Arun Kumar has experienced and witnessed five years of incredible growth at HighRisk Gateways. Starting out as a sales manager, Kumar advanced through the company and currently works as head of sales. His advancement through HighRisk Gateways is evidence of his hard work and determination to succeed.
HighRisk Gateways is a leading financial company offering credit card and US eCheck payment processing to high-risk merchants around the globe. According to Kumar, the company merely works with high-risk businesses to deliver top world-class financial business solutions.
As head of sales, Kumar relishes his role with the company and visions the technology HighRisk Gateways to be used as the future of financial transactions. As an industry leader, the company is blazing trails in digital transactions.
Kumar recently spoke with Total Prestige Magazine about HighRisk Gateways and his career with the company.
Arun, you have been with HighRisk Gateways for over five years now. First off, what is HighRisk Gateways and what services does it offer to the clients?
Talking about business categories, few businesses are acceptable and rest are not. Since every client has mutual preference towards payment processing, and some of them reach us looking for a solution. However our approach is different for each client. First, we understand the business, we analyse if there is any scope to work with them followed by which we figure out the scope, then we start looking for the financial partner/ looking for the Acquirers/ Card Brands or the associates who are willing to look into that business or who may provide the solution to that business. So, we are different than other industries as we do not treat all clients with the same parameters. We are connected with hundreds of acquirers to process almost every high risk business, as long as it is legit and ready for our AML/KYC requirements.
You previously worked as the director of sales for the company. What initially led you to HighRisk Gateways after previously working for other FinTech companies?
I like this Industry because it is not very large, but it is based on financial and legal regulations. I almost have a decade of working experience with this industry. Because it was my area of interest for learning and exploring towards this sector which greatly influenced me to go for HighRisk Gateways.
The company’s HighRisk Gateway’s Online Payment Solution is a platform used all over the world in ecommerce. What are the benefits of the platform for companies?
The platform is created by the in-house team. It’s in the commencing phase; however, with this platform, we are going to offer solutions to merchants who are not regulated or merchants who have a small/ low volume. So in this way, every merchant can have a solution where they can process the transactions or can make transactions easily. In high-risk, it’s an obvious fact due to low volumes the merchants applications are denied. So, this would be an aggregate sort of solution that we have built where we can on-board almost any kind of merchant. It is a single tree for all small merchants.
For those that may not be aware of HighRisk Gateway’s benefits, how does it stack up against other online payment platforms like PayPal, Skrill, and others?
We are not in competition with PayPal, Stripe, Skrill and others. We are completely into a different segment. PayPal is something which anyone can sign up and start processing payments right away. Being a hosted service PayPal does not support business nature or activities and if the business falls into the risk category they can close the account without any prior notice. However, our business model and our approach towards merchant offerings are completely different. First, we analyse the merchant activities and we understand the amount of risk associated with the business, considering the risk ratio and factors we offer the merchant account and business solutions.
Unlike PayPal, Stripe and Skrill the HighRisk Gateways would never send an email overnight containing a message “your account has been terminated’’ (without any prior notice).
There is always a lot of talk about the start-ups and tech companies based in Silicon Valley, but HighRisk Gateways is based in India along with a large number of growing tech start-ups. What is it about India that so many tech start-ups are created in the country?
India is a revolutionary country for the IT industry and that revolution is gigantically taking India to the next level of IT. India is going to be the IT hub of the world very soon. Even top world-class companies are visiting India to setup their IT hubs, call centres, low cost IT houses etc. The major reason for this is IIT/IIM which are famous institutes and because of which Indian students has great intellect. We have a high standard technology hubs containing massive IT professionals/developers delivering the best services at the most affordable prices unlike the other locations which only consist of few developers and the cost is very expensive. Since we have a huge database of developers it is quite easy to find the cream of the crop.
As the world moves towards being even more digitalised, what is the future of making online payments and ecommerce?
World is moving towards a cashless economy and most of the cash transactions are moving to digital payments. It’s simple and fast. Online ecommerce is growing a lot due to digital payments.
How do ecommerce payment platforms like HighRisk Gateway’s work to integrate bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies?
We are yet to start our collaboration with bitcoin because we feel it’s quite risky at the moment. Several countries has already banned it considering the regulations.
Does HighRisk Gateways mostly work with “high risk” businesses? If so, what attracts the company to work with these groups?
We only work with high risk businesses because it is challenging. Low risk is for PayPal, for Stripe, etc. Low risk businesses should go to those brands and not to us. Working with Stripe or PayPal, with low risk merchants was never challenging to us. Accepting the challenge and we offer diverse services to the merchant who are in different segments associated with high risk mostly unable to obtain an apt solution, who cannot run their business on the trust of PayPal or Stripe. Therefore, we negotiate with banks and let the merchant continue processing with the bank even in case the merchant has few high chargebacks. This is how we work.
Moreover, HighRisk Gateways is actually a leading financial company offering credit card processing and US eCheck processing to high-risk merchants across the globe. We have connections with the world’s leading acquirers, financial institutions who are regulated in different regions and with those connections we offer these services to all our merchants.
Our approach towards each segment and the merchant is very different. So, when the merchant is going through us, we ensure the merchant is fully compliant in terms of legal issues which include AML/ FATF/ KYC before we contact the bank and represent them.
How will ecommerce and online payments change the way people live in the next five years?
The time is changing very fast with technology and gadgets. Day to day every new app is appearing and making everyone’s lifestyle easier. This helps the consumers fulfil their desires while being at home without any extra cost and travel. With online payment systems, anyone can make transactions in a fraction of seconds and distance doesn’t matter. Consumer’s access to an internet connection makes it possible to make transactions to pay your bills and other purpose. It could be buying books, CDs or DVDs, a favourite food, clothing. Anything you can imagine you can get it delivered at home.
In you’re more than five years at the company, what have you learned about yourself as a person
It is very interesting to explain in words about my experience about learning in this organization. I started as sales manager and I was handling a good team with complete dedication. It gave me a boost to do something new and collaborate with others to achieve more as a team. It gives me pleasure to work and motivate myself daily to give my best and as a result of this I got promoted to sales head of business growth. I can easily handle the queries of the merchants in all aspects. Now, I am mostly looking after the bank, acquirer’s connections and the collaboration with other PSPs who are finding it hard to place their high risk clients.
Arun, what is a day in your life like?
For me, it is important how I end it. I usually go to the right side of my bed and very carefully plug my mobile in to charge. It sometimes doesn’t matter how charged I am, my mobile should be charged always.
Which historical figure do you most admire?
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin.
Can you share one of your favourite quote with us?
“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” – Bruce lee
For more information on Arun Kumar and HighRisk Gateways, please visit https://www.highriskgateways.in/
