Warren Whitfield, CEO, Modern World Business Solutions

Today we're delighted to speak with Warren, CEO of Modern World Business Solutions, a fintech company specialising in enablement software for the merchant services ecosystem. With a remarkable entrepreneurial journey and a passion for cleaning up the unregulated merchant services industry, Warren shares his insights on innovation, regulation, and the future of unified commerce platforms.

My questions are in bold - over to you Warren:

Who are you and what's your background?

My name is Warren Whitfield and I'm the CEO of Modern World Business Solutions. I left school at 15 years old and went straight into work making bus seats. From there, I gained an apprenticeship as an upholsterer until I was 23 years old.

I quickly realised however that I wouldn't get rich from being an upholsterer, so I pivoted and started reselling furniture on eBay. From there, I got involved in an events company Xtreme Events with Dan Chillingworth. I've always been entrepreneurial and I've never worked for anybody in my life. I then launched Modern World in 2018.

What is your job title and what are your general responsibilities?

I'm the CEO of Modern World Business Solutions, while my main responsibilities are to look after the people within the company, spotting the best people to bring into the team and building the business. As well setting the strategic direction that we work towards.

Can you give us an overview of your business?

MWBS is a fintech business that develops multi-acquirer enabled products, with our flagship product aggregating merchant services for resellers. On top of this, we've also got our own POS software that is incredibly innovative and the world's first AI helpdesk embedded terminal.

Tell us how you are funded?

We were bootstrapped for the first 5-6 years. Following this, we gained non-diluted investment by licensing a piece of IP back in 2024, which enabled us to scale to the next level.

We've since launched a second office in Newcastle and the team has tripled in the space of 12 months. The business is still privately owned with the same shareholders it started with.

What's the origin story? Why did you start the company? To solve what problems?

I started the company due to an issue I found, the miss-selling of merchant services. It's simply too easy for resellers to miss-sell to a merchant and we wanted to change that. It's an unregulated industry, so people can sell the wrong narrative to get their commission, which can be devastating for a small merchant.

I wanted to launch one platform with all the solutions, so no resellers had the excuse to sell the wrong thing to a merchant. That product is our platform.

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

We've got several different facets of the business, for which the target customer varies. For reselling, anyone who wants to add an additional income stream to their B2B business is our target market, such as finance brokers, utility brokers, energy brokers or web agencies.

For our POS software, our perfect customer are merchants, such as in the hospitality sector (restaurants, cafes, pub, kiosks etc) or it could be retailers on the high street. Our revenue model is constructed so that we receive a rebate from the acquiring banks that we introduce as well as sass fees for our vertical software.

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

In our particular sector, we desperately need regulation for the people selling the service to merchants. They regulate companies like us, however I can employ anyone to sell the services, there should be a governing body to adhere to, in order to clean up the industry. We have strict procedures in place to ensure merchants receive the best possible service but not a lot of others do.

What is your message for the larger players in the financial services marketplace?

My positive message is to keep doing what you're doing, the innovation in the industry is unlike any other, the constant pushing of boundaries is amazing.

The more serious message is to start regulating your resellers, we have strict procedures in place, but many companies put profits before morals and I would like to see that balanced a bit better in the future.

Where do you get your financial services/fintech industry news from?

I'm an avid user of LinkedIn, while I do get most of my news from there, with people I know in the industry sharing news via a link.

Can you list 3 people you rate from the fintech and/or financial services sector that we should be following on LinkedIn, and why?

• Oliver P from Yeti Pay – I really respect the way he pivots again and again, a similar journey to our own.
• Eva Paredes at Elavon – She has contributed to a shift in mindset hugely by one of our leading partners Elavon, and I really respect the way she interacts with partners to get the most from them.
• Justin and Grant from the Payments Shed – They've turned themselves into a media machine, while they saw a niche and went for it - respect where its due.
• Adam Sharpe at Cardstream – He continues to innovate and built a very impressive company.

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

Monzo, but I don't really use any.

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

I wouldn't be very good if I didn't mention our own launch, Genie and Tapldoo are both very innovative products. That's backed up by being a finalist at The Card Payments Award in February for best POS solution. Genie is the world's first AI payments solution and gives you full control, with bill splitting, tips on the terminal, customer payment links and the 'Ask genie' AI support desk.

Tapldoo is the online and mobile ordering service, so you can manage stock centrally, have integrated reporting & analytics and it's ideal for businesses such as hotels, pubs, restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, bowling alleys, stadiums or even cruise ships a product that unifies commerce in hospitality.

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

I believe everything is going to move to unified platforms, so everything will be collated together in the merchant space. Everyone will have their own banking card in the app for immediate settlement, it's already starting to happen now, but it will accelerate over the next 24 months as some of the big players start to accelerate innovation.

We'd like to thank Warren for taking the time to share his insights with us. You can connect with Warren on LinkedIn or learn more about Modern World Business Solutions.