It’s a well-worn tale. Giving up a promising career as the drummer in Dublin punk upstarts Necromancer for a job at Bank of Ireland.
Well maybe not. But I sit down with Joe Redmond in Navro’s offices in Dublin 2, photographic evidence is produced on his phone – a younger man with two-tone hair and a ragged T-shirt sits behind a large drum kit.
“I doubt it will come up anywhere in a Google search,” says the tall, white-haired, 60-something.
“I think there was one support act in The Baggot Inn – don’t ask me the date or the time. That was our claim to fame. I did that for a couple of years – then I started to take my career in Bank of Ireland a bit more seriously and started to take my relationship with my future wife more seriously.”
The drum kit was subsequently sold to finance a purchase in Fitzpatrick’s shoe shop on Grafton Street.
“She saw them and she liked them. So the full proceeds of the drum kit went on these very expensive Italian leather boots,” he says.
Redmond’s career has been dominated by payments and finance ever since. He is soon to finish out a three-year term as chief executive of Navro Europe – a fintech start-up that specialises in simplifying global payment systems for companies.
After a lengthy stint at Irish financial services firm Fexco, Redmond was hired as London-based Navro sought to expand its international operations – and obtain the licences crucial to its future growth.
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It was not in his plans. After leaving Fexco in 2022, he says he began looking at a number of possible independent non-executive roles elsewhere. The two previous years had been difficult ones for his division within the Kerry-headquartered firm. The pandemic shut down international travel almost overnight, pitching his division within Fexco into a challenging position.
“The businesses that I’ve had responsibility for over the years – retail, foreign exchange, travel money, bureau de change, whatever you want to call it. It has a huge dependency on international travel. So all of a sudden, in 2020, 98 per cent of the revenues of what was built to be the largest division disappeared. So the arrangement I made with [Fexco founder] Brian McCarthy is that we would transform it, rebuild it, do the necessary, I suppose, cost cutting and to get the business through Covid.”
It was while pondering his retirement that the call came from Navro.
“I suppose I don’t quite fit the profile of a fintech start-up CEO at my stage in my career,” he remarks.
Redmond had been responsible for helping establish First Rate, a foreign exchange business that became a joint venture between Bank of Ireland and the UK Post Office. At Fexco, he oversaw a slew of acquisitions, helping to make it a big player in the British and Irish markets.
“So that’s, I think, what they looked at and said: ‘Well, we do want somebody, you know, who has had start-up experience and a business transformation experience.’ But, I suspect, also the grey hairs, you know, which give the regulators and our tier-one banking relationships a bit of comfort.”
Navro, formerly known as Paytrix, is the brainchild of founders Aran Brown and Eddie Harrison.
“What they saw was that when businesses wanted to expand overseas and grow their businesses internationally, when it came to payments they were finding it very complex, very fragmented,” Redmond explains.
“Navro, through its rails, its routes, has been able to say, well, deal with us, we’ll be able to handle your collections in all those jurisdictions on your behalf, through local bank accounts, and we’ll be able to handle your payments into those jurisdictions.”
Redmond says much of his time has been concentrated in the worlds of licensing and regulation.
“We had to get our CBI [Central Bank of Ireland] licence. That was my major priority when I came on board. Others have come and gone with their tail between their legs having not secured that.”
The licence enables Navro to process foreign exchange payments across Europe. Redmond insists its Dublin presence is more than a “brass-plate” operation.
“We have to have our own management structure and team structure here to meet the requirements of the licence,” he says. “So, a very strong CFO, a very strong chief compliance officer, a very strong chief risk officer. And we kept, I suppose, the process of back and forth between the bank to get that licence and that authorisation took just slightly over a year, which is shorter than most, but still very rigorous.”
All those venture capitalists saw what I saw in Navro. Really ambitious people, a really unique payments proposition, and absolutely relentless execution and delivery of the plans to date
— Joe Redmond
The fintech world has no shortage of young go-getters who embrace the old Facebook mantra of “move fast and break things”.
The titan of the scene, Revolut, recently butted heads with regulators in Europe over the pace of its product roll-out. It was revealed earlier this year that the European Central Bank has sought to rein in what the company calls its “self-guided missiles” – younger workers who are encouraged to rapidly develop products with limited oversight from management.
Redmond doesn’t pretend to understand the mechanics behind the tech that drives the platform. Navro has software engineers in Poland and Portugal.
“When I find myself in the company of these guys or the head of engineering – I sit on the group expert team and so [does] the head of engineering – it’s a different language. They have their own way of [seeing] the world.”
However, he says, adherence to the Irish licence means companies like Navro can’t afford to “drop the ball”.
“I think there is a trade-off there,” he says about the challenge of innovating quickly while also ensuring no regulatory red lines are crossed.
“You can knock the numbers out of the ballpark, but if you drop the ball on a compliance matter then all is lost, and the guys understand that.”
This caution, he says, extends to the use of artificial intelligence.
“We’re going about it in a very prudent, measured way. We’re certainly introducing AI very slightly in the sales and marketing area and very slightly again in the engineering and the coding area.
“With payments, there’s no room for errors. You cannot miss payroll payments, you cannot miss a pension payment on behalf of your clients. So for us right now, human supervision of the payments is essential.”
Having acquired money transmitting licences in the United States and Canada, the company is pursuing similar certifications in Asia.
