The payments industry moves faster than most sectors, with technology cycles shrinking and innovation windows closing before companies can capitalise on them. Success requires more than keeping pace with change. It demands a strategic approach built on understanding what really drives competitive advantage. Nicki Bull Bisgaard, founder and CEO of PayTech Group, has spent over 30 years at the centre of PayTech and fintech evolution, leading global teams and reshaping how payments work.
Put the Customer at the Centre
Most companies think technology wins the digital payments race. They pour resources into building the fastest systems, the slickest interfaces, the most cutting-edge features. But that misses the point entirely. “The digital payments race is not won by the fastest technology alone, it is won by solving the customer’s problems better than anyone else,” Bisgaard explains. The distinction matters more than it might seem at first glance.
Competitive advantage grows from understanding customers at a deeper level than surface preferences or basic needs. It requires digging into the actual experience of using payment systems, finding where things break down, where frustration builds, where trust wavers. “At PayTech, we analyse customer journeys end to end, removing friction points and building solutions that feel intuitive, seamless and secure,” he notes. This approach goes beyond standard user testing or satisfaction surveys. The payoff comes when customers choose your service not because they have to, but because everything else feels harder by comparison. “If your service becomes the easiest and most trusted option, you’ve already moved ahead of the competition,” Bisgaard points out. Trust and ease of use create stickiness that pure technology rarely achieves on its own.
Innovate with Agility
Speed matters differently than most executives understand. The payments landscape demands rapid response to market changes, and companies that take years to move from concept to launch find themselves obsolete before they finish building. “In payments, technology cycles are getting shorter and innovation windows are getting smaller. To stay ahead, you need agility, the ability to test, adapt and deploy quickly without sacrificing security or compliance,” Bisgaard says.
Building that kind of agility takes more than good intentions or general directives about moving faster. PayTech has structured cross-functional teams specifically designed to compress development timelines while maintaining the security and compliance standards that payments require. The company leverages AI, advanced analytics and cloud infrastructure to shrink what used to take years down to months. But real agility goes deeper than just speed. “Agility isn’t just speed, it is the capacity to respond intelligently to market shifts,” Bisgaard explains. Companies need the ability to pivot when customer needs change, when regulations shift, when new competitors emerge with different approaches. That requires organisational flexibility and technical architecture that supports rapid adaptation without starting from scratch each time.
Build Strategic Partnerships
The lone wolf approach doesn’t work anymore in payments, if it ever did. The ecosystem has grown too complex, too interconnected, too specialised for any single company to dominate every aspect. “No single company can dominate every aspect of the payments ecosystem. Competitive advantage often comes from partnerships,” Bisgaard notes. This reality frustrates executives who want complete control, but fighting it means falling behind.
The trick lies in choosing the right partners and structuring those relationships to multiply value rather than divide it. PayTech collaborates with fintechs, banks, retailers and sometimes even competitors to deliver more comprehensive solutions than any single entity could build alone. These alliances serve multiple purposes at once. “At PayTech, we’ve seen how the right alliances open new markets, enhance capabilities and accelerate innovation,” he says. The future points toward even more interconnection, not less. Isolated players trying to own entire verticals will struggle against networks of companies that work together strategically. “The future of digital payments will be shaped by interconnected networks, not isolated players,” Bisgaard predicts. Companies that resist this shift or approach partnerships purely as vendor relationships will find themselves outmanoeuvred by those who understand collaborative advantage.
These three elements work together, not in isolation. Customer focus without agility leaves you understanding problems you can’t solve quickly enough. Agility without customer focus means building fast solutions nobody actually needs. Partnerships without the other two just multiply mediocrity. “In digital payments, competitive advantage is built on three pillars: putting the customer first, innovating with agility and forging the right partnerships,” Bisgaard summarises. Getting all three right simultaneously poses a real challenge. It requires different organizational structures, different incentives, different ways of measuring success. But companies that manage it find themselves in a different competitive position entirely. “If you can execute on all three, you won’t just keep up with the change, you’ll help define it,” he concludes. That’s the difference between following the market and leading it.
Connect with Nicki Bull Bisgaard on LinkedIn to explore his insights on redefining digital payments and building long-term competitive advantage.
