Speed, sovereignty, and software: Ingenico’s vision for the future of payments

At the beginning of February, The Paypers caught up with Ingenico’s newly appointed CEO, Floris de Kort, in Vienna during Paytech. 

Paytech is Ingenico’s flagship event, bringing together partners, collaborators, employees, and industry peers to showcase the company’s latest innovations in real-world scenarios. Through its immersive Experience Centre and interactive demonstrations across retail, banking, PSPs, energy, and other verticals, attendees could see how payment technology moves beyond theory into practical, everyday applications. 

Beyond the hands-on demos, the agenda featured panels and keynotes tackling some of the industry’s most pressing questions: how to scale across borders without adding complexity, how to modernise infrastructure without disruption, and how to make AI deliver measurable outcomes in payments. 

During a break between sessions, we had the chance to sit down with Floris for a relaxed and candid conversation. We spoke about his transition into the CEO role, how his leadership philosophy connects to Ingenico’s strategic direction, and what’s next for initiatives such as next-generation Axium and Ingenico 360. Along the way, we even touched on running and life as a father of twins - a reminder that leadership is shaped as much by personal discipline as by professional experience. 

Below are the highlights from our conversation. 

You opened your keynote by saying you want Ingenico to be ‘a lion that roars’. Before we unpack that vision, tell us a bit about your background. How does your experience prepare you to lead Ingenico into this next phase - and what does making the lion roar actually mean in practice? 

I believe Ingenico is already a lion. I don’t need to turn it into one, I just need to poke it a little, so it starts roaring again. 

Ingenico has been around for over 40 years. It’s a strong global brand, present everywhere. During the event, I met so many customers who associate the brand with quality, durability, safety, and security. That reputation is firmly established. 

Where we can improve is being closer to innovation and responding faster to consumer-driven change. My role is to bring back that pace and sense of urgency. This is especially important on the software side. The industry has shifted significantly toward Android-based devices, applications, and software-led services. Payments are no longer just about terminals - they’re about ecosystems. 

That’s where my background becomes relevant. During five years in my career, I was the CEO of a software company, where I focused on bespoke software development, cloud-based platforms, and recurring subscription models. I learned how to build scalable, customer-centric software businesses. 

Before that, I spent 25 years in fintech - starting at a Dutch payments startup called GlobalCollect, then I moved to Worldpay, where I led the global ecommerce division and later Worldpay US. After that, I ran a business management software company serving industries like childcare, fitness and wellbeing, and field services - again, with integrated payments at the core. 

So, when I talk about making Ingenico roar, I’m talking about accelerating our transition into a software-led, service-oriented payments company, while building on the reputation for high quality, security and trust the brand already has. 

At PayTech, during the ‘Modernising without disruption’ panel, Emmanuelle François from BNP Paribas mentioned that merchants aren’t fully ready to adopt software-based POS as the ‘ultimate solution’. In your view, what are the main challenges in this transition to software-led terminals? 

I understand that perspective, and I think it highlights an important nuance. Rather than saying merchants aren’t ready, I would say readiness looks very different depending on the type of merchant. 

There’s a significant difference between large enterprises and smaller businesses. Large companies often manage extensive estates of devices that they want fully connected and remotely managed from headquarters. In contrast, a small merchant, like a hairdresser with a single terminal, simply needs a reliable way to accept payments. Their expectations and operational requirements are very different. 

That said, the transition to software-led terminals is already well underway. Almost everything we, and our competitors, sell today runs on Android. The real shift over the next few years will come as large enterprises increasingly use our developer tools to expand on our platform, to build their own applications. These might support loyalty programmes, customer engagement, or internal operational tools, running alongside our suite of applications. 

The complexity increases when those enterprises operate across multiple countries and use devices from different providers. What they ultimately want is a unified cloud platform, one environment where terminals, regardless of vendor, can run a consistent set of applications or bespoke developments. 

Enabling that level of integration, while maintaining scalability and flexibility, is likely to be one of the key challenges for the industry in the coming years. 

During your presentation, you said you don’t sacrifice quality and trust for speed. Yet the industry is obsessed with accelerating innovation. How do you balance the pressure to move fast with the responsibility to maintain security, durability, and trust? 

