Marcin Glogowski

Can you tell us about Marqeta and what the company does?

Marcin: Marqeta is the modern issuing and issuer processing platform. We support fintech and non-fintech companies with introducing various contexts of cards being issued, with cards working in whatever context or use case, whether that's consumer or commercial, debit or credit. 

The breadth and depth of relationships we're able to build is fascinating, based on what I think is one of the most robust and stable platforms that has been tested to its extremes. 

We are making Europe the next space for Marqeta to grow, utilising our vast experience and technological solutions to build ourselves, but primarily to build our customers in Europe as well.

Could you share your career journey leading up to Marqeta?

Marcin: I've been in the financial services context for pretty much a quarter of a century now. I started in management consulting, primarily looking at the financial services sector and supporting banks to grow. 

Then I moved to one of the banks, transforming it from A to B, then to PayPal, and now Marqeta. Along the way, I observed how the banking sector is both complex and inefficient, with a limited speed to embrace changes. 

This is what historically attracted me to PayPal, and later even more to Marqeta - being able to be at the forefront of how financial experience is being created, shaped and changed by very modern players.

What are the main challenges traditional banks face in modernising their systems?

Marcin: The fundamental problem for banks is addressing their legacy infrastructure, which is massively costly. It's not fundamentally a lack of willingness to change from the banking side, it's simply where they're starting from and the cost of moving the legacy setup to where it should be. 

For banks, it was always very hard to imagine they could outsource their tech stack to anyone and be provided a service, rather than internally building what they consume in their context. 

There are two elements making banks potentially end up in a catch-up situation: the massive cost of legacy and changing this legacy architecture, but also the mental quantum leap they need to make to get serviced and help from the outside.

How do you view the different approaches to finance across global regions?

Marcin: There are three paradigms in the world: the European paradigm, the US paradigm, and the Confucian paradigm. The European one is mostly focused on individual and individualism, with European culture putting the value of individualism very high. 

In the US, the focus is more on capital and protecting capital. The Confucian model is very different - it puts the benefit of society and the whole construct ahead of individual needs.

What is your vision for the future of consumer payments?

Marcin: It's a matter of when, not if, consumers will get what they want from brands without the payment context being surfaced. This will be coupled with increasingly modern, smart, technologically supported, AI-powered ways to assess customer creditworthiness at the moment of purchase. 

I think this is where the future of solutions that today exist under buy now, pay later is heading. It's about increasing convenience to the level where payment doesn't really exist, whilst increasing the utility of the buyer by providing contextual funding when available funds don't support a particular purchase.

How is Marqeta innovating in traditional sectors like insurance?

Marcin: Take insurance as an example. With everything that Apple did, allowing the repair tech stack to be used outside of their own app, we built a provisioning system allowing insurers to instantly issue cards for claim payments that is faster and more convenient for the user. 

Instead of being a cost element of the bank payout, it becomes part of the revenue equation through card interchange. It's fascinating that even in less visionary spaces, there is so much potential to improve both the user experience and operational efficiency of traditional players through the card context.

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