Opus CEO TM Praveen on shaping the future of payments

TM Praveen is CEO of Opus, a leading global provider of innovative payment solutions. Celebrating 25 years in business this year, Opus has cultivated lasting trust and relationships across the global payments ecosystem. Praveen talks about the payment trends on the horizon, the limitless potential of the digital economy, and how Opus is leading the payment modernization wave.

How has Opus helped organizations gain a competitive edge in the payments ecosystem?

We were one of the early players who understood that digital is the future of payments. I strongly believe that payments will increasingly become a critical part of an organization’s decision-making process, which simply means that payments should be a primary driver of business strategy and not just a side project.

Over the past 25 years, our innovative products and services in the payment domain have been very successful in the market. We are backed by a team with great technical expertise and years of experience working with key players in the industry, including those on the Fortune 500 list.

From filling product gaps to offering customer diversification, our suite of digital solutions help a diverse global customer base with payments transformation, digital enablement solutions and product engineering services.

What will the payment ecosystem of the future look like?

Over the past two years, the rapid development of payments innovation has caused a phenomenal transformation across banking, fintech and e-commerce.

We are seeing new and exciting blockchain use cases, the transition to real-time payments is gaining momentum, and the payments ecosystem is being redefined to meet the needs of the growing metaverse community.

I believe, as we fast forward to a new frontier, a digital-first approach will be fundamental to the future of payments, and in all of this, a renewed focus on cloud, AI, data and security is a must.

As CEO, what has been your role in preparing Opus for the digital future?

Over the years we have made a place for ourselves on the world stage with over 200+ customers in 35 countries on five continents. We have achieved this through our relentless focus on execution and technical excellence – as well as by staying true to our core value system of passion, pride and perseverance.

At Opus, we promote a culture of continuous learning and futuristic thinking where we do not shy away from disrupting the status quo. To double down on digital transformation and reengineering operating models, we ensure our teams remain adept at responding to growing customer needs and rapidly changing market conditions. We believe that strategic foresight is the key to measuring the customer’s next move and preparing for changing market conditions.

How can organizations thrive through disruption?

To scale up in the payments world, you need to see disruption as an innovative process. Technological progress and innovation are the pillars that drive disruptive business models in payments.

Innovation is not just the process of ripping out older rails for newer versions. With payment in the background and the overall experience as the differentiating factor, there must be a greater focus on the development of value-adding payment services for users. Companies choose to work with Opus because we offer an innovative payment ecosystem on which our customers can build disruptive capabilities.

What can we expect from Opus in 2023 and beyond?

Opus is among the next generation of solution providers, and is leading one of the biggest revolutions in payment history. We are uniquely positioned to deliver advanced real-time payment platforms that give our customers the immediacy, functionality and convenience they need.

Our team of global payments experts bring unmatched domain expertise and product engineering capabilities critical to accelerating the modernization of payment solutions.

We help our customers stay at the forefront of digital transformation by driving large-scale transformations of monolithic architecture and improving customer-centricity by reengineering products to be more modern, agile and innovative.

In the coming years, we look forward to shaping the competitive payments landscape and creating long-term benefits for our customers and their consumers.

About the author: TM Praveen is CEO of Opus and a highly skilled global payments leader with over 20 years of experience. A veteran of the payments industry, Praveen has a tremendous wealth of insight to share on payments innovations, new technologies, fintech and financial services.