Maxim Ivanchenko, Canopus IT: "We can expect rapid growth in areas such as mobile payments and cryptocurrencies"

What is your value proposition and how does Canopus IT help clients build a competitive business in the payments services field?

What makes us different from other software suppliers is, in the first place, a comprehensive approach to our clients’ needs. We are more than just an IT company. We are here to help each client to create a complete solution, which would make their business prosper. We draw on our long experience in this field to offer the client answers to a whole range of problems: from the development of the optimal business model to the deployment of required information systems, server co-location, website construction, selection of appropriate third party service providers and more.

Canopus IT has developed a software solution designed for the automation of payment systems, e-money issuers and payment service providers, called EpaySuite. What are its key features and what sets it apart from other offerings that are currently available on the market?

Canopus EpaySuite is a modular yet integrated payment processing software system equipped with a powerful workflow engine. It has been specially designed for all sorts of payment service providers. It can easily be tailored to meet individual requirements of the client, which is particularly important to start-ups in the financial sector that offer innovative payment services to their customers. Such companies do not need heavy and costly core banking systems. What they need is a light, easily customisable solution which would enable them to achieve results as soon as possible and with the least possible investment.

Recently, Canopus IT has partnered Thales in order to integrate security solutions into products like Canopus EpaySuite and Canopus Connect. Could you tell us more about this partnership in terms of benefits both for the company and its respective clients?

Security is one of the key concerns for the financial industry. The customer must be sure that all their transactions are carried out in a completely secure environment. In this context any money spent on security is justified. Thales is the undisputed world leader in payments security. More than 80% of card transactions are processed being protected by Thales technology. We use Thales security solutions in innovative banking, and in doing so promote their products to new market segments.

Could you mention the top three elements which the customers value in your offering?

I think, in the first place, clients value in our offering such things as:

1. Comprehensive and non-standard approach to solving their problems;
2. Flexibility of the software, the possibility of achieving a desired result in the shortest possible time frame and with minimum resources, and
3. Definitely, the pricing policy. Given the fact that most our clients are start-ups the pricing policy has to be competitive.

Could you provide our readers with some concrete examples – let us call them “success stories” - of collaborations between Canopus IT and PSPs/ payment institutions?

Speaking of success stories, first of all, I would like to mention Money Polo. The company has been with us since 2007. It means we have been working together for eight years already. We helped them in several ways including the installation and deployment of an end-to-end IT solution. Today, the company is among the leaders on the payment services market operating branches in the UK, the Czech Republic, Germany, Mongolia and some other countries.

The B2B Bank is another example. We implemented our core banking system Canopus WebBank 2.0 in the bank but our collaboration did not stop there. At the moment, we are working together on the project CARDPAY Europe, which is affiliated to the B2B Bank.

Canopus IT partnered CoinFox, a cryptocurrency wallet provider and exchanger in 2014. Are you planning on expanding partnerships with cryptocurrency companies? Is the cryptocurrency market fertile for your business operations?

Absolutely! We believe digital currencies have a great potential. On the 10th of June 2015 we held the conference ‘The Payment Services of the Future’, which was attended by a number of providers of digital currencies from Russia, Israel, Belgium, UK and Sweden. We had managed to invite officials from the Central Bank of Russia to the conference and used that opportunity to give them more information on the key market players. It may well be thanks to that that in the days following the conference there was official information and a statement made by Ms Elvira Nabiullina about CBR being ready to consider regulatory framework for Bitcoins.

Canopus IT started its business operations in Russia in 1992 by partnering with the domestic Megapolis bank. Could you briefly elaborate on the evolution of the banking system in Russia?

It is a rather difficult and mixed question. On the one hand, we have definitely come a long way. Today there are hi-tech banks out there like Alfa Bank or Tinkoff Bank. On the other hand, there is a large number of banks that serve specific corporate structures. Such banks are unable to provide their customers with modern banking services of the appropriate quality. Some banks are still involved in shady business. For the last couple of years the Central Bank has been taking fairly strict measures to deal with such banks. They have cancelled quite a few banking licences including those of some fairly big players. However, I do not think the situation has markedly changed. The enacted federal law ‘On the National Payment System’ (FZ 161) has not lived up to expectations of many either. The market of non-banks and payment service providers is evolving rather slowly. International sanctions imposed by the European Union and some other countries have only worsened the situation in the Russian banking sector.

Canopus Innovative Technologies deals with innovative solutions in the financial services industry. What innovative technologies are the most popular in the payments industry and where innovation in payments is heading to?

I think, in the near future we can expect rapid growth in such areas as mobile payments with all possible payment technologies including QR codes and NFC, and crypto-currencies. On the whole, I would say there’s a future in such solutions which would enable customers to make all types of payments from a single hand-held device quickly, securely and in a straightforward manner. Electronic billing systems for both B2C and B2B segments are likely to continue evolving. SME banking segment seems quite promising, although undervalued so far. We would like to work on this front as well. Finally, specialist payment services such as Airbnb.com also seem quite interesting and having good prospects, as I see it.

About Maxim Ivanchenko

Maxim B. Ivanchenko, the founder and CEO of the Canopus IT, a graduate of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University in aerospace engineering. Since his early years at the university Maxim has been involved in information technology and decision theory, including the theory of multicriteria optimisation, fuzzy sets and numbers. He has finished a postgraduate course in Management Studies at the Moscow Institute of Mines. Maxim set up the company in 1992 and has been its CEO ever since.

About Canopus Innovative Technologies

Canopus Innovative Technologies deals with innovative solutions in the financial services industry. Since its inception in 1992 Canopus Innovative Technologies has been a software supplier and IT service provider to banks and payment institutions across the world. As a result of more than 20 years of experience the company team realized about 150 successful IT projects worldwide.