Hands In, the group payment service provider, has announced the appointment of its advisory board, comprised of leaders from the payments industry. This follows a successful funding round to accelerate the commercialisation of its platform.
The advisory board members include David Parker, David Birch, Paul van Alfen, and Mark Ufland, collectively representing crucial areas within the payments ecosystem. These are vital to the continued growth and success of Hands In.
David Parker, CEO of Polymath Consulting, is renowned as a leading ambassador in the payments sector. He brings his extensive experience in advising successful fintechs such as Curve and Konsentus, along with other notable scale-ups.
As chair of the Merchant Payment Ecosystem, David Birch has played a pivotal role in acquiring conference and served as an advisor to prominent organisations including BankFi, Qiwi, Payment Works, Bitsafe, and the Digital Monetary Institute. With three decades of expertise in payments, Birch is also an esteemed industry author.
Mark Ufland brings technology expertise having worked as a senior developer at Canada Life Ltd for 15 years before becoming a solutions architect at WorldPay. He is now chief technology officer at You Lend.
Paul van Alfen, considered a pioneer in travel payments, a strategic focus area for Hands In, shares his wealth of knowledge through his consultancy, The Air Payments. His expertise is sought by numerous global airlines and online travel agencies (OTA) to shape their payment strategies.
Looking to the future
Samuel Flynn, co-founder of Hands In, in reference to the advisory board composition, stated: “We have strategically assembled an advisory board that brings extensive and proven experience to Hands In. It focuses on areas of significant opportunity for the rapid commercialisation of our business. I am sincerely grateful for the confidence demonstrated by David, David, Mark, and Paul as they join our advisory board. This further solidifies their commitment to the future success of Hands In.”
David Parker commented: “The payments industry has long needed an Group Payments solution focused on delivering value to merchants. Hands In now provides one. I am delighted to be supporting the team both as an advisory board member and a full board director. I look forward to sharing with them my experience and network in the sector.”
Paul Van Alfen added: “Payments for traditional group travel has always been the domain of (airline) call centres and tour operators, involving a lot of manual work. The online channel typically only caters for smaller groups in combination with a single payment. As a result, this leaves the individual travellers to sort out the funding of the trip between themselves.
“This impacts the booking UX and the check-out conversion, but also can cause unnecessary stress. Hands In’s solution makes this a frictionless process, looking forward to bring this much-needed innovative approach to market with Sam and the team!”
The advisory board members will provide their insights and expertise to guide Hands In’s strategic growth. Additionally, David Parker will assume the role of non-executive director on the main Board, further enhancing the company’s leadership.
