Goldman Sachs · 2026-02-05 · 24 min

Inside the Future of Payments: Adyen CEO

TL;DR

Adyen’s scale rests on owning the payments stack and proving better results to large merchants. Marriott cites $900 billion in prior-year processing and a $45 billion market capitalization. Van der Does’s premise was the entire processing chain in a single system: controlling acquiring infrastructure could improve acceptance and performance beyond what a layer over bank systems delivered.
AI connects transaction acceptance, fraud detection and payment costs while changing the economics of merchant onboarding. Every transaction runs through AI, and a platform can bring 500,000 sellers requiring KYC. The complication is that fraudsters use AI too, making forged passports easier and creating an ongoing contest with criminals.
Adyen has the licenses and payment data to expand financial services, although commercialization remains early. Platforms distribute loans and card issuing to smaller merchants; existing transaction data makes assessing a yoga studio’s few-thousand loan relatively inexpensive. Asked how far expansion has progressed, van der Does calls it still at an early stage.
The competitive opportunity is winning incumbent volume through a single platform. Van der Does says “the vast majority” of the market remains with incumbents. About a third of Adyen’s workforce is engineering, while avoiding acquisitions preserves “one platform, one stack” and, he argues, lower overhead than competitors managing repeated migrations.
Crypto demand is absent among Adyen’s large international merchants at the time of the interview. Van der Does reports no current merchant requests for it, while allowing that crypto makes more sense in very unstable countries. Recognizing returning shoppers across online and physical retail, with their history available for personalized treatment, remains “the holy grail.”
Talent quality and shared credit underpin Adyen’s global execution. A customer won in Sweden can generate US business, making “winning is more important than ego” an operating principle. Global leaders still interview every hire to protect talent density, while van der Does accepts local cultural differences across a workforce spanning 115 nationalities.

Digest · the substance, structured for research

1. Owning the infrastructure made enterprise payments worth rebuilding

Van der Does sold his previous payments business to RBS in 2004 because dependence on banks’ acquiring infrastructure worried him. After a two-year stay and Brazilian sabbatical, weak industry innovation drew him back: non-banks could acquire directly for Visa and Mastercard, enabling the entire processing chain in a single system.
Starting with large merchants was “really, really hard”: a business doing 10 transactions weekly cannot measure a 5% improvement. MyCityDeal, founded by the Samwer brothers and later acquired by Groupon, supplied a global rollout. Groupon helped Adyen build volume, at one point accounting for more than 50% of the company’s volume, before its customer base diversified.
US brands initially awarded European or Latin American processing; domestic US traffic followed traction abroad. Geography is recorded by the contracting legal entity, so a US-headquartered merchant’s volume can appear European.

2. AI makes acceptance, cost and compliance inseparable

For van der Does, authorization gains require distinguishing fraud from legitimate anomalies. Flower orders exposed the problem: card origin, buyer location and delivery destination could differ. Every transaction now runs through AI to optimize authorization rates and costs and identify potential fraud.
Least-cost routing adds a tradeoff: some cheaper methods might carry more risk. Fixed-fee methods become cheaper on high-value purchases; low-value transactions reverse that arithmetic.
Platforms can bring 500,000 sellers needing KYC. AI automates onboarding but also helps fraudsters forge passports; van der Does hopes European regulators keep pace, questioning whether asking an account’s intended use remains a useful check.
Crypto has attracted no current merchant requests for it, meaning large international, often listed companies. He says it makes more sense in very unstable countries.

3. Platforms extend payments into lending and issuing

Marriott presses on whether product expansion strains Adyen’s focus. Van der Does links the 2018 IPO to its regulated financial-services role, with banking licenses supporting loans and card issuing. Small merchants arrive through platforms: a yoga studio needing a few thousand for a broken coffee machine can be assessed cheaply using existing payment data.
Asked whether expansion is 10% complete, he calls it still at an early stage, with the building blocks available. Across online and in-store payments, identifying repeat shoppers and accessing their history for tailored treatment remains “the holy grail.”

4. One stack supports the push into incumbent market share

Van der Does’s answer on consolidation centers on incumbents holding “the vast majority” of the market. About a third of Adyen’s workforce is engineering; avoiding acquisitions preserves “one platform, one stack” and, he says, much lower overhead than rivals constantly migrating systems.
Merchant requests become products when a shared problem can be solved across customers. Custom work risks diverting the strategic path until Adyen cannot serve everyone; the objective is maximizing its performance gap with incumbents. He sees the next phase as capitalizing on global reach and products built with everything in one place.

5. Global execution requires shared credit and disciplined hiring

An H&M win in Sweden can generate US volume, spreading responsibility across teams. “Winning is more important than ego” is his operating rule for cross-border selling and account management.
Every hire still receives a global-leadership final interview after skills testing. Independent reviewers resist a manager accepting a 6.5/10 candidate for immediate relief, protecting talent density: talented people prefer to work alongside strong colleagues.
Across 115 nationalities, slightly less than half the workforce remains in the Netherlands, where most engineers sit. Annual gatherings and cultural assessments reinforce cooperation, but local variation is expected: He does not expect every office to have an identical culture.

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