of how to operate in international markets with a robust cloud-based technology platform.

“Seamless and painless for the merchant and the PSP,” Floum told Webster, “that’s the goal.”

And apparently it’s one that seems to be resonating. Floum said that Credorax has seen its processing volume double in the last year and the company attain profitability.

So what’s next?

Growth and expansion says Floum, but in a controlled and nuanced way that will see the company finish growing in its European home base before taking on the world.

“We have to grow prudently and strategically,” he said. “That means we have our eyes set throughout Europe and we’re very close to being there. Beyond Europe we’re looking at markets like the United States and Japan, as well as China and a number of other countries Though eventually we hope to be all things to all people we have to grow in a prudent manner.”