The new head of Plaid Europe, Brian Dammeir.
Plaid
US financial technology company Plaid has hired the first Alan Brian Dammeir as the new head of Europe, the company told CNBC exclusively.
Dammeir was previously head of integrated trading at Adyen, a role he led out of the Dutch payments company’s San Francisco office. Dammeir oversaw a key part of Adyen’s business – connecting different payment experiences including online, in-store, and app-based, into one single platform.
Dammeir will take over the reins from Ripsy Bandourian, who previously oversaw the company’s expansion across Europe, at a crucial time for the company as it expands into other areas of finance. ‘ including payments and loans.
Plaid, last valued by investors at $13.4 billion in a funding round, offers technology that allows financial technology apps to retrieve data from people’s bank accounts and initiate payments on their behalf.
It is part of a movement in finance and technology called “open banking,” which encourages the opening up of financial data to non-bank financial institutions to promote competition in the sector.
Dammeir told CNBC in an exclusive interview Monday that what excited him about joining the company was “the opportunity around open finance,” an evolution of open banking aimed at new- customization in all financial areas, including lending.
“When we think about Europe, it’s about how we can be more globally relevant… how we can find more and more use cases beyond our starting point in fintech.” Dammeir told CNBC.
“Right now, that’s really about expanding into account-to-account payments as well as lending and traditional banking,” he said.
Bandourian, who was the chief executive of Booking.com, was named as the first head of the company in Europe last year. She worked alongside Plaid’s former international head Keith Grose, who has since left the business to join business-to-business billing platform Sequence.
Bandourian left Plaid to “pursue another passion,” a company spokesperson told CNBC via email. Dammeir had been interacting with officials at Plaid for “more than a decade,” the spokesman said.
Dammeir did not make his decision to leave Adyen lightly. The longtime fintech executive held roles at Adyen in its North American and European offices for over eight years, starting in product, before graduating to general management and strategy on throughout North America and Europe.
Dammeir said Plaid wanted to encourage a broader movement toward “open finance,” which would allow for the creation of innovative new products in lending, insurance, and other parts of the financial ecosystem.
Payments have been a big focus for Plaid beyond financial data, with payment volume on the platform expected to increase by over 90% in 2023.
Now, Plaid is looking to work with partners outside of just fintechs, Dammeir said, without sharing the names of any of its potential partners at the time. coming The company already works with the likes of Monzo, Checkout.com, Public, and Moneybox.
