Novel brings over two decades of payments industry experience to the role, most recently holding the role of Vice President / Head of Acceptance at Mastercard. Prior to this, Novel held senior payment roles at Verifone, Optus and Idemia (Morpho).

The appointment comes ahead of what is expected to be a major year of partnerships and growth for mx51. Since raising $32 million in 2022, the company is on track to grow 2x across key customer and financial metrics.

In his role as Chief Product Officer, Gilles will be responsible for defining and implementing mx51’s product vision and strategy.

Commenting on the appointment, Victor Zheng, CEO and co-founder of mx51 said “With this appointment, mx51 now boasts one of the most experienced teams in the payments sector in Australia.”

“We welcome Gilles to the team. His extensive experience across payments in the country will be crucial in delivering on our planned partnerships and also securing more of the local market, as well as expansion into other global markets.”

Incoming mx51 Chief Product Officer Gilles Novel said: “It’s exciting to join mx51 at such a significant stage of its growth. In such a short period of time, the company has gone from being a startup to a force within the Australian payments sector.

“Given the calibre of payments industry talent within the company already, it’s an honour to be appointed a leadership role within the company. I look forward to helping mx51 charge through the year ahead and reach a new level of growth.”

mx51 empowers banks, acquirers and merchants to keep ahead of rapidly evolving shifts in payments technology and consumer behavior. Its product serves two distinct markets. For banks and acquirers mx51’s payments-as-a-service platform provides a future proofed payments solution that effectively leverages their existing legacy technology infrastructure.

Merchants, on the other hand, struggle with disparate payment technology solutions that don’t talk to each other. mx51 solves this pain point by integrating together an ecosystem of embedded payments and value added services into a single white label merchant portal experience . The platform is regularly updated with new modules and capabilities, which when coupled with robust self-service features and deep customer insights, allows banks and acquirers to consistently deliver a best-in-class experience for merchants.