Do Good, Do Well and Be Well with Kieron James

On this episode of the Lead With Purpose podcast host, Tze Ching Yeung talks to Kieron James, CEO & founder of the FinTech and payments company, Wonderful about his business and his journey in business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Wonderful started off as an aspirational online giving charity platform that was completely free for charities in 2016. We were looking at all these charities, donors & fundraisers doing wonderful things & we felt we could provide a platform that sat in the middle where we aspired to be as wonderful as they were. Every penny went to charity with no deductions.
Money Saving Expert did a fundraising website comparison page, ranked us at number 1, & we were suddenly inundated with charities. This set in motion a success paradox where the more charities, donors & fundraisers used our website, the more our corporate sponsorship budget was handed over to payment processing fees. Covid gave us the opportunity to pause & reflect on what we did & we discovered open banking which was really quick and easy to donate.
Open banking means the opening up of APIs from the banks to FinTechs. We can, with the consent of a consumer or charity, move money from their account directly to the retailer or charity’s account. We’re on intermediary in the middle of that process, rather than when you make a payment with a card there are several intermediaries. It’s a bank-to-bank transfer with no data to enter, like sort codes, account numbers & names.
We have a tagline of “do good, do well, & be well”. There’s often a perceived tension between doing good & doing well, can these 2 things co-exist without people getting cynical about them? Greenwashing, for example. The moment of creating a fundraising platform leading to creating a commercial business – which will keep supporting all of the work that donors, charities & fundraiser do every day – means there doesn’t need to be a tension, there can be a synergy between those things.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Open banking is simple, fast, secure, even with a third party provider in the mix it’s about 90% cheaper than cards.’

‘We retained the name Wonderful for the payments business because we really see that making payments using open banking is wonderful.’

‘Whatever fees we incur through hosting, staffing, processing, will always be covered by a corporate sponsor so it’s always free for charities.’

‘My son did a sponsored skydive in 2016 & was outraged at the fact that a load of the money he’d raised for charity was being deducted by the fundraising platform. We thought it’d be great to do something about this.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Kieron James: An entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in launching and scaling start-up businesses in the tech sector, I am the CEO and Co-Founder of Wonderful, a company that provides simple, fast, and secure, instant bank payment solutions.

By harnessing Open Banking, and at just 1p per transaction, Wonderful payments are much cheaper than debit and credit card processing. Our payment processing service and fundraising platform are both completely free for UK charities.

I am Non-Executive Director at the Fundraising Regulator, where I contribute to the regulation and promotion of ethical fundraising practices in the UK.

I am passionate about making a positive impact (it's how we got started in payments - solving the problem of prohibitive card fees for our online giving platform).

With several successful exits, my mission is to make Wonderful Payments the leading instant bank payment provider.

Website

ABOUT THE HOST

Tze Ching started her entrepreneurial journey back in 2007 with the launch of a sustainable clothing & home furnishing ecommerce business. Next, she created a sustainable fashion brand.

In 2019, she launched a social enterprise to help raise awareness about the negative impact of fashion at schools & colleges.

Through the 15-year journey, she learned so much, but easily the most meaningful lesson learned was about the importance of marketing. She now focuses on channelling those insights to help others succeed through We Disrupt Agency, a business coaching, mentoring & digital marketing company.

Tze Ching’s mission is to create a community of global change makers and to contribute to positive change in both people & planet.

CONTACT DETAILS