Digital Transactions
Former FIS Inc. executive Bruce Lowthers took over as chief executive of Paysafe Ltd. in May, and since then he’s had to work to steady a stumbling processing giant. His early assessment of his new company wasn’t pretty. “Bluntly, we’ve lost our way here,” he told equity analysts in August. Since then, he has revamped the company’s sales operation and worked to improve and re-orient its crucial digital-wallet technology.
Early Thursday, Lowthers pointed to improved results while cautioning that his rehabilitation of processing giant Paysafe is far from over. “We are impeding our growth,” he said. “We have to execute better. There’s no reason we can’t grow in line with our peers. We have the assets to compete.”
Steps so far include rebuilding Paysafe’s sales force and adding features to its crucial digital-wallet products. “[Merchant] sales were very siloed,” he told equity analysts during a call early Thursday to discuss the company’s third-quarter results. The process of rebuilding that operation, he added, is ongoing, but “we expect to see results from that fairly quickly.”
The acquiring unit, with higher average tickets and what the company called a stable merchant portfolio, posted $21.8 billion in volume for the quarter, up 5% from last year. Revenue climbed 12% to $185.4 million. “The team is performing really well,” Lowthers said. “They have performed up there with anyone in the space. We expect that to continue.”