Ryft CEO and co-founder Sadra Hosseini sat down with Financial IT publisher Chris Principy at Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam. In this interview, Sadra explains why the marketplace payment market has a significant gap, how Ryft fills it, and where payments are headed with AI and crypto.

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What is Ryft and who does it serve?

"Ryft is the payment platform for marketplaces and B2B digital platforms," Sadra explains. "If you imagine the Uber Eats of the world, you pay €100 for your dinner. We take that €100 and split it. €10 goes to the driver, €20 to Uber, and €70 to the restaurant."

Ryft came out of Sadra's previous business, which scaled to around one million customers before being acquired. "We realised this market is really lacking. There are only a few options. Some are more suitable for the top end, businesses doing <£500 million . Some suit the smaller size, businesses doing £5 to £10 million. There was a gap in between where you didn't have the right pricing or flexibility."

That gap is the market Ryft was founded to serve. Around 22,000 platforms operate in the UK and Europe, and the market is growing at roughly 30% year on year. That growth is coming from transaction volume shifting away from legacy providers toward digital platforms.

Where Ryft sits in the market

Ryft's position is not simply to compete with legacy payment providers. "Where we differ between us and everyone else in the market is we're working with the big acquirers, the legacy players, to give them access to this tech to compete with the newcomers in the market," Sadra explains. This dual approach means platforms benefit from Ryft's purpose-built marketplace technology whilst retaining the backing of established financial infrastructure.

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How marketplace split payments work and why they are complex

Breaking a single payment into multiple distributions sounds straightforward, but it involves several layers. "If you've never been in payments before, it gets really complex," Sadra says. "Payments in, payments out, KYB, KYC, compliance. There's a lot to manage if you don't have the scale or the how."

The alternative, building in-house, carries significant cost and time. "You need the right licences, and those take 18 months to obtain. Only 5% of businesses succeed in getting them. Then you have to build the tech, which costs £2 to £3 million. Then you need a compliance team. Route to market, tech, compliance sorted. You can go live within a couple of months rather than spending two years building."

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Why marketplaces are choosing to monetise payments in 2026

Many platforms currently send their merchants to a third-party acquirer, collecting only a SaaS fee. According to Sadra, that model has two problems: friction and missed revenue.

"Legacy players take weeks to onboard. That creates friction, and the platform loses the merchant. And the platform is doing all the hard work, bringing in merchants, handling support, whilst the acquirer is collecting all the fees."

When platforms bring payment processing in-house, the economics change substantially. "On every £100 million in volume, platforms make an extra £1.27 million. That's a whole new revenue stream they didn't have access to before."

There is also a strategic dimension. "If you become a fintech, the multiples at exit are higher. CEOs and CFOs are keen to have a fintech play within their business, not just SaaS."

Merchants benefit too. Seller onboarding that previously took weeks now takes minutes. "Click a couple of buttons, start transacting the same day. That reduces friction and increases loyalty." Sadra points to hospitality, retail, and events as sectors where this matters most. "These merchants are busy. They don't have time to fill in a full application with one of the legacy providers."

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FCA licensing: why it matters for marketplace payment compliance

One of Ryft's core differentiators is its FCA licence Sadra is direct about how difficult this was to obtain. "That took well over a year. If you're getting the FCA licence, which is the gold standard, everything has to be fully tied down. It's very stringent."

The licence is not just a credential. Under PSD2 regulation, any marketplace that sits in the flow of funds must either hold the appropriate licence or work with a licensed entity. "Platforms considering the flow of funds need to have these licences, otherwise they're non-compliant with EU regulation."

Ryft's licence gives platforms a compliant route to payment monetisation without the time, cost, or regulatory risk of building their own infrastructure.

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What's next for marketplaces and platforms

Sadra is clear-eyed about where the payment industry is heading. "AI is going to be like the internet. If you're not on it, you're not part of the discussion."

For payments specifically, he sees a shift in who, or what, is making the purchase. "It's not going to be users buying their products. It's going to be their AI agents buying their products. Payment processors need to be able to hand off the right information to the agents to do that shopping, and make that seamless."

On crypto, he is measured. "Stripe is plugging in stablecoins. They acquired Bridge. That's exciting, because it will reduce a lot of pain, especially cross-border, with microtransactions and cross-jurisdiction transfers. Crypto has a massive future. It's just been slower to adopt than expected."

Ryft's expansion plans mirror this direction, scaling across the EU, US, Middle East, and Asia, whilst deepening the product with omnichannel payments that unify online and in-person processing in one platform.

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Why choose Ryft?

Ryft is a leading Payment Services Provider (PSP) that specialises in marketplace payment solutions, ensuring full compliance and offering 24/7 support from humans. Using Ryft, businesses can accept payments anywhere, automate split payments, onboard sellers, set up delayed payments and recurring billing, earn commission from payment escrow, and much more.  

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