Building fintech winners: Sabrina Tharani on innovation, leadership, and payments

Ahead of Money Motion 2026, The Paypers speaks with Sabrina Tharani, SVP, Fintech & Venture Partnerships at Mastercard, about what success in fintech really looks like for founders and new industry entrants.  

Could you tell us about your role at Mastercard and how your expertise in fintech connects to what you do today?  

My day-to-day focus is on the intersection of innovation, partnerships, and enterprise growth. I lead global fintech programs, including our award-winning Start Path organisation, where we support hundreds of fintechs from around the world, helping them to grow, build ecosystem partnerships, and bring innovative solutions to market.  

Start Path is an award-winning startup engagement program that supports high-potential companies with curated co-innovation opportunities and introductions to Mastercard’s global network of banks, merchants, and digital players, helping businesses scale and drive sustainable growth across the industry.  Since launching in 2014, Start Path offers several dedicated programs for founders innovating across categories, including security solutions, blockchain, open finance, small business enablement, AI, and more; amassing a portfolio of over 500 startups across nearly 60 countries that have collectively raised north of USD 25 billion in post-program capital. 

My enduring enthusiasm for fintech comes from witnessing the power of partnerships at scale; how, by working together, large organisations and smaller fintech companies can harness next-generation technology to make financial services more accessible, secure, and efficient. It’s about building scalable, differentiated solutions that materially improve how money moves, how businesses operate, and how consumers experience commerce. My role today is really about future-proofing Mastercard with these partners, while delivering tangible results in the near term — turning emerging technology into enterprise growth. 

Through your work with Mastercard Start Path, how prepared are founders when they enter the program, both as entrepreneurs and as leaders? 

Founders who are accepted into Start Path are already very strong operators. They’ve built products with a proven value proposition or market differentiator, are generating revenue, and are ready to scale. As entrepreneurs, they come in with deep domain expertise and a clear vision. As leaders, they’re often at an interesting inflection point – shifting from building a company to leading one at a global scale. Start Path is designed to meet them there by helping them on that scale trajectory, navigate complex partnerships, and think more strategically about growth, governance, and long-term impact.  

What mindsets or behaviours do you see most often in founders who go on to succeed?  

The founders who go on to succeed tend to pair ambition with pragmatism. They cut through hype and focus on building real, scalable businesses with clear customer value. They’re also genuinely partnership-minded: open to co-creating, willing to engage multiple stakeholders across the organisation, and able to translate their solution into cross-functional outcomes. Most importantly, they stay commercially anchored by prioritising the workstreams that create tangible value, while remaining flexible on how they collaborate, iterating, and refining their approach as they get market feedback.  

'Design for ecosystems, not isolation. No one wins alone in financial services. The strongest fintechs create value across banks, networks, platforms, and regulators, and make interoperability a core strategy.'

What are the most common mistakes fintech entrepreneurs make? And what lessons can be drawn from them?  

A common mistake for entrepreneurs is prioritising speed or hype over substance. Clear customer value and commercial traction should always guide building decisions, as opposed to valuation or visibility.  Another mistake is underestimating the complexity of scaling through large partnerships, where success requires patience, alignment, and the ability to work cross-functionally.  

What advice would you give to someone entering fintech today who wants to build something that lasts?   

If you want to build something that lasts in fintech, remember that this is a trust business before it’s a technology business. Trends will change — AI, real-time payments, embedded finance — but durable companies are built on security, compliance, and solving real customer problems at scale. 

Design for ecosystems, not isolation. No one wins alone in financial services. The strongest fintechs create value across banks, networks, platforms, and regulators, and make interoperability a core strategy. Think globally from day one. Even if you start local, architect your product and operating model to scale across markets. Finally, balance innovation with discipline. Invest in risk management as much as product and focus on sustainable economics over short-term growth. Build teams that understand both the technology and the unique challenges required to scale in financial services. 

Which payment and fintech trends do you believe are most worth paying attention to over the next five years?  

Over the next five years, the trends worth watching are those that sit at the intersection of trust, intelligence, and scale. Security and identity will remain foundational, as digital interactions increase and the need to protect consumers, businesses, and ecosystems becomes even more critical. At the same time, we’re seeing the rise of agentic commerce—where AI-driven agents that can initiate, optimise, and complete transactions—fundamentally changing how payments are embedded into everyday experiences. Finally, solutions focused on corporate and B2B use cases will continue to accelerate, as enterprises look for smarter, more integrated ways to manage payments, data, and liquidity. These priorities are reflected in Mastercard Start Path’s newest programs for Security Solutions and Agentic Commerce, which are designed to help scale the innovations shaping the future of commercedriven agents can initiate, optimise, and complete transactions—fundamentally changing how payments are embedded into everyday experiences.  

At Money Motion 2026, what topic will you focus on, and what key message do you want attendees to take away?  

I’m excited to dive into how innovation in payments is really coming to life through ecosystems—think banks offering trust and broad reach, fintechs bringing speed and niche expertise, and networks like Mastercard making sure everything is secure and interoperable. Using examples from Start Path, I’ll cover where I see the biggest opportunities emerging, share some hands-on ways to partner that can help teams launch faster while keeping up with rising demands for trust, regulation, and resilience, and highlight the trends Mastercard is watching to help everyone make smarter moves for the future. 

About the author  

Sabrina Tharani is Mastercard's senior vice president of fintech and venture partnerships, and the global head of Start Path. 

Prior to leading Start Path, Sabrina built and commercialised several Mastercard core products and services. Currently, Sabrina sits on The Leadership Committee of The Resolution Project and the Board of Directors of the FinSec Innovation Lab, supporting student-led ventures and early-stage cybersecurity startups.  Sabrina has been recognised by American Banker, Venture Capital Journal, and Fintech Magazine for her leadership in fintech. She holds a B.A. in Economics and Sociology from the University of Michigan and an M.B.A. from Cornell University. 

About Mastercard 

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re building a resilient economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart, and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses, and governments realise their greatest potential.  

www.mastercard.com