Aaron Holmes, CEO and Co-founder of Kani Payments

Today we're meeting Aaron Holmes, CEO and Co-founder at Kani Payments. They specialise in automated data platforms that empower card payment companies to reconcile, report and analyse financial data with complete confidence.

Over to you Aaron - my questions are in bold:

Who are you and what's your background?

I'm Aaron Holmes, CEO and Co-founder of Kani Payments, a fintech based in Newcastle that helps payments companies make sense of their data—specifically around reconciliation, reporting and regulatory compliance.

Before Kani, I held leadership and operational roles across both high-growth fintechs and more traditional institutions—from Thredd in London to Flex-e-Card and Newcastle Building Society. I've spent most of my career deep in the weeds of payments operations, handling reconciliation logic, managing scheme submissions and being the person ultimately responsible for getting the numbers right.

I started Kani in 2018 to fix the very problems I'd been dealing with firsthand for years: the slow, manual, error-prone process of turning raw transaction data into something you could trust and report on.

What does your day-to-day look like at Kani?

Day-to-day, my focus is on keeping us pointed in the right direction, product, strategy and partnerships. I spend a lot of time working directly with our engineers and product teams to make sure what we're building solves real problems. That means staying close to clients, auditors, regulators and scheme partners so we're not just ticking boxes but actually making life easier for the people doing the work.

Outside of product, I'm also involved in commercial strategy, international expansion and the bigger-picture decisions that shape where Kani goes next.

Some days I'm deep in a client deployment. Others I'm talking to a bank about integration, demoing our platform or feeding into an industry consultation. I like to stay close to the ground because the devil's always in the details when it comes to payments data.

Can you give us an overview of your business?

Kani is a SaaS platform built by people who've lived the data pain of payments. Our goal is simple: take the mess out of reconciliation and reporting, and give teams better control over their financial data.

We help companies automate the matching, checking and reporting of payment flows across processors, banks, card schemes and internal systems. And we do it in a way that makes audits smoother, regulatory filings simpler, and finance teams a whole lot less stressed.

Our platform covers three core areas:

• Reconciliation: Automated matching across complex financial inputs and systems
• Reporting: Auto-generated outputs for regulatory and scheme reporting (like FCA REP-017, Mastercard QMR, Visa GOC)
• Analytics: Real-time visibility on volumes, fees, fraud indicators and operational health

What sets us apart is the experience behind the product. Our team comes from all corners of the card payments industry. We've been the ones manually stitching files together at month-end. That's why we build tools that actually work in practice.

Today we're working with global clients across the fintech ecosystem, helping them scale operations, stay compliant and get ahead of complexity.

Tell us how you are funded?

We're privately funded. In early 2024, we raised a multi-million-pound Series A led by Maven Capital Partners, alongside support from NPIF II and the Maven VCTs. FT Partners acted as our exclusive financial advisor.

That investment is fuelling our next phase, expanding internationally, growing the team and doubling down on platform development to meet rising demand from regulated fintechs.

What's the origin story at Kani?

Kani started as a problem I couldn't ignore. I was working in ops and compliance, manually wrangling processor data, submitting reports and firefighting errors caused by bad file formats or missing data. I thought, "There's got to be a better way." But there wasn't. So we built one.

The idea was simple: take all the pain out of payments reporting and build something for the people doing the work. That meant automation, transparency, and structure, especially when regulation and volumes are only going one way up.

We also chose Newcastle as our HQ on purpose. The city has incredible tech talent, three universities on the doorstep and a growing fintech ecosystem that's starting to get the recognition it deserves. We're proud to be part of that.

Who are your target customers? What's your revenue model?

Our customers are fintechs, issuers, processors, acquirers, BIN sponsors, basically anyone dealing with high-volume, high-stakes payments data.

Clients like Paysafe, Swiipr, Pluxee, Cardaq and TransactPay use Kani to reconcile billions in transactions and streamline their reporting. We've also partnered with Mastercard, who've recognised the value of what we do and are helping introduce us to banks and fintechs worldwide.

We operate on a SaaS subscription model. Pricing scales with data volume and features, but our value prop is always the same: save time, reduce risk and give teams clarity over their data.

If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change in the banking and/or FinTech sector?

I'd fix the back-end mess. Fintech has made huge strides in UX and front-end innovation, but behind the scenes, it's still chaos. Data is fragmented, terminology is inconsistent, and the same field means ten different things depending on the processor.

That's the hidden tax on innovation. Every launch, every audit, every compliance check gets harder because the foundations are shaky.

If we had stronger standards and more accountability around data quality, the whole ecosystem would benefit from faster launches, cleaner reporting and fewer late nights in Excel.

What is your message for the larger players in the Financial Services marketplace?

Don't assume your data is good enough; check it. And don't wait for a regulator or auditor to tell you there's a problem.

We've seen time and time again that poor data hygiene creates risk: reconciliation delays, reporting errors, safeguarding failures. Fixing that starts with visibility and accountability, often alongside specialist partners who know where to look.

The smartest players aren't building everything in-house, they're collaborating with specialists who can help them move faster and sleep easier

Where do you get your Financial Services/FinTech industry news from?

I'm a bit of a news junkie. For big-picture shifts and regulatory news, I go to the Financial Times, Reuters and Bloomberg. For fintech-specific coverage, I like Finextra and LinkedIn, especially for the conversations happening around product, compliance and ops.

I also read more niche titles like Banking Risk & Regulation, which go deeper on topics like fraud oversight and back-office architecture. That's where a lot of the real conversations are happening.

Can you list 3 people you rate from the FinTech and/or Financial Services sector that we should be following on LinkedIn, and why?

Three people I rate highly from the FinTech and Financial Services sector, and who are well worth a follow on LinkedIn, are Marcel van Oost, the Fintech Finance team and Devie Mohan.

• Marcel van Oost is one of the most consistent and well-informed voices in the industry. He shares valuable insights, highlights emerging companies and curates global FinTech news that helps you stay ahead of the curve.
• The Fintech Finance team deserves a mention as they regularly produce high-quality content, including interviews, trend analysis, and event coverage. We're hoping to work with them more closely, and they remain a strong media presence in the space.
• Finally, Devie Mohan, co-founder of Burnmark, is a standout thought leader known for her sharp analysis of financial innovation, regulation and technology's role in reshaping the sector.

What FinTech services (and/or apps) do you personally use?

We've been using Airwallex at Kani, and it's been spot on. It takes a lot of the hassle out of managing global payments and just works, which is exactly what you want when you're growing quickly.

I've been equally impressed with what Zero's doing around their carbon impact product. It's great to see a FinTech making it easier for businesses to get a handle on their environmental footprint, not just their finances.

Monzo also deserves a nod, which I've been a fan of from the early days. They understand what customers want, keep things simple and continue to push the boundaries of what a bank can be in 2025.

What's the best new FinTech product or service you've seen recently?

Like I mentioned above, Zero's Green Score product is here to change the game. It's aimed at small businesses and helps them get a clearer picture of their carbon footprint based on their financial data - things like spend on travel, energy, suppliers and so on. What's clever is that it doesn't expect you to be a sustainability expert. It gives you a simple score and some practical suggestions to help you improve over time.

That kind of tool is a great example of FinTech moving beyond just money management and into helping businesses make better decisions overall. For a lot of companies that are trying to do the right thing but aren't sure where to start, it's the ideal way in!

Finally, let's talk about predictions. What trends do you think are going to define the next few years in the FinTech sector?

One big trend I see shaping the next few years is the end of manual reconciliation, and (honestly) it can't come soon enough! With transaction volumes shooting up and regulation only getting tighter, no one's going to have the time (or patience) to be faffing about with spreadsheets and manual checks. Things like compliance reporting, safeguarding and fraud detection all depend on solid, traceable data.

As AI and automation become integrated into more processes, the tolerance for messy or unreliable data just disappears. You can't automate chaos. The FinTechs that come out on top will be the ones that take data seriously from the start and invest in getting it right, because everything else hangs off the back of that.

Thank you very much, Aaron!

Read more about Aaron Holmes on LinkedIn and find out more about Kani Payments at kanipayments.com.