The payments companies MoneyGram International and Adyen both announced hiring top technology officers this week, underscoring the importance of all things digital as the industry evolves rapidly.

Cross-border money transfer provider MoneyGram appointed Josh Gordon-Blake as its chief digital officer, saying in a Monday press release that he will spearhead the Dallas-based company’s digital strategy. Specifically, that will include the global expansion of its mobile app and online services. 

The Dutch digital payments processor Adyen said in a Monday release that it appointed Tom Adams as its new chief technology officer, succeeding Alexander Matthey, who plans to leave the company later this year. 

Both new hires will report to their respective companies’ CEOs, highlighting the importance of these officers’ roles for the businesses. While many companies have experienced an IT transformation in recent years, that is especially true in the payments arena where digital currency and the electronic transfer of money is in significant flux as a result of new technologies, new government policies and massive private innovation.

Adams is joining Adyen from the digital payments pioneer Block, the parent company to point-of-sale processor Square and smartphone service Cash App. He headed up engineering at Cash App for four years, and was at that company for almost seven years, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“As we look at the opportunity ahead, we find ourselves in a key position to solve for the continued complexity that we see in the payments landscape,” Adyen Co-CEO Pieter van der Does said in that Amsterdam-based company’s release.

Although the two companies are different ages and cater to different segments of payments, their bid to have the latest tech know-how showcases the industry’s current fierce competition. MoneyGram traces its history back 80 years, but the field is filled with fintech newcomers like Adyen, which was formed in 2006. The old guard and new entrants are in a race to use technology to their advantage.

For instance, real-time payments is speeding up transactions worldwide. So far the U.S. has lagged some parts of the world in adopting real-time payments, but the launch last year of FedNow, the Federal Reserve’s instant payments system, will ultimately make the technology more available than it is now.

“Part of it is still time and education and awareness,” Rocio Wu, a principal at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based venture capital firm F-Prime, said in an interview last week regarding faster payments adoption. “I do think the world eventually will converge on real-time payments.”

Gordon-Blake has an entrepreneurial background, having co-founded the digital money transfer business Pangea, where he was formerly the chief operating officer. Pangea was sold to Enova International in 2021 for an undisclosed sum. His purview at MoneyGram will include remittances, cryptocurrency integration and new products, according to an email from a spokesperson for the company. 

He replaces Seth Ross, a spokesperson for MoneyGram said. Ross left MoneyGram last month, according to his LinkedIn profile.

By Lynne Marek on Aug 28, 2024
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