European E-Payments Giant Sets Up U.S. HQ in Atlanta to Capitalize On Deep Fintech Ecosystem

London-based e-payments company PPRO Group has opened their new U.S. headquarters in Atlanta to take advantage of the city’s robust fintech ecosystem. The new headquarters will be located in Midtown, near Georgia Tech.

“Atlanta is a world capital for payment processing with a concentration both of leading companies and also innovative startups. The city has incredible transport links both as a hub within the U.S., and many international connections, including to Munich, where our technical team is based, as well as our global HQ in London,” CEO Simon Black tells Hypepotamus.

CEO Simon Black

PPRO Group provides e-commerce merchants with access to alternative payment methods — think e-wallets and pre-paid cards — and partners directly with Payment Service Providers to connect the local preferred method through their API integration. PPRO supports payment methods across more than 100 countries, allowing those providers to expand their merchants’ e-commerce reach.

Steve Villegas, Vice President of Partner Management at PPRO, will head up the Atlanta office with goals to grow their partner and merchant base in the U.S. as well as hiring key roles to foster current and new partnerships through business development.

“As we grow the Atlanta office, we are confident we will be able to find the talent in such a fintech-savvy city,” says Villegas. “We believe the product will thrive because of the deep connections to fintech and payments; we know that will one of the keys to our product’s success. Hiring the right people in the right time as we quickly grow is both a goal and a challenge.”

Villegas says that merchants around the world may collect payments based on local preferences — if a merchant only offers credit cards, they could see an above 50 percent shopping cart abandonment rate from foreign customers. From recent research, PPRO projects that by 2020, 56 percent of the world’s e-commerce will be transacted through an alternative payment method.

“We want to evangelize the global economics of e-commerce and educate our key audiences on the world’s local payment methods,” says Villegas. “Most merchants, even enterprise domestic ones, don’t have a full grasp of how the rest of the world pays for e-commerce.”

“Educating on things like cash payments, vouchers, e-wallets, direct bank transfers and the like will be an important part of helping the U.S. market understand the opportunity outside of our borders.”

Black shared how welcoming the local Atlanta tech community has been upon their move to the city.

“We were overwhelmed with the proactive support we had from agencies like the Metro Chamber and organizations such as the ATPC and TAG, which reflected not just a desire to do business, but genuine friendliness,” says Black.