What’s valued by some, isn’t always by others

When we founded Mint over a decade ago, one of the greatest design flaws we noticed in payments was mobility — the ability for people to take payments wherever they did business, instead of the other way around. So we paired everyday smartphone technology with a compact card reader, and made payments more accessible and portable than previously thought possible.

In the years since, the category has become a fiercely competitive, cluttered and commoditised space. But while everyone duked it out on price, speed and uptime, this wasn’t necessarily equating to a fundamentally better experience for merchants or their customers.

At the same time, our own business had become more channel focused and in less touch with our end users. No-one in the direct-to-customer space was really moving things forward in a meaningful way.

To be a better business and add value to our partners, we knew we had to 
build a deeper connection with our end users again… the merchant.

From just processing value, to adding it

Now, more than at any other moment in history, customer experience has become the new standard that all great companies measure themselves by. Uber, Netflix, Amazon and AirBnB… they’ve reimagined tired old legacy categories by designing for deep customer needs, rather than simply what’s easy for them to peddle. As any sane businessperson will tell you, this leaves incumbents with two mean choices: follow suit or fade away.

So we partnered with some smart people, consciously de-coupled expectations of our future self from old category conventions, and worked hard over the last twelve months to understand the deeper drivers and unmet needs of merchants. We knew if we solved that, we’d add disproportionate value to our channel partners too as they look to answer the needs of their own large customer bases.

What we found was this: the payments category has gotten rich from processing value, but not necessarily adding value though through the experience.

So today we’re committing to a new future: to help companies and their customers transact in more rewarding ways — whenever, wherever and however the world wants to pay.

To hold ourselves accountable to this vision, the transformation has been wholesale.

First, commit to getting (and staying) close to merchants with direct-to-customer products that go beyond what the category expects of itself.

Second, redefine the concept of ‘value’ in a category obsessed with it, by designing around human needs instead of the same old commodity levers.

And finally, work more closely with our fantastic channel partners to deliver proof at scale — in Australia and New Zealand, and newer payment markets right around South-East Asia.

We’re setting out to make payments more rewarding.

Whether that’s through products that save space and time, transaction fees that decrease as a business grows, insights that help merchants win, category-defying partnerships and beyond.

Over the coming months we’re excited to share more of the changes — both in here at Mint, and in what customers can start to expect from the world of payments.

Want to know more?

Check us out at mintpayments.com