Peter Sidenius

Position: CEO at Edgar, Dunn & Company

Peter is the CEO of Edgar, Dunn & Company (EDC), a global Strategy Consultancy specialising in payments based at EDC’s London office. He has over twenty-five years of global consulting and industry experience in the financial services industry with wide geographic experience across European, North American, Middle Eastern, African and Asia-Pacific markets. 

Peter has delivered strategic consultancy assignments within the physical and e-business arena of financial services, providing strategic payment service analysis, profitability analysis, operational reviews, new product development, benchmarking studies and providing regulatory advice for industry leading clients. Clients include international payment schemes, central banks, financial services organisations, global private equity firms and national associations.

Peter is a regular conference speaker and Chairman at events concerning the cards and payments business and customer profitability/value management across Europe and beyond.

Get to know Peter Sidenius

Tell me about Edgar, Dunn & Company and what is your role?

I am the CEO of Edgar, Dunn & Company (EDC), which is a global strategy consulting firm focused on the payments industry.

What do you think is the driving force behind the exponential growth in Fintech?

Fintech growth has been driven by the exponential growth in technological capabilities and its applicability to the exchange of value. With the decrease in the cost of developing information technology infrastructure the focus has changed from core processing capabilities to managing the development of solutions to meet customer needs in an agile manner with low leads time. The challenge has changed from developing capabilities to grabbing a strong (dominant?) market position from which to exploit the agile customer proposition development strengths.

Is it possible that regulation has fueled the growth of Fintech?

Payments regulation is one of the key areas EDC has deep expertise in. There is no doubt the changes to regulatory environments to enable entry of non-banks has significantly increased the growth in fintech by enabling new entrants to compete for business,not just for consumers, but also businesses through EMI, PSP and AISP licenses.

Regulation aside, what do you think are the biggest challenges facing Fintechs today?

The question is not really about “regulation aside” if we are to address the challenges for Fintech, but rather about “future regulation”. It is essential that the relatively fragmented Fintech industry develops a common voice to engage with regulators and other stakeholder groups relating to the industry to ensure an informed debate underpins future regulatory developments.

How is the Payments Innovation Forum helping Fintech organisations face these challenges?

Through providing an important channel for engagement with stakeholders in industry, be they consumer associations, regulators or even major stakeholders such as the international card schemes.

How should the fintech sector respond to the cost-of-living crisis?

By continuing the drive to develop more cost effective means to exchange value through re-engineering the value chain, be it from streamlining KYC processing to lowering the cost of customer recruitment through to the processing of transactional information both domestically and cross-border.

If you were prime minister for a day, what would you pledge in support of the industry?

Hah!  I would rather not be the prime minister for a day (although that is close to the current average time in service!) and provide pledges to undo the damage done over recent years. The loss of the ability to passport EMI and PSP licenses from the UK across Europe is a major setback, so at the risk of being controversial, I would say that from the UK Fintech industry perspective I would seek access to the single market once again!