Vijay Sondhi knows his audience. For the Chief Executive Officer of embedded payments company NMI, his strategies are different if you’re a potential Millennial customer or are from Gen Z. The former generation can largely remember a pre-iPhone world. Understandably, the latter cannot. But this doesn’t change how they want to pay. On this, they are aligned.
Regarding Millennials, Sondhi said on a 2024 podcast that “clearly the mobile and the digital is the only way they want to pay. They are not interested in the older swiping, dipping, tapping or, you know, goodness, God forbid, cash or check.” There are differences, however. Gen Z will leave a brand in a heartbeat for a better user experience, he says. “Friction doesn't enter in their vocabulary,” Ly said, “and they are also not brand loyal. So they will not go out of their way to accommodate a complex checkout flow, which has a payment method that they may not like.”
Worse yet, he said, “They may even have it,” but if they feel like they’re not being served properly, they’ll move along. So, how do you deal with a clientele like this? You rely on your experience.
A graduate of the University of British Columbia and Columbia Business School in New York, Sondhi was a Senior Vice President at Visa for five years. Shortly after his tenure there ended in 2017, he joined NMI, and in 2018, he was named CEO. In the time since he’s been in charge, the industry has expanded considerably, and Ly is eyeing more expansion.
What’s next? Biometrics, retinal scans, and the like, he says, “because there's no password to remember or forget or be guessed.” The major issue, he thinks, will be users allowing companies to have this information—and this is where the steady hand of an experienced leader is important. “I think before we tackle biometrics,” he said, “we need to delve into privacy versus convenience or privacy versus utility.”
Either way, a smoother payments experience is always coming, and Sondhi is one of the people making it happen.
