First of all, can you give us a brief background to the company?
The company was founded based on inspiration, and at its dawn I realised there was something missing out there with credit card transactions online and a way to secure this. I came up with the idea of a “Next Gen Payment Gateway” which encompasses cyber security. It secures the transaction, encrypts the card, and ensures that the identity is completely stored so nobody can hack into it. In addition, it uses a third party card number to prevent merchants and customers from being a victim of fraud or identity theft.
Although Allied Wallet was founded in May 2006, it took six years to build a platform. We are the only company in the market today that has no CV investors because it is all self-built. If you think of any company including PayPal, they all started with money from an investor because such firms did not belief in themselves. I believed in myself and the company while risking my own money in the project.
What is the most exciting thing about your position in the company?
As the sole owner and CEO of Allied Wallet, the most exciting thing is being hands-on and my involvement with the everyday activities of the business. I like to understand what goes on in my company. I enjoy communicating with my people to improve things. If I’m not on top of it all, how can I therefore improve it?
Could you tell us a bit about the 24-hour support that is available to your customers and why you think this is important?
Many other companies out there in the market today don’t provide sufficient, live customer support, even PayPal. Allied Wallet still firmly believes in the old school approach, when you have a problem you can speak to somebody about it instead of being put through to an automated machine. An automated machine is not the way to conduct business. We are human beings. Allied Wallet has customer support in place with people able to speak different languages. The company is able to speak in English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese and this is very important in regards to accommodating consumers, to ensure they are satisfied with the service they receive, and also to listen to the story and frustrations of the merchants. In short, we have to look after them.
Could you tell us about the size and nature of your client base?
Allied Wallet is massively well-known in the US, Europe, and Asia and we deal with clients that do €100 a month to €15m a month in business. We take care of businesses of all kinds, so whether you are a small merchant or a large merchant, we will treat you the same. Ultimately, our firm likes to do business with everybody. We had merchants start nine years ago and they have stayed with us and have been loyal, despite every other processor out there trying to get them on board. When you start-up an e-commerce business a lot of people don’t believe in your ideas and that includes banks. With no investors and no money in the bank it can be very difficult as a start-up particularly if you have just come out of university and college, the banks will only cater for big businesses. This leaves many entrepreneurs with no hope and that is the problem.
In the past ten years, I have managed to get approximately 3600 entrepreneurs on board with me, and right now they are making a massive volume by generating more than 600,000 jobs in the UK, USA and Asia. Companies like Allied Wallet believed in them and as a result they are helping the economy and indeed all of these families, instead of sitting at home unemployed and taking the government’s money. Allied Wallet helps guide our clients through both the good and bad times, and they stick around because we treat them every much like a friend, not a client.
Could you tell me about your offshore credit card processing solutions and what this entails?
If you are a UK-based company and have consumers scattered around the world, the question is how your bank is going to understand. If you have a European entity in the UK and more than 50% of your customers are from outside Europe, your bank is going to look at you as a potential risk for them and they could close down your account. Banks don’t understand that e-commerce is international and globally accessible due to the world wide web. From a compliance point of view, they don’t understand why consumers are going to buy your product, so we at Allied Wallet consider ourselves as the messiah of global processing simply because we make things happen.
Why should potential customers out there choose Allied Wallet?
First, we are partnered with every popular shopping cart solution. We can make it happen because we already have them integrated. We’ve spent years and years integrating shopping carts. We have about 40 of the best shopping carts in the world with approximately 200 million consumers on the back of them. This integration takes less than a few hours to give consumers access to shopping carts in every region of the world. We take Direct Debit, ACH (the electronic cheque), VISA card, American Express, and many other payment methods which banks do not provide – but as a global processor, we have all these in place.
What are the challenges and opportunities for you and the company in 2016 and beyond?
The company is growing and is doing great, but the only thing I would say is we need to add more services. More services entail finding a more flexible way to do electronic payments, indeed we have a new mobile device coming out which is the pin, chip, and swipe – all of which are combined in one device.
We also have a card registration service. Which means if you have a card registered with Allied Wallet, you will never have to apply for a card again or pull out your wallet again because it is fully electronic. We guarantee the transaction and the payment for all of our merchants, so you will never ever see fraud transactions or a chargeback based on the usage because we have the full information stored in our facilities for every single consumer registered with Allied Wallet. We are preventing the merchant from becoming a victim of fraud and accommodating the consumer with an easy and secure way to pay. Thank you for these inspiring and choice words. Is there anything else you would like to add? I would say one thing to entrepreneurs out there and to everybody reading this… Hope is the best thing you can have, and that I am one of you. I believed in myself and took a chance and made it to the top. Don’t be afraid. There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Just believe in yourself and you will get everything you want in life. Don’t let anyone slow you down. If you don’t start today, every day you waste is one you will never get back in life.
Company: Allied Wallet, Ltd.
Web Address: www.alliedwallet.com
