Our story
Each thing has a story, and we decided to share it here to save time in our face-to-face meetings explaining why we are here and why we are doing it in the way that is.
When I left the corporate company more than five years ago after nearly two decades, I was full of options for what to do next.
I have always been interested in new trends in the field of payments. Historically, I remember how sometimes, at the turn of the millennium, we at Wincor Nixdorf planned how sometime around 2010, it would no longer be possible to invest so much in the production of boxes from the steel that is only used for cash withdrawals or deposit. We also subordinated all our future development to it and started many projects, specifically in cashless payments.
Despite the creation of a central payment gateway called PMG, which controlled more than 50% of the ATM network in the Czech Republic and almost 70% of the network of integrated payment terminals, it all culminated in the fact that at the turn of the decade we embarked on a fundamental change; produce the first payment terminal on a world that will no longer need to have a physical PIN keyboard.
Thanks to a spectacular project with the Commonwealth Bank in Australia, the unique Albert terminal was created. The world's first payment terminal with a touch pin keyboard with the Android operating system. It was quite a big challenge that ended with great success and culminated in the creation of the independent company AEVI.
Photo: Hackfest Berlin 2015, Miroslav Pekárek, Steve Wozniak, Reinhard Rabenstein
We flew it almost all over the world. Everything went very well, the orders kept pouring in, and we were preparing for the following challenges.
And at the same time, we started offering AEVI to investors because it wasn't possible without new money, and at the same time, we had to keep in mind that we were still part of a large corporation producing mainly ATMs and other steel boxes.
In the meantime, we managed to hit the world market and build a powerful tool to manage all possible types of payments. The team was growing exponentially and it gave us a clear signal that we were doing this very well. Already existing customers such as TESCO, REWE, Lidl, Kaufland were joined by large oil companies around the world (Shell, TOTAL, Chevron, Galp, TEXACO, BP, ...).
At that time, we were the centre of attention, we were interested in new perspectives, and at the same time, a lot of new payment initiatives were being created. From my point of view today, it was mainly PSD2 that attracted me from the very beginning, but due to the extensiveness of all activities, there was not much space to devote to it.
Many politics in the corporation was gradually increasing, and it was a matter of time what would happen. And it happened. After the occupation of Crimea and the imposition of sanctions, combined with changes in the behaviour of the Chinese government towards international investors, it became increasingly difficult to sustain the constant growth of investment in new technologies as a part of big corporations. Perhaps seen as reasonable at the time, there was a logical tie-up with another player producing more tin boxes for issuing notes.
For me, it meant deciding whether to stay in a more giant corporation or simply try something new. I chose option number 2 without any idea what it all means for me, not only professionally, but above all personally.
I started paying attention to new trends in the field of PSD2. The basis of the work was, first of all, to obtain a license for PISP and AISP services. This was not easy in the conditions of the newly emerging regulations, but after almost 3.5 years, it succeeded. However, it still came in the middle phase of a catastrophic pandemic, when virtually overnight, all stores had to be closed, and our potential customers became entities waiting for support from the state.
But even so, we were not idle. Based on our extensive experience from the days of AEVI and Android terminals, we created all the necessary components and enclosed them in a reasonably functioning whole of intelligent payment terminals using all multivendor capabilities.
In the meantime, the PSD2 standard was gradually applied to the banks themselves for card payments, and before we had to teach all clients how to use the second authentication factor – the card payment market practically did it for us, and we also relied on it.
We finally got that license. Only positive things awaited us. Then February 24, 2022, came, and the world changed completely. It was clear that it must have affected us, and it did. But we still managed everything. We completed the interface for Czech and Slovak banks, completed the partial education of other companies, such as other manufacturers of payment terminals, and now all that was left was to give it another impetus.
In our considerations, of course, we could not ignore other trends on the market and especially the strongest players such as payment companies VISA or Mastercard. And so our inspiration was mainly taken from what is on the market today, and we created a connection of both worlds: the world of paying by card and the world of paying directly from account to account. Of course, we don't forget about cash either because as it has been said several times already - Cash never sleeps.
And so, a new story is born. one-click –> one-pay –> one-nation.
Here is the full story from October 2022 as a part of the 2022 conference co called cardsession.
PaMaGar Planet
And when was the planet PaMaGar created? It was created back in 2010. It was a fairy tale, pure fiction, about how the payment world will work in 100 years on a virtual planet, which I presented at the cardforum conference in Karlovy Vary.
We brought this story to life 11 years later and use it whenever we think about the future. This time we went back and forth several times. Either up to 1972, when David Bowie, a budding singer, composed the song "Life on Mars", and the world was, among other things, full of Apollo and their trips to the moon, or we are looking into the near future today with NASA and SpaceX.
Today, after 50 years, we are again close to continuing the conquest of space. Within the framework of new payment solutions, we are trying to conquer another meta following the successes of products around PMG too.
Link to the history:
You can watch the actual, non-fictional story on the recording of the individual lectures, which were chronologically created in the last two years, and it is only up to you whether you want to become a part of it.
Cardforum (May 2021):
Life during Covid-19 and the development of an eShop and a comprehensive payment terminal management system
Cardforum (May 2022):
Life after Covid looking for new challenges and preparing to use digital identity
Cardsession (October 2021):
Living on the planet and waiting for the future.
Cardsession (October 2022):
one click –> one pay –> one nation