Ireland has the financial expertise and regulatory knowledge to understand what BlueSnap is trying to do, company executives told SiliconRepublic.com.
Like most fintechs that have their European or EMEA headquarters in Dublin, BlueSnap’s big reasons for choosing the Irish capital were accessibility from the US and access to talent.
Since opening its European base in Dublin in early 2021, the Massachusetts-headquartered fintech has steadily grown its Irish operations.
As a payment processor, BlueSnap had another reason to move to Ireland – and that was Brexit. With the UK license no longer valid in the EU, it had to move quickly to choose a new base for its European operations.
“We decided on Ireland for several reasons,” BlueSnap global CEO Ralph Dangelmaier told SiliconRepublic.com. “One, there was already a really big established talent pool in Ireland around fintech. That’s noted by the 10 or 11 people that we just hired there.
“Secondly, we made sure that the regulators understood what we were trying to do in our business – which is very important, by the way, and you can’t say that about many of the other European countries.”
The third reason, Dangelmaier said, was that “it’s easy to get in and out of Ireland” from its Boston headquarters and its nearby UK operations.
“So, we said, it probably makes sense to take a shot at Dublin, and we thought we could also easily expand in Dublin – which we’re starting to do now.”
BlueSnap has spent the past few months building out its senior management team, with several executives hired to lead the Dublin office. One of the employees is Brian Gaynor, BlueSnap’s Europe CEO.
Increases its Irish staff
Gaynor told SiliconRepublic.com that more are being hired, albeit on a gradual basis as the company expands. “I’d say we’ll probably double our headcount in the next year or so.”
He is keen to point out that although Dublin has become well known as a fintech hub, it is not just the capital but the whole country that should be recognised.
BlueSnap has hired people based in Dundalk and Wexford, and Gaynor also mentioned the Belfast-Dublin Fintech corridor.
“There is a depth of experience here in Ireland. We now have a community of fintechs, and people who have been involved in payments for the last few years. It’s obviously a very competitive market, but people are here. It’s not like in other jurisdictions where there’s just not a payments industry.”
The team at BlueSnap Ireland, including European CEO Brian Gaynor (second from left) and global CEO Ralph Dangelmaier (third from left). Photo: BlueSnap
But the competition is healthy as it means there is a pool of people with fintech knowledge that BlueSnap can tap into. According to Gaynor, they have managed to find skilled employees all over the country.
Although based in Blanchardstown, the company operates a hybrid model. There is a focus on flexibility because BlueSnap’s other offices are based in different time zones.
“We’re very flexible in terms of how people work because Boston is five hours behind us. We have a development center in Israel that we’re dealing with that’s two hours ahead of us. So, Ireland is a perfect base to be able to span the different time zones,” Gaynor explained, adding that “a lot of our time is spent working on Zoom”.
Towards a multidimensional payment service
BlueSnap develops a payments platform and works with B2B and B2C customers to support online and mobile sales, subscriptions, marketplaces and more. The company is now looking to expand in Europe, bringing the product to as many markets as possible. So, what makes this fintech unique compared to every other payment provider out there?
Dangelmaier said many payment companies are domestic only, while BlueSnap is global and deals in multiple currencies. It can also handle what the industry calls multiple use cases, which means that a customer can buy from a website, but also pay in other ways, for example from invoices.
“Many payment providers are only set up for one use case,” said Dangelmaier. “Like, we only do invoices and we only do websites, or we only do marketplaces, so [merchants] end up getting multiple payment providers for the type of use case or channel they accept payments on.”
BlueSnap’s goal is to provide an all-in-one platform for its users with everything built-in. The other services include integrations with platforms such as Salesforce, as well as compliance, tax, chargebacks and refund knowledge for sellers.
“We’re kind of like an all-in-one platform for that merchant to go global,” Dangelmaier said. He believes that most people do not ask enough of their payment facilitators, and adds that they should think of payments as multidimensional.
“Payments are a lot like a Rubik’s Cube, and people think of it as an eight-by-11 square piece of paper.”
At this point, Gaynor gently interrupted to tell Dangelmaier that Irish people would call it an A4 sheet. He also echoed the point made, adding that BlueSnap strives to expand with its users, help them grow internationally and ensure they are fully compliant within each market and up-to-date on authorization rates.
Future plans
As for BlueSnap’s future plans, Dangelmaier and his team would like to continue with their current growth trajectory of 50 PCs a year. This may seem ambitious given the current economic downturn, but Dangelmaier reckons there is more market demand than ever.
“We have a lot of B2B and a lot more necessity type, and so I think we’re going to weather the recession pretty well. If anything, I think we can come out of it stronger because if people are looking for efficiency.”
He joked that the company is lucky it doesn’t rely on a lot of luxury handbags, and suggested it might not hurt to start bringing on board merchants who can sell Aran jumpers to Irish customers to keep them warm this winter.
That’s not to say BlueSnap is blasé about its current position, but Dangelmaier doesn’t foresee “a deterioration” in growth anytime soon.
Gaynor said he believes Ireland’s track record of hosting multinationals over the past decades will further benefit BlueSnap as it grows its European operations.
Irish people are not just good at technology, he added, they understand finance and the regulatory constructs that come with it – “what you need to do to be able to be compliant and operate in the European environment”.
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