Ingo Uytdehaage, Adyen | All-In Summit 2024

1. Adyen’s margins begin with replacing incumbent infrastructure

• The hosts establish the scale: nearly €1 trillion processed in 2023, €1.6 billion of net revenue, €743 million of EBITDA and a 46% margin. H1 2024 revenue grew 24%; the market capitalization cited is about $45 billion.
• Asked to choose between Adyen and Stripe in a spread trade, Uytdehaage says he would “go long on both of us.” He argues both companies have room to win from traditional players, which still handle most of the business. They compete in some areas, but Adyen gets most of its business from incumbents and banks. PayPal, meanwhile, is a partner, including through its newly announced Express Checkout.
• His mechanism is a “single platform globally”: consolidated data helps lower total payment costs and raise authorization rates. In the U.S., Adyen’s access to the Fed and banking license mean it does not need commercial banks to succeed. Separately, many small businesses struggle to work with banks, while software-as-a-service providers are building banking-as-a-service products. Adyen wants to partner with those companies to help them sell financial products.
• The host asks why retain so much profit instead of spending it to grow faster. Uytdehaage links premium pricing to delivered value and says competing on price could destroy value, even though Adyen could potentially charge less because it runs its infrastructure at low cost. Revenue growth remains the priority; he says they consider daily whether more investment could accelerate it and take a long-term view.

2. Global expansion requires engineering close to customers

• The U.S. is Adyen’s largest market outside Europe, its fastest-growing market and already one-third of revenue, with more than 800 employees. Uytdehaage says an initially Amsterdam-focused operation did not help the company solve local problems. Moving product and engineering closer to customers improved traction. He says Adyen is winning domestic brands and proving payments is not a commodity.
• India work began in 2018 or 2019. Data-localization rules meant Adyen could not store Indian users’ data outside India, requiring a rebuild of its data infrastructure, followed by local data centers and licenses. He calls Adyen one of few international providers—“maybe the only one right now”—able to serve international companies seeking domestic or cross-border payments there. It remains a niche business, with high demand from major customers.
• The co-CEO structure rests on a 13- or 14-year partnership. Pieter, the founder, focuses more on company culture, founder conferences and merchant meetings; both co-CEOs meet merchants. Uytdehaage says they know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, making the partnership a natural and successful combination.

3. European liquidity weakens the case for a U.S. listing

• The host points to a roughly 2× valuation-multiple gap between private Stripe and public Adyen despite similar-looking numbers. Uytdehaage says the difference between public and private markets explains some of the gap. He expects investors to compare growth and profitability if both companies are public.
• Adyen initially expected to list in the U.S. in 2018. After considering valuation and index inclusion, it concluded a European listing was as easy or easier. Uytdehaage says Adyen had a roughly 60–65% U.S. investor base at listing and received a premium for being a scarce European technology stock. He would list in the U.S. if Europe lacked sufficient liquidity, but says it has enough for Adyen.

4. AI earns its place through routing economics

• Uytdehaage’s production example is U.S. debit routing: AI identifies cheaper rails at a given moment to lower merchant costs, with authorization rates part of the trade-off. He reports 20% or more lower costs when routing well, alongside higher authorization rates, and says eBay, Microsoft and others worked with Adyen on the launch.
• For internal support functions, Adyen is working with generative AI and says it is open-sourcing models that can use internal data. Asked whether AI will displace staff, Uytdehaage emphasizes Adyen’s existing focus on automation: its employee count is low relative to its payment volumes, and he expects AI to help it scale further.
• Pressed on large technology-company spending, he calls Adyen a “smart follower”: it watches for what it can use and put into production. He says execution is how Adyen proves itself to large merchants; the company began with enterprise merchants and sees itself as a builder.
• Payment data could eventually illuminate economic conditions, but Adyen’s share-of-wallet wins make it hard to separate company growth from underlying economic growth. Uytdehaage says that will become more possible when Adyen is a more stable company, which he says is years away. Its dataset covers over a billion unique shoppers—confirmed as a billion people in the exchange.

5. Stablecoins and local rules shape the boundaries of expansion

• Uytdehaage does not think developed domestic markets have a high need for stablecoins. Cross-border payments using older infrastructure such as SWIFT offer more potential. Adyen would consider working with stablecoins through partners, but not launching one. He sees a likelihood of alternatives to SWIFT and says companies are trying to reduce dependence on it, even in the Western world.
• A host raises Canadian truckers’ financial deplatforming and asks how Adyen handles the issue. Uytdehaage describes working with platforms that serve those customers: the platforms know their customers and their business data, which can be combined with Adyen’s financial-industry knowledge. He says that, alongside its investment in anti-money-laundering, terrorist-financing controls and machine learning, this can make a strong proposition and address gaps at banks that lack the knowledge to do this at scale.
• Asked about political pressure in Europe, he says Adyen has shifted from a European to a global company and complies with local regulations. In China, its domestic market is difficult, but a large team there serves Chinese merchants seeking to enter the U.S. Adyen evaluates countries individually; it has not entered some markets because demand is limited or the country is unstable.