Redmond maintains that experienced and steady-handed executives are also needed to bring investors on board and that Navro has managed to raise almost $100 million (€87.4 million) to date.
He cites the Boston-based private investment firm Bain Capital along with the Chicago-based fintech venture firm Jump Capital, among others.
“All those venture capitalists saw what I saw in the firm,” he says. “Really ambitious people, a really unique payments proposition, and absolutely relentless execution and delivery of the plans to date.”
Relationships have also been established with US banks Citi and JPMorgan, allowing the company and its clients to avail of their international payment systems or “rails”.
Navro Europe, in the wider scheme of things, is a niche player in the payments business, in contrast withRevolut.
[ Lessons from Ireland’s Revolut revolutionOpens in new window ]
Just rebranded as Revolut Bank, it counts more than 70 per cent of adults in the Republic as customers and has around 70 million users worldwide.
In the past few months the Irish banking system has sought to respond to the convenience Revolut has brought to payment transfers but also its efforts to move into the mainstream banking space with mortgages.
The launch of the Zippay payment service by AIB, Bank of Ireland and PTSB is a case in point. It essentially mimics the ability to transfer payments instantly while also allowing people to split restaurant bills the way they have with Revolut for years.
Redmond says he has a “slightly jaundiced view” when it comes to the hype around Revolut.
“I always say the payments business hasn’t changed since Moses was a boy. It’s moving other people’s money from A to B.”
Yet, he acknowledges that the neobank, as a business, has done “phenomenal things”.
“The banks are only beginning to catch up with them now in Zippay, and that’s, for me, far too little and far too late. So you just wonder, are they [Revolut] moving at such a pace that the regulatory authorities are finding it hard to keep up with them? I suspect there is an element to that.”
Redmond has also watched the rise of cryptocurrencies in his time with Navro. Once a pursuit for those on the margins of the financial world, crypto has since entered the mainstream. One of its main boosters is US president Donald Trump.
The likes of the Collison brothers at Stripe have also embraced crypto. The company is reported to be working with Visa and Mastercard in an effort to build their own so-called stablecoin.
Stablecoins have been marketed as a safer, more reliable alternative to the likes of Bitcoin. Pegged to a major currency or asset, they offer the speed and discretion of crypto without the inherent volatility.
[ AIB, Bank of Ireland join consortium of European banks developing euro-backed stablecoinOpens in new window ]
According to Redmond, Navro is set up to facilitate the transfer of stablecoins. Again, he says the company has moved cautiously – for fear of getting out of step with the regulators.
“I was out with a very senior guy in one of the tier-one banks recently and he sees [stablecoin] as a flash in the pan that it has a limited future. So, the jury’s out and people have all kinds of different views as well. But, for now, we think it’s something we have to offer our customers because the market is going in that direction.
“Whether it’ll be there in the long term is another question.”
Redmond’s old colleagues in the mainstream banking world have bemoaned some of the red tape that now envelopes banking in Ireland. The historic regulatory failings of the 2000s have led to a business environment that is cautious and, they claim, overly supervised.
While Redmond acknowledges the need to stick rigidly to the requirements of a banking licence, does he see any merit in this argument?
“I feel there’s an overhang from the legacy from the great economic crisis,” he says. “You have to understand it from the [central] bank’s perspective. They were effectively accused of being asleep at the wheel during the global financial crisis and over their dead body were they ever going to allow that to happen again.”
[ Central Bank’s Vasileios Madouros: The impact of the 2008 crash is ‘persistent’Opens in new window ]
He argues that in many ways having an Irish e-money licence has enhanced Navro’s standing when it speaks to potential investors and clients – calling it the “gold standard”.
With the end of his term at Navro looming, the question arises as to what Redmond sees himself doing next. Going back behind the drum kit perhaps with his old bandmates?
“Occasionally, I bump into the guys and it’s like the Blues Brothers – ‘let’s get the band back together’. But it’s only a bit of a pipe dream at this stage,” he says.
“When I hang up my boots at the executive level and go into the INED [independent non-executive director] work I will in theory have a bit more time.
“So if anybody ever said come into a studio and have a little bash, I certainly would, you know.”
CV
Name: Joe Redmond
Job: Chief Executive, Navro Europe
Age: 63
Lives: Blackrock, Dublin
Family: Married to Sue with two adult children, Robyn and Johnny, one granddaughter Marlowe, and one charming Scottish son-in-law, Douglas
Hobbies: Art house cinema at the Irish Film Centre, all music genres from jazz to opera, cooking with the wok, discovering new wines and travelling the world with Sue.
Something we might expect: “I believe passionately in the importance of strategic thinking, the ability to anticipate market changes and focus on long term goals.”
Something that might surprise: “Having led global retail foreign exchange businesses for most of my career I was known as the ‘King of Cash’. The truth, however, is that I haven’t carried cash personally for over 15 years and was one of the first Revolut customers in Ireland when it launched in 2017. My secret is out.”
Leadership style: “True leaders have to be able to manage effectively during peacetime and war. I’ve had to steer my businesses through a number of major crises including 9/11, the global financial crisis and Covid. I would describe my style as authentic‚ strategic and transformative and I remain heavily influenced to this day by the three original directors of Bank of Ireland’s First Rate Enterprises.”
