3 Questions With Marwan Forzley of Veem

FintekNews is pleased to offer our readers our “3 Questions With…” column, where we chat with a thought leader within a unique sector of fintech and ask them to answer just 3 questions for our audience in their vernacular. This week, we’d like to introduce you to Marwan Forsley of Veem, a global payments company built for small businesses reaching 96 countries including US, Canada and Asian markets.

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How do you feel consumers (or if more relevant to your firm, businesses) are adapting to the facet of fintech that your company operates within?

The legacy banking industry has consistently taken advantage of small businesses. Whether it’s outrageous foreign exchange rates on global payments, unnecessary fees, or loss of funds, small business owners have fallen prey to an outdated system that doesn’t keep their needs in mind.

But, they haven’t had much of a choice. Large financial institutions around the world have monopolized the processes business owners need to keep their operations running. For example, most cross border payments processed by banks travel over the SWIFT network: a 40 year old, broken system that has historically lost and delayed transfers around the world.

Business owners have craved change in the global payments space for too long.

As global payments processors like Veem began to challenge this system, it was like a breath of fresh air. Some business owners welcomed the idea of a personalized global payments processor, while others were a bit hesitant.

Banking institutions are very good at instilling confidence in their processes, even if they don’t merit it. There’s a secure feeling of walking into a building protected by locked doors, walls and safes. It can be hard for some people to imagine that same security from fintech companies operating online. But, change is coming.

What has been the biggest success of your firm to date?

Since 2014, Veem has grown from zero to a global network of 100,000 businesses in more than 95 countries. This is great for the fintech industry largely, but is also a sign of growing acceptance and trust in our platforms, and a growing distaste for legacy financial institutions

Our growth has been by far our biggest success. But, growth doesn’t just mean company size. We’ve grown in many ways in the past few years, and each of them contributes to Veem as we know it today.

Google Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, TrendForward, Kleiner Perkins, Pantera, and many more have been vital to our growth through our first two funding rounds.

Recently, and importantly, we raised $25M in a funding round lead by Goldman Sachs. This funding was not only crucial to Veem’s growth and expansion, but also to our identity.