Mastercard exec jumps ship for leadership role at open banking provider GoCardless

Open banking payments platform GoCardless has hired ex-Mastercard exec Paul Stoddart as president to help its push into account-to-account payments. 

Stoddart was CEO of Vocalink, a company acquired by Mastercard in 2017, until 2019 as well as president of new payment platforms. In this role, he led the establishment and growth of a business unit that expanded Mastercard’s role in payments beyond cards to account-to-account payments. 

Prior to Vocalink he was co-head of corporate finance at Barclaycard. He also spent 10 years at NatWest where he held a number of senior roles including in their merchant acquiring and e-commerce business, Worldpay. 

In his new role at GoCardless he will have global brief across strategy, sales, product, marketing and customer teams. The company has been making a big push into open banking payments in recent years and Stoddart’s hire will focus capturing growth in the fast growing trend.

GoCardless, which was co-founded in 2011 by Tom Blomfield,Hiroki Takeuchi and Matt Robinson, now has a valuation of $2.1bn.

GoCardless, which raised $312m in February, will also soon be launching Variable Recurring Payments feature in the UK and expand Instant Bank Pay, its solution for one-off payments, across Europe. 

 “This year marks an inflection point at GoCardless as we expand beyond recurring payments to serve a broader range of customer segments and payment use cases. Having the right people to lead us on this journey is critical as we scale our business, develop new products and services with open banking and explore new markets,”  said Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO at GoCardless.

“Paul has a unique depth of experience across both card and non-card payments and is well-positioned to help us seize the opportunities that will make GoCardless a force to be reckoned with in the payments space.”