Financial services provider Worldcore offers a wide variety of payment solutions, including bank payments, prepaid debit cards, mass payments, payouts to credit and/or debit cards, and international payment processing for individuals and businesses. Additionally, Worldcore offers account top-up using bitcoin, a method that amounts to 15% of the company’s inflow.
Worldcore launched its voice biometrics solution in 2016. The company expanded its biometrics approach at FinovateEurope 2017 where marketing and PR director, Sean Patterson began his demo by showing Worldcore’s voice authentication. “Customers love this– they’re using VoiceKey all over the place. But we got to thinking that there are situations where it’s not so useful to have VoiceKey. For example, if we need a second method of authentication, or if we are in a noisy or echoing room,” Patterson said. He continued by launching FaceKey, the company’s facial recognition authentication solution.
Company facts:
- Headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic
- Founded in 2014
- 50 employees
- Owned and operated by EUPSProvider s.r.o., a licensed payment service provider regulated by Czech National Bank
Above: Sean Patterson, Worldcore’s Marketing & PR Director, debuting authentication technology at FinovateEurope 2017 in London
We followed up with Worldcore’s CEO, Alex Nasonov (pictured), for an interview after FinovateEurope.
Finovate: What problem does Worldcore solve?
Nasonov: Worldcore is the only player on the market that offers same-day and fully electronic client onboarding. This is very important for people in the digital age who place a high value on their time. I can tell you from personal experience that most companies with similar services work much slower. Because of this, I decided to establish a turnkey payment solution that’s suitable for almost everyone and allows users to onboard in a matter of minutes versus weeks.
Think of it as a hybrid between Uber and Amazon in the payment services industry– we combine speed with a high number of services. Worldcore carefully controls the number of employees in customer service and compliance departments and continues to hold one of the leading positions in client onboarding speed and average support team response time.
Finovate: Who are your primary customers?
Nasonov: Our target audience is very wide and includes many industries related to online and offline business activities including marketplaces, digital shops, small businesses, digital marketing companies, freelancers, transport and gaming companies, and many others. Corporate clients may enjoy our cost-effective payroll solution which can be easily launched with our prepaid debit cards and saves a lot of money for companies on cross-border transfers. Our goal is to cover the maximum number of payment products and the maximum number of industries to expand globally.
Finovate: How does Worldcore solve the problem better?
Nasonov: Worldcore provides access to unique and market-leading payment solutions, including money transfers to almost any Visa, MasterCard and UnionPay payment cards across the globe. We also offer virtual and plastic debit cards with one of the highest transaction and withdrawal limits in the prepaid market. In addition, we facilitate international bank transfers. All of these capabilities make us a smarter and more functional alternative to traditional banking services.
Moreover, the Worldcore API offers quick and simple integration to let corporate clients automate their payouts and easily start accepting payments online with a variety of options available through Worldcore. Payouts to Visa, MasterCard and UnionPay cards offered by Worldcore are much cheaper than bank transfers and do not require the sender to order a Worldcore debit card to pay the recipient’s salary or make a personal payment to a friend or family member.
Finovate: Tell us about your favorite implementation of your solution.
Nasonov: Well, the most interesting implementation for me are two solutions that we implemented – voice authentication and facial recognition access. These two options were the most difficult of all the solutions our team has developed over the last two years because they required much more effort, attention and testing to assure a truly secure biometric access option for our clients. Current statistics indicate that most people still prefer using traditional passwords over innovative security solutions, but I expect that the next five to seven years will demonstrate further user adoption.
Finovate: What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?
Nasonov: I spent a long time as a founder and co-founder of various digital and non-digital assets and almost always experienced difficulties with financial institutions related to key areas– speed, quality, pricing and security. My 10 years of business experience led me to start building a perfect payments institution where the clients are completely satisfied with every point of interaction.
Finovate: What are some upcoming initiatives from Worldcore that we can look forward to over the next few months?
Nasonov: Worldcore has many new products in the development stage at this moment, starting with new mobile apps for iOS and Android. The apps will mirror functionality of the web version of the Worldcore platform. We expect to finalize our PCI DSS audit before the end of March 2017, thus enabling us to enter the payment card acquiring market with our competitive solution for the e-commerce industry. This will include more than 20 modules that allow for instant integration of Worldcore into the most popular e-shop platforms and offer extremely low pricing for new clients.
In the summer of 2017, we will also present a groundbreaking invoice management tool for corporate clients that will completely automate our clients’ invoice management process. Lastly, we are hard at work on a QR code-based payment solution. All these products will be available by the end of 2017, and most will launch within the next few months.
Finovate: Where do you see Worldcore a year or two from now?
Nasonov: Worldcore’s growth rate indicates that we selected the right strategy for building one of the leading companies in the European payment services industry and our initial business model of “one-stop-shop for payments” works perfectly. While extending Worldcore’s product portfolio month-by-month, we will expand physically beginning in the first half of 2018 by opening branches in other European countries. This will allow us to improve our marketing strategy by focusing on the local audience of each country to better suit the needs of the local market and provide native-speaking customer service. Our management strategy and growth rate will lead Worldcore to a yearly transaction volume exceeding one billion euros in 2019.
Sean Patterson, Worldcore’s Marketing & PR Director, debuting the company’s authentication technology at FinovateEurope 2017 in London: