The Executive Interview Series provides readers with exclusive insights from movers and shakers in the payments industry. The payments industry is under continuous transformation. This series offers diverse perspectives on everything from strategy to payments technology and the industry’s future.
This interview between TSG’s Morgan Murphy and Vijay Sondhi, CEO of NMI, covers his journey in the payments industry, starting with a passion for finance and technology, leading to roles at Visa and now NMI. At NMI, they focus on building an open, flexible, and modular payments platform that connects various systems, helping partners handle complex payment needs.
Bio: Vijay is the CEO of NMI and a seasoned fintech executive. His more than three decades of industry expertise includes driving innovation and strategy at Visa, where he managed the CyberSource and Authorize.net businesses, and spearheaded the launch of Visa’s One-Market Innovation Center. He served as CFO for three private equity and venture-backed companies, overseeing capital raises, M&A transactions, and an IPO, covering sectors from ERP accounting, point-of-sale systems, hospitality reservations and financial document management. His professional journey has enriched his approach to global fintech challenges, having worked extensively across the USA, Canada, and Europe. Currently residing in San Francisco, Vijay enjoys cycling, skiing and spending time outdoors with his wife and two daughters.
Q. Morgan M.
You have been in key roles from a CEO to CFO to a Corporate Strategy leader. On top of that, your background has spanned a wide array of payment sectors including ERP, POS to card networks. Walk us through your payments journey.
A. Vijay S.
My passion for payments began out of a deep-rooted love of both finance and accounting, which I explored during my undergrad years. Initially I was torn between pursuing a commerce degree, as it was called in Canada, or diving into computer science. I ultimately chose the latter, deciding to get my first degree in computer science and then follow that with an MBA. I always wanted to be working at the intersection of finance and technology—a place vast enough to span the stock market, banking systems, and beyond.
However, it was the payments sector that truly captured my attention because payments touch consumers. Entering the payments world over two decades ago, I was struck by its antiquated state: clunky plastic cards with magnetic stripes and bulky credit card readers. I just knew there was opportunity for innovation, even before the advent of transformative technologies like smartphones.
By the time I joined Visa, devices like the BlackBerry and iPhone were revolutionizing how we think about mobility and connectivity. And the push towards digitizing payments—moving away from cash and checks—was exhilarating. We often discussed how our real competitors were really these older forms of currency, as the world shifted towards digital transactions.
So that’s how I got into payments, and that journey led me to NMI. I wanted to be part of a company that was small enough to be agile, but also had the breadth and capability for significant impact. And that’s what we are, a tight-knit team of 500 people, processing more than $203 billion every year—a testament to our reach and influence in the industry.
Q. Morgan M.
How have these experiences influenced your leadership and strategic vision at NMI?
A. Vijay S.
These experiences have been instrumental in shaping my strategic vision for NMI. I’m a big believer in the power of open ecosystems and interoperability, which have guided our strategic direction. Drawing inspiration from some of the industry’s innovators, I recognized early on the potential for a company like NMI to take a page out of the playbook of these disruptors.
Our industry is also rich with traditional, established players, and I felt very strongly that there would be a place for someone that connects all of the disparate systems we have – processors, POS systems, acquiring banks. This vision for interoperability and creating a multiplex or abstraction layer is essential and always going to be in demand as we surf the wave of digitization and innovation.
So that’s what led us here and to NMI’s vision: From Sign Up to Pay Out, providing our partners and customers with flexibility, modularity, and choice.
Q. Morgan M.
What are the biggest challenges you have faced as a CEO, and how did you overcome them?
A. Vijay S.
The most significant challenge I faced as CEO was transitioning NMI from its startup phase, where it had been for over a decade, into a player capable of scaling effectively. The core challenge was evolving the company’s culture to retain the benefits of being small—such as agility, an entrepreneurial culture, and a propensity for innovation and risk-taking. This had to be achieved while operating on a much larger scale.
In our case, that’s hundreds of thousands of merchants, thousands of partners, and handling billions of transactions a year. To navigate this, the key was assembling a leadership team that not only embraced the duality of maintaining the advantages of a smaller organization but also the robustness and reliability required at a larger scale.
Q. Morgan M.
Tell us a little bit about the evolution at NMI and how does NMI differentiate itself today from the competition?
