PEX
The "Bank in a Box" System

The passion for serving in a rapidly evolving global payments ecosystem combined with an inclination toward pioneering innovation took Sailesh Sewpaul into the Payments world, where he led projects to launch the first EMV card and the first Maestro card with a Pin. In his capacity as an IT expert at the State Bank of Mauritius for almost two decades and as a business advisor on the board of Visa for Central Europe and Africa, Sailesh has enabled a multitude of financial institutions and businesses to deliver scalable and secure payment processing. With a vision to cater for the Payment services industry in Mauritius, Africa, and Asia, Sailesh began his entrepreneurial journey by founding Payment Express Ltd (PEX). Backed by a core team of ex-bankers with more than two decades of experience in the payments arena, he built the firm from scratch within a span of 2 years. Today the firm operates in about 10 African countries and provides integrated end-to-end payment services that include customer service, multichannel acquiring and processing, and cardholder services.

Powered by market-leading SmartVista technology, PEX provides financial organizations with a fully scalable payments architecture for everything from ATM acquiring and call centers through to mobile and e-commerce payments processing. “Think of us as a ‘bank in a box,’ able to take care of as much of your payments infrastructure as you need,” extols Sailesh. Also, being fully interoperable with leading payment systems such as Visa, MasterCard and UnionPay, PEX’s payments architecture allows businesses to reach out to their end customers with their branded services.

By linking effectively with a bank’s internal systems, PEX caters to their needs for the payment gateway and clearing services. PEX’s EMV compliant systems ensure that the banks can offer their clients and partners with a world-class transaction security and data traceability. For instance, PEX recently collaborated with the ABC Banking Corporation and UnionPay International to launch a Diamond debit card that would allow the high-end customers to enjoy secure and technically sophisticated banking experiences along with access to exclusive privileges.

Think of us as a ‘bank in a box,’ able to take care of as much of your payments infrastructure as you need

PEX has also achieved the feat of building their own payment gateway that is leveraged by banks and payment service providers for e-commerce processing and to acquire merchants’ processing. On the acquiring side, PEX enables banks to acquire transactions from the ATMs, the Point-of-Sale, and e-commerce applications and provide end customers with an omnichannel experience. The firm has developed their own mobile POS solution which is VISA, Mastercard, and UPI-certified and features switching, transaction authorization, and fraud prevention, and instantly certifies a bank's project.

Furthermore, PEX provides mobile-based, card-control facilities which allow a customer to switch on or switch off their EMV card based on their traction needs. This facilitates as a crucial security feature in case a card gets stolen as the client has full-control of how the card is used for transactions. Apart from hand-holding their clients until they understand the whole process and explaining the best practices, the payment experts at PEX offer comprehensive support and training to the client's technical teams.

Sailesh Sewpaul feels that PEX has still a long way to go in terms of crossing milestones and to set benchmarks, but he is assured that he and his team are on the right track as they have won accolades and launched some unique products in the last five years. To keep evolving in tandem with the fast-moving payment business, PEX is committed to innovate and incorporate disruptive technologies such as data analytics and AI-powered chatbots.