Companies to Learn From: 9 Payment Playbooks Worth Stealing

Oct 10

3 min read

Every great payments company started as somebody's "that will never work." Stripe was too simple. Nubank was too risky. Moniepoint was too small. Revolut was just a travel card.

Today they move trillions. Here are nine playbooks that rewrote the rules, the number that proves each one, and the lesson you can steal before Monday's strategy meeting.

1. Stripe: make the developer the customer

The move: Seven lines of code to accept a payment, when everyone else wanted a sales call and a 40-page contract.

The number: Businesses on Stripe processed $1.9 trillion in 2025, up 34%, about 1.6% of global GDP. Its billing, tax and invoicing suite is heading for a $1bn run rate on its own.

Steal this: Win the person who integrates you, not just the person who signs. Then sell them everything around the payment.

2. Adyen: one platform, built in-house

The move: While competitors bolted together acquisitions, Adyen built a single platform for online, in-store and in-app, on one codebase, with its own acquiring licences.

Steal this: Fewer systems means cleaner data and faster product. Unglamorous architecture decisions compound for a decade.

3. Revolut: the super-app that actually made money

The move: Start with cheap FX for travellers, then add a product every few months until customers have no reason to leave.

The number: 68.3 million retail customers at end-2025, $6bn revenue and $2.3bn profit before tax. Over 63% of new customers came through word of mouth. It exited UK bank mobilisation in March 2026.

Steal this: A wedge product gets you in. Product velocity and referral loops keep acquisition costs near zero.

4. Wise: transparency as a business model

The move: Show the real exchange rate and the fee upfront, then quietly become infrastructure for other banks.

The number: In FY2026 Wise moved over $240bn cross-border for around 19 million customers. Wise Platform now powers UniCredit, Raiffeisen and Capitec.

Steal this: Your consumer product can be the shop window for a B2B infrastructure business.

5. Nubank: serve the people banks ignored

The move: A no-fee credit card in a country where banking was expensive and branch-based. Then accounts, loans, insurance.

The number: Over 120 million customers across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia (approximate, late 2025).

Steal this: The underserved market is often the biggest one. Low cost-to-serve is the real moat.

6. Moniepoint: go where the cash is

The move: Put POS terminals in the hands of agents and small merchants in Nigeria, then add business banking, credit and payroll.

The number: 14 billion transactions worth ₦412 trillion (about $297bn) in 2025. It says it powers 8 in every 10 in-person POS payments in Nigeria.

Steal this: Distribution beats features. Win the physical front line, then cross-sell the full financial stack.

7. M-Pesa: mobile money before smartphones

The move: Safaricom turned airtime top-up agents into a national cash-in, cash-out network running on basic phones.

Steal this: Build for the device and the habits people already have, not the ones you wish they had.

8. Pix (Banco Central do Brasil): the regulator as product team

The move: Brazil's central bank built a free, instant, QR-friendly payment rail and mandated that banks join.

The number: Pix took 42% of Brazil's e-commerce value in 2025, and it's now accepted in Argentina, Chile, Portugal, Spain and the US.

Steal this: Public infrastructure can leapfrog private markets. Watch the UK's National Payments Vision for the same play.

9. Ant Group / Alipay: payments as the front door to everything

The move: Started as escrow for Taobao shoppers; became the app for paying, saving, borrowing and insurance.

The number: Alipay+ connects 1.8 billion users to 100 million merchants across 14 markets.

Steal this: Own the moment of payment and you own the customer relationship.

The pattern across all nine

Lesson	Who proves it
Start narrow, then expand relentlessly	Revolut, Nubank, Alipay
Distribution beats features	Moniepoint, M-Pesa
Infrastructure is the long game	Adyen, Wise, Stripe
Lowest cost-to-serve wins	Nubank, Wise
Rails can be public goods	Pix, UPI