Executive Conversations by The Paypers with Payplug: scaling a fintech inside a bank
CP
Claudia Pincovski
17 Sep 2026 / 4 Min Read
Balancing entrepreneurial speed with institutional scale has become one of the defining challenges for fintechs that get acquired by banks: most lose the very culture that made them valuable in the first place. As merchants push for omnichannel experiences that unify in-store and online payments, banking groups are being forced to rethink whether that balance can be struck at all, rather than defaulting to slow, top-down integration.
In this episode of Executive Conversations by The Paypers, host Duane Jeffrey sits down with Antoine Grimaud, co-founder and CEO of Payplug, to explore how the French payment service provider kept its entrepreneurial DNA intact eight years after being acquired by Groupe BPCE, and why it's now being trusted to lead a brand-new merchant services business unit inside the bank.
Key topics covered in the episode include:
How Payplug decides where to specialise versus where to lean on BPCE's scale
Why the four-year Payplug–Dalenys merger had to finish before the new business unit could launch
What it means to compete against Stripe and Adyen through proximity rather than global reach
How bank data, Cartes Bancaires ties, and 800 local partners form a moat global PSPs can't replicate
Where agentic commerce, Wero, and the digital euro fit into Payplug's readiness strategy
How payment sovereignty is rising in the merchant agenda amid geopolitical shocks
As merchants demand more from bundled payments, financing, and cross-channel journeys, the ability to combine fintech agility with bank-level scale and regulatory access will become a critical differentiator for providers competing against global platforms.
During the conversation, Antoine Grimaud offers a candid look at Payplug's approach to preserving culture after acquisition, the tradeoffs between chasing global scale and staying deeply embedded in a single market, and where he sees Europe's biggest remaining obstacle: not technology, but cooperation.
Watch the full conversation to hear an expert perspective on what it takes to build a payments business that combines local depth with institutional scale.
About Executive Conversations by The Paypers
Executive Conversations by The Paypers is a podcast series that brings together senior industry executives and leading voices in global payments and fintech for high-level discussions on the trends, tensions, and opportunities shaping the industry today.
Each episode is a genuine on-the-record exchange on relevant conversations with the people driving change in payments, fintech, and more. Hosted by Dwayne Gefferie, the series gives listeners direct access to the thinking of the executives and experts who are defining where the industry is headed next.
The Paypers is a global hub for market insights, real-time news, expert interviews, and in-depth analyses and resources across payments, fintech, and the digital economy. We deliver reports, webinars, and commentary on key topics, including regulation, real-time payments, cross-border payments and ecommerce, digital identity, payment innