SumUp has now passed a milestone in processing over 1 billion annual transactions.
Anna Kuriakose, chief product officer at UK-based payments group SumUp, has been at the forefront of product technology and consumer behaviour ever since she started working for a fledgling Indian mobile network in Kerala in the mid 1990s.
“I have sort of had a ringside view of that because of where I started in my career,” said Kuriakose, who began work at Escotel shortly after graduating in English language and literature.
“I realised that there was this piece of software which I didn't know anything about at that time which defines the experience that the customer has and the chance of success that the company has. So I really fell in love with that idea of the software and that's how I ended up in product management.”
Kuriakose spearheads SumUp's development of financial solutions at the payment acceptance company, its small business (SME)-centric approach servicing 4 million customers in 36 markets.
She had previously led product innovation at the likes of Meta (META), where she was product director for Messenger, Skype, JustGiving and TotallyMoney before joining SumUp in 2023.
Kuriakose saw first hand the rise of smartphone technology at the 2013 London Marathon, an event which saw mobile traffic to JustGiving’s website usurp desktop for the first time. Donations from mobile also topped a reported £300,000 on the day.
From the concept of "social giving" she experienced at JustGiving, Kuriakose is now developing SumUp’s product portfolio to meet the needs of SMEs it caters for.
SumUp CPO Anna Kuriakose was an early product manager at Skype.
“It’s understanding what matters to them, understanding that they don't always get the best of tools and have the deep pockets that large businesses and enterprises have to get bespoke solutions, or to get all the best solutions served up to them,” she told Yahoo Finance UK on the sidelines of last month's Web Summit in Lisbon.
“So they're always looking for something that gives them the advantage, mostly the solutions and the products that they need to work for them. It's very critical to make sure that it actually works well for them, so the vision of working for small businesses and deeply understanding that is really important.”
In a highly competitive field of payment acceptance products, Kuriakose says the key for SumUp is focusing on SMEs’ needs over the latest technology breakthroughs.
“We have launched a number of different products to the market and we've grown it over the years, but each of those products need to be continuously worked on as we serve different categories of businesses,” she added.
“If you're a small business of one or two restaurants, a table management type restaurant, your needs are very different from a retail store, a self-service cafe, or a health and beauty business.“
SumUp has evolved from payments focus to include business accounts, cards, and software for its 4 million customers.
SumUp’s suite of products include card readers, payment solutions and invoicing software that support merchants. While card readers do not have fixed contracts or monthly fees, its SumUp One multi-product subscribers no longer pay transaction fees on £10 payments or less.
Since being founded in 2012, the global fintech has expanded to an integrated "super app" that includes payments, free business accounts and advanced business management software. It recently surpassed 1 billion annual transactions.
“The term super app is defined very differently by people,” said Kuriakose. “There is the Asian market concept of what a super app is, but in our case, we talk about it as the one app that brings together these multiple needs for merchants and allows them to consume different products within that.
“So in our case, they can manage their online store and send out their invoices and manage point-of-sale systems and inventory, as well as their business account and take payments. So that's what we mean by bringing all of these different tools into essentially a Swiss Army knife super app.
“Each category of business has subtly different needs. So we are constantly evolving our products to meet more and more of those needs all the time. I don't think we are anywhere near done too, because these needs, categories and markets are so diverse.”
SumUp CPO Anna Kuriakose on leadership…
A fascinating view of leadership that's really influenced me over the years has been a Lean Manufacturing quote: 'Lead like you have no power'.
A good team can become a great team with the right kind of leadership. Once I understood the real power of leadership, that's when I realised that's what it means. It's not about position, title or about anything that is externally perceived. It's about the fact that you're working with people that can actually deliver even more because of that.
How to be an effective CPO
A lot of people talk about CPO as a new role but it's probably been in the ascendancy for the last 15-20 years. Tech has become so important and building products underlies a lot of the success, so I think CPO as a role, or product management as a function, has become very important.
Over 1 million consumers are using the SumUp Pro Account.
If you look at any mobile customer today, they may not speak the language of design, user experience and modern technology, but their understanding of what is a good experience is so well evolved because all of them use amazing apps on their phones. They know what is good, and their level of what is acceptable has gone up.
As CPO you have to be aware of the technology shifts and how consumer behaviour is shaped as a result. And then you have to be aware of how that results in new business models and the new opportunities coming up. So it's less about purely cultural shifts but all of these things coming together that affects your product.