A. Vijay S.
As mentioned earlier, NMI sets itself apart through its commitment to openness, interoperability and connectivity. We pride ourselves on the extensive network we’ve built, which connects to more than 100 processors and supports 25 different EMV devices. This capability enables us to operate at scale and increasingly enables our partners to capture more segments of the payments value chain, right from sign-up.
Over the years, we’ve dedicated significant efforts to developing our sign-up layer, we now have it, known as Merchant Relationship Management or MRM. Then there’s our NMI Gateway through to transaction switching, that’s the cornerstone of our operations, embodying our core foundation. As we look to the future, our focus will shift towards enhancing our payout capabilities, completing the full spectrum of payment services we offer.
Q. Morgan M.
From an industry perspective, where do you see the biggest opportunities generally speaking? On the other side of the coin, what keeps you up at night?
A. Vijay S.
The greatest opportunity lies in enabling merchants to seamlessly go online to process payments without being tethered to a single, monolithic payment stack. At NMI, we position ourselves uniquely in the middle of the payments pyramid.
Our platform is designed to offer flexibility—merchants can either integrate all components for a unified solution or mix and match according to their needs. Modularity, flexibility and choice is particularly valuable for our software platform partners, ISOs or aggregators. They serve doctors’ surgeries, field service providers, and large nonprofits that require diverse payment solutions, from in-app purchases to unattended POS systems. Many also want to use more than one processor or acquiring bank, and this is where NMI shines.
What keeps me awake at night is the shift in the market dynamics. Large enterprise players are increasingly moving into the SMB space, offering services that were previously tailored only for larger clients. At the same time, solutions initially designed for micro-merchants are scaling up. This convergence creates a highly competitive environment, especially as the saying goes, “software is eating the world and payments is taking a bite.” Everyone is targeting the software platforms and NMI is too. Our challenge is to continually enhance our value proposition—emphasizing our modularity, flexibility and choice—to not only compete but to stand out as their top choice.
Q. Morgan M.
What innovations in the payments industry are you most excited about, and how is NMI positioning itself to capitalize on these trends?
A. Vijay S.
Well clearly, it’s the payments that disappear! The ideal payment experience is one that feels like it never even happened. This vision is driving us towards embracing technologies such as network tokenization, card-on-file systems, in-app purchases, and AI-enhanced biometric authentication to improve both authentication and fraud detection.
These advancements are paving the way for a future where consumers will no longer need a physical card, or even a digital card in mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Wallet, or Samsung Pay. What excites me the most is a world where AI and biometric authentication seamlessly integrate with cloud-based tokenization of card credentials. This will make payments fade into the background of everyday interactions. At NMI, we are committed to enabling our partners to bring this seamless, invisible payment experience to the world.
Q. Morgan M.
How do you envision NMI Payments, the new modular, next-generation embedded payments platform, transforming the payment processing landscape for ISOs, ISVs, and other partners?
A. Vijay S.
As I mentioned earlier, in the SMB market there’s a significant demand for a platform that can handle multiple processors, acquiring banks, and diverse payment capture methods like POS or in-app APIs. This complexity necessitates a robust tech stack that we provide not directly to merchants, but through ISOs, software companies, and other partners. Our approach allows these partners to focus on their core business and unique value proposition, tailored to specific geographies or merchant types. In the case of software companies, it allows them to integrate payments seamlessly into their solutions without needing to become payments experts. Our partners can continue to source their own payment accounts or, if they choose, get one directly from NMI Payments.
Our role is to support our partners by integrating the latest technological advancements into their platforms. Effectively future-proofing their businesses against the next waves of tech evolution. We started with a white-label, behind-the-scenes channel model and continue to embrace it. Today, we power approximately 2 billion transactions for around 400,000 merchants. However, our market reach is magnified through more than 3,000 partners, a testament to our strategy’s effectiveness and the strength of our modular, adaptable platform.
Q. Morgan M.
What is the long-term vision for NMI? Where do you see NMI in 5 years for example?
A. Vijay S.
Looking ahead, our long-term vision for NMI is to reach a trillion dollars in payment volume within the next five years. We’re almost a quarter of the way there. We aim to achieve this ambitious goal by offering a complete end-to-end payment solution that spans from sign-up to payout. Central to this vision is our commitment to modularity, flexibility and choice along with seamless integration. This allows our partners to tailor solutions to their specific needs without compromising on functionality or user experience. This approach will not only help us scale but also deepen our impact across the payments ecosystem. Ensuring we continue to lead in innovation and service.