Speed absolutely matters. We want to move as fast as we responsibly can. But there are different ways to accelerate, and not all of them are sustainable. For example, we could outsource critical components, relocate design and engineering to lower-cost regions, or move hardware manufacturing purely for speed and cost advantages. That might allow us to launch products faster or reduce expenses. 

But in our experience, those shortcuts often come with trade-offs: quality issues, higher defect rates, security concerns, or even geopolitical risks. In today’s environment, supply chain resilience and data sovereignty are not secondary considerations: they’re central to trust. 

So yes, we push hard on innovation. But if that means being three months later to market because we want to ensure the highest standards of security and reliability, we are comfortable with that decision. 

When a merchant buys an Ingenico device, they’re not buying something disposable. They’re buying infrastructure that should still work reliably 10 or even 15 years from now. 

Some competing devices may be cheaper and have shorter innovation cycles, but if their average lifecycle is two years, are they truly more cost-effective over time? When you look at total cost of ownership and operational continuity, durability matters. 

For us, speed is important; but trust is non-negotiable. 

Looking ahead, what is Ingenico’s strategic focus for the next three years? 

Fintech moves incredibly fast, realistically, no one can plan in detail beyond a three-year horizon. But within that timeframe, our direction is very clear. 

First, we are doubling down on our next-generation Android devices and continuing to upgrade that portfolio. Second, we are going all in on our cloud platform, Ingenico 360, to create a fully integrated ecosystem around those devices. 

But the real ambition goes beyond launching our own applications, whether that’s digital currency acceptance, digital identity, or other value-added services. What truly matters is enabling the developer journey. We want our platform to be open, so customers can build their own applications and services on top of it. 

A good example is our collaboration with Commonwealth Bank of Australia. They are using our next-generation devices and Ingenico 360, but they’re also developing bespoke applications tailored to their own needs. It’s a flagship example of how we see the future: a flexible platform where our infrastructure supports customer-led innovation. 

Over the next few years, we want to scale that model globally. That’s where we see the biggest opportunity. 

At events like this, what is one topic you wish people would ask you about more often? 

I think the industry isn’t talking enough about geopolitical risk and infrastructure resilience. 

Payments are critical national infrastructure. We’ve seen how global financial networks can become part of geopolitical tensions, and how countries are responding by strengthening or building their own domestic payment systems. 

At the same time, hardware supply chains and cloud interconnectivity have become strategic considerations. Devices are no longer standalone tools; they’re connected infrastructure. That raises important questions around resilience, sovereignty, and long-term security. 

These are not always the most comfortable conversations, but they’re increasingly relevant. As an industry, we need to think not only about innovation and cost efficiency, but also about strategic independence. 

Finally, how has your experience at PayTech been so far? 

It’s been great. The Experience Centre is particularly strong, it creates a genuinely interactive environment where people can see and test solutions rather than just hear about them. 

The morning sessions sparked thoughtful discussions, and overall the energy has been very positive. Events like this are valuable because they bring together customers, partners, and colleagues in one place, and that’s when meaningful conversations happen. 

I’m looking forward to the gala dinner tonight, that’s always a highlight. 

And it was … 😊 

About the author 

Floris was appointed as Ingenico’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and as a Member of the Supervisory Board in November 2025. 

With over 25 years of experience in finance, technology, software, and services, Floris has a proven track record of leading and scaling high-growth, high-change organizations, both public and private. He brings a wealth of experience in enabling innovation and transformation through setting strategic direction, creating organization-wide alignment, building high-performance teams, and embedding the right structures and controls. His mission is to drive innovation in the global payments industry while delivering great outcomes for customers, colleagues, and shareholders. 

Floris previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Global eCommerce at Worldpay, where he led a significant transformation culminating in a highly successful IPO in 2015. Following that, he served as CEO of Worldpay US up to its merger with Vantiv. In 2019, he became CEO of Xplor Technologies, a global leader in software with embedded payments. Most recently, Floris served as CEO of Thunes, a fast-growing cross-border payments network. 

About Ingenico 

Ingenico is a global leader in payment acceptance and services, helping customers and partners do more with commerce. With over 3,000 employees across 32 countries and more than four decades in business, Ingenico has been at the forefront of the evolving commerce landscape. Tens of millions of Ingenico devices are deployed in over 120 countries and powered by more than 2,500 applications, supporting millions of consumers every day. Through advanced integrated solutions and a broad partner network, Ingenico simplifies payments and delivers value-added services that help businesses grow and move commerce forward.