P27 customer relations: identifying future needs and establishing trust

P27’s recently appointed Head of Customer Relations Management, Anna Maria Nyström, explains her vision for P27 customer relations and the possibility of creating a pan-Nordic ecosystem where customers will be able to leverage collective insights to develop new and innovative products.

It’s been a busy autumn at P27, as the company continues to take important steps toward the expected launch of a new pan-Nordic payments platform in 2021.

While the acquisition of Bankgirot may have generated headlines and remains subject to regulatory approvals, several other initiatives have also taken place behind the scenes. Among them is the naming in September of Anna Maria Nyström as P27’s first Head of Customer Relations Management.

A 20-year banking industry veteran, Nyström has been with P27 since June 2019 when she started as Head of Operations after more than a decade at SEB where she specialized in cash management and transaction services.

“It’s thrilling to establish something from scratch that will have an impact on so many,” she says.

P27 customer relations: a preview

After having helped get P27 off the ground, Nyström’s next challenge is to get the company’s future customer relations function up and running before the first possible transaction is expected to take place.

“We’re establishing our future customer relations function now to ensure we can be close to our future customers and fully understand how we can collaborate with them,” Nyström explains.

“It’s very important for us to be able to fulfill the needs of our customers throughout their journey into an integrated Nordic payments region.”

As P27 aims to be a common infrastructure, its customer relationship will differ from that of a traditional service provider. In addition to providing banks with a number of benefits, joining the P27 platform will also entail taking shared responsibility for ensuring the ecosystem is stable and secure for all participants.

“It’s quite unusual that we as the vendor are also assessing customers’ fitness to connect to the platform, but that’s part of the game when dealing with system-critical infrastructure,” Nyström explains.

“Transparency and trust are critical.”

All payment service providers that meet the requirements would be allowed to connect to P27. And each new future customer that would join the platform as a user would also have the opportunity to contribute to its future development.

While much about her role and how P27 will evolve is a work in progress, there’s one point on which Nyström is unwavering.

“P27 doesn’t aim to build products for end customers,” she states.

“Our future customers are payment service providers and banks and our aim is to support them with an efficient foundation to develop new products on top of their current portfolios that enhance their overall offering.”

The benefit of collective insights

One of Nyström’s top priorities in the near term is developing customer relationships based not on size or geographic location, but rather on specific needs and operations.

“We really need to start looking at different needs now so that we can develop different ways of interacting and collaborating before the platform is expected to go live,” says Nyström pointing to P27’s modular approach, with gives each ban to select the specific services it needs.

In addition to new opportunities for future customers of P27 to advance their product development, P27 also aims to bring banks a whole new level of insight.

“The real value of P27 is the insights we can provide from operating across such a wide market,” Nyström explains.

“Every bank could benefit from these insights which will provide a deeper understanding of the market and open new opportunities for product development that weren’t possible before.”

The goal is creating an environment and platform for collaboration where P27 can together with its customers jointly identify new business ideas and develop them together.

Note: The official launch of P27 services is subject to regulatory approvals and therefore P27 will not conduct any business activities until required regulatory approvals are obtained.