Looking back at 2022, looking forward to 2023

Dear Customer,

Firstly, a happy New Year to you all. I hope you had a good break over the holiday period.

In my column today I thought it would be interesting to tell you about how Form3 performed in 2022, our vision for 2023, and then address the payments trends I think we will see this year.

On reflection, 2022 was a huge year of growth for Form3. We managed to build out the company to over 500 staff, mainly employed in engineering and product roles. We are now active in more countries than ever – and we have significantly strengthened our team in the Americas.

2022 represented for us a massive investment in the Form3 platform itself, with a lot of research and development (R&D) funds spent on re-platforming our infrastructure, for the benefit of you, our customers.

Form3 is now dealing with an increased number of customers, products and transactions. This is reflected in high double-digit revenue growth for the company. We have managed to achieve this during uncertain economic times – a very positive outcome and something Form3 is truly grateful for.

We feel that this activity has laid the foundations for a prosperous 2023, when we plan to launch more innovative products, continue to invest in R&D, and significantly increase the number of payments processed. Several of our large customers are looking to transfer their payments to us in the coming months.

New products are key to the execution of the next phase of our strategy. In the coming months, we will see the new cross-border and cross-currency payment products go live. Our fraud proposition will go into production in 2023 and we will launch payment processing in the US.

This year, we will also focus on breaking new geographies, prioritising those needing large transaction volumes - especially in the real-time space.

Looking ahead, Form3’s aim in 2023 is to continue our growth journey. This is not only in terms of products, customer growth and transactions, but how we continue to evolve Form3’s company culture.

We will work very hard to maintain a healthy company culture – one that operates on a fully remote basis. This is built on the foundations that we've created in recent years, to remain the most trusted provider of payment technology in the market.

There is a genuine need across the industry for better technology and banking services to support our customers – we will continue to offer this.

Finally, as is customary at the start of a new year, I would like to share with you some of my payment predictions for 2023.

I think payment volumes will continue to increase significantly this year, even if the economic situation deteriorates in some countries. To manage this growth and keep their payment propositions competitive, resilient and compliant, more and more banks will look at digital transformation of their back-offices and using cloud native technology to process payments in 2023.

There will be continued attention given to Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud in 2023, as the number of cases go up and banks are increasingly being held responsible for reimbursing customers. There is going to have to be a lot more collaboration between banks in order to combat this type of fraud.

Cross-border payments will continue to become more efficient, cheaper and quicker in 2023 - and that's a continuation of a trend that we've seen for a number of years now.

Overall, 2023 will be another very exciting and challenging year for everyone involved in payments.

Many thanks for taking the time to read my extended column. It has been a privilege to work with you last year. We're looking forward to a very busy and successful year with you, our customers in 2023.