In the fast-evolving payments landscape, staying ahead of regulatory changes, fraud risks, and emerging technologies requires deep expertise and decades of perspective. Kevin Smith, Payments Risk Director at Payments Consulting Network (PCN), brings exactly that. With a career spanning more than 40 years, Kevin’s journey began on the shop floor with Sainsbury’s before moving into pioneering roles in debit cards, global product management, and risk leadership at Visa. His work has taken him from the UK to California and across Europe, collaborating with merchants, acquirers, regulators, and card schemes.

Since 2011, he has guided global clients on acceptance, compliance, and fraud prevention. In this conversation, Kevin reflects on the evolution of risk management, the role of ongoing KYC, and how he stays ahead of fraud trends, while also sharing his passions for cycling, rugby, and Scotch whisky.

Read the full interview below.

AJ Llanos: Can you describe your previous roles and how they contributed to your expertise in payments?

Kevin Smith: It’s been a long career, but it actually started in retail with Sainsbury’s in the early 1980s. I began in store management, but by 1985 the big c retailers were introducing in-store technology, and Sainsbury’s brought me into the world of electronic payments. From there, I joined Switch, it’s a brand new debit card system in the UK, before moving to Visa in 1994. I spent 17 years there in roles across the UK, Europe, and globally.

I was lucky enough to be seconded to Visa International in California for three years. I performed a global product management role from there. When I came back, I really focused on acceptance, acquiring, and merchants as that side of the four-party model.

Over the years, I shifted from marketing into acceptance, acquiring, and eventually risk management, becoming Head of Fraud and Compliance at Visa Europe. When Visa restructured in 2011, I was going to find another job. I thought I’d do some consulting in the meantime, and here I am 14 years later, still consulting in electronic payments around the world.

AL: What attracted you to consulting in the payment space?

KS: I think consulting was an accident, but a pleasant accident. When I left Visa, I am going to look for another job, and I received offers, but consulting gave me the ability to work with many different clients in various roles across different countries around the world. I found that really exciting to work with a mixture of acquirers, processors, gateways, merchants, regulators, and card schemes. I learned the benefits of collaboration with other people early in my consulting career, I partnered with a former colleague, combining my scheme background with his banking expertise, we started to pursue and successfully deliver business across Europe. In effect, two heads really were better than one.

Consulting keeps me learning every day, whether it’s regulatory best practices, regulation, legislation, scheme rules, industry development, or technology. Being a consultant gives me an independent perspective rather than working for one particular organisation.

AL: How has your perspective on risk and fraud evolved over your career?

KS: My career started not from a risk and fraud background, but marketing, product management, product development, but I was always aware that thinking about risk is a critical part of any product management, product development, and product support. The challenge that I’ve seen is that risk management tends to be a business prevention unit. From my perspective, I have seen a greater evolution that recognises the risk and successfully and proactively managing risk is critically important. Whether you are looking at fraud controls or compliance or just understanding and managing risk, including things like data, you build these in at the very early stages of developing or managing a product.

The one that’s been most powerful for me is that risk is now seen as a critical element, as a business deliverer, as a business enabler, and not just simply as a business prevention unit. We need to be careful and our eyes wide open on what the risk issues really are.

AL: How do you stay ahead of emerging fraud trends?

KS: I’m learning something new every day, and the reason for that is the payments industry is continuously evolving in terms of its thinking, its strategy, its regulation, the role of innovation, and technology. How new partners are created in the payments value chain. It’s not simply the merchant to the acquirer. I read a lot of blogs and newsletters, and I watch what the vendors are developing, how they’re promoting it, and to whom they’re promoting it across the industry. A lot of this comes down to collaboration; consultancy relies on collaboration. I talk to colleagues and partners, and I go to conferences that I am very selective of.

Working with colleagues, we provide a lot of input to industry consultations here in the UK and across Europe. An important way of finding out what the regulators are thinking is to be involved in the consultation process. It’s constantly watching what’s happening across the industry because it is a fast-moving and it is still highly regulated and busy environment.

AL: What recent industry development has changed how you advise clients?

KS: There is one area in particular that isn’t necessarily new, but I think our recognition of how critically important these are from a risk and fraud and compliance perspective, this is our focus on know your customer and know your business (KYC/KYB). KYC/KYB, if not correctly performed, draws card scheme and regulatory attention, legislative breach (AML), APP fraud. Proper due diligence is required when onboarding a new client, but must be repeated periodically thereafter according to agreed policy.

You must know your customer when you onboard them, but we must continue to monitor those merchant relationships, their activities, their business, their interactions, their use of third parties for the duration of the relationship they have with the merchant, the PSP, the acquirer. Client may appear “solid” at the time of recruitment, but that’s when they do unexpected things. If we fail to do the checks after day one, it then exposes us to regulatory compliance activities. It could contribute to fraudulent activities, which lead to other, more sinister criminal activity. We really need and correctly focus on ‘do we truly know our customer?’ and ‘do we continue to know the customer as we work with them?’

AL: How long have you been with PCN, and what value have you gained from being part of the network?

KS: I joined PCN in 2019, after being introduced by a fellow consultant, and I was immediately involved in a project to help an acquirer from the Asia-Pacific region to secure their licenses and their operations here in the UK.

What I appreciate about PCN is the engagement with like-minded individuals from around the globe who are passionate about payments. Also, learning and doing it right, and helping others, but doing it properly in accordance with best practice, with whatever regulatory legislative requirements are, understanding and deploying against card network rules. It’s been a long relationship, 6 years now, but it feels like yesterday, right?

AL: What do you do in your free time?

KS: Family is important to me, though my children are grown up now. I’m a keen road cyclist, often riding two or three times a week in the countryside west of London. I try to push myself and join big events. Recently, I tackled Tour de France stages in Northern France with friends.

Rugby is my other passion. I was a rugby coach for youth development. I stopped coaching a few years ago, but still a passionate follower of the game, both club and country, including the British & Irish Lions.

AL: What is something about you that most people in the industry wouldn’t know?

KS: Probably that I’m a member of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. It’s a group dedicated to fine malt whiskies, with venues in London and Edinburgh. I’ve been a member for many years, and I have taken quite a few of my colleagues there.

I think other than that, there are no surprises. I think if people know me, they know that I do care and I’m passionate about the payments industry.

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Author: AJ Llanos, Client Services Manager, Manila, Payments Consulting Network 

AJ has five years of experience in payments through her work at PCN and ANZ Bank, where she gained expertise in wholesale and commercial banking payments in Australia, covering both domestic and international transactions.

She also has a background in legal loan documentation at ANZ and customer service from her work in the airline industry. Her diverse experience has enabled her to efficiently manage merchant pricing, market research, and marketing at PCN.

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