Q&A with Daniel Blondell, COO at McLEAR

To truly know a company and its value proposition properly, everyone should spend some time in their career working in customer services. Nothing gives you a better understanding than that of being at the frontline.

MEDIA 7: Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
DANIEL BLONDELL: When I was 19 years old I used to play semi-professional football every Saturday afternoon. It so happened that during a conversation after a game, one of the fellow players worked in the payments sector and was looking for a junior Customer Services Support staff to join their EFT merchant acquiring company. In those days, I obviously had no idea what merchant acquiring was, let alone what EFT software was or did. I said yes anyway, attended the interview, got the job and I’m glad I did! Over the subsequent 9 years that I spent with that company I worked my way through their various divisions to then become a solutions sales expert helping launch POS & e-commerce electronic payment acceptance in some of the world’s largest hotel chains, airlines, and retail stores.

This experience has taught me that to truly know a company and its value proposition properly, everyone should spend some time in their career working in customer services. Nothing gives you a better understanding than that of being at the frontline. I then moved on to work at Gemalto (known as Thales today) the world’s leader in digital security. I started as a technical consultant learning more about the technical aspects and profiles of physical payment instruments like cards and PKI card readers. It enabled me to increase my knowledge in terms of how banks operate, banking infrastructures, and combining this with my previous merchant acquiring background gave me a holistic payment ecosystem overview. I worked at Gemalto for a decade helping transit banks from SDA to DDA, Chip & PIN, and the launch of contactless cards, wearables devices, early tokenization, and HCE on mobile devices. The rest as they say is history!


M7: Could you please elaborate on your viewpoint of the ever-changing payment landscape?
DB: I started my career when POS payments were still made using carbon paper and zip zap machines or knuckle busters as we would call them. The payment landscape as we know it today is unrecognizable. It’s become more regulated with an increase in security, speed, and convenience. We will also continue to see significant changes in regards to crypto algorithms becoming longer and more secure, as well as an increase in various digital payment methods giving users added speed and convenience with newer and exciting challengers entering the market to disrupt the more traditional way of banking. More recently digital assets such as Altcoins and ETH platforms are starting to play a big role in the birth of NFT transactions.

We will also continue to see significant changes in regards to crypto algorithms becoming longer and more secure, as well as an increase in various digital payment methods giving users added speed and convenience with newer and exciting challengers entering the market to disrupt the more traditional way of banking.

M7: McLEAR was recently recognized at the ‘UK FinTech Awards 2021’. Could you please give us an insight into this excellent achievement?
DB: It was a real honor for the company and our team to scoop up this award in this category as it further acknowledges all the hard work that happens behind the scenes at McLEAR. We constantly strive to innovate and push the boundaries of the user experience and features of our product. This award represents all that hard work, and there is more to come!


M7: You spoke about ‘The McLEAR Ring’ at the ‘Disruptive Live Session’. Our readers are curious to know more about this interesting concept.
DB: Our Payment Ring was born from a need for ‘seamless’ convenience and that has been the backbone of our thinking ever since. RingPay by McLEAR gives its users a unique user experience with convenience at the forefront which is hard to describe until you use it. The easiest way to describe this is to think about all the things you carry on a typical day, car keys, house keys, bank cards, office pass, transit pass, then imagine all those things being combined in a single device that you simply wear on your finger! That’s our vision and payment is the start of that journey.

I think many people spend too much time worrying if their ideas will ever be good enough or unfortunately listening to others tell them they can’t do something or won’t achieve anything. Work hard and you can achieve anything you set your mind to.

M7: What, according to you, would be an ideal framework for marketing and sales teams to derive business success?
DB: I am sure there are much more capable marketers than me, but in my opinion, it would be to focus on defining what your unique selling point is, how you differentiate your product on the market, understand the need you are filling, identify and build your brand, tone of voice that resonates with your target audience and understand your positioning in the market.
McLEAR spent 3 years studying the market and identifying how we would fit into it. Our product is unique because there is not a Smart Ring market, or at least there wasn’t when we started, it’s really only now that we are starting to build our RingPay brand.

- Know your USPs.

-Assess and understand the gap in the market.

- Identify your target audience and their needs.

- Identify the market size and opportunity.

- Build a strong brand.

- Build a recognizable tone of voice.

- Identify how you are going to reach that audience.


M7: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self?
DB: Believe in yourself more! I think many people spend too much time worrying if their ideas will ever be good enough or unfortunately listening to others tell them they can’t do something or won’t achieve anything. Work hard and you can achieve anything you set your mind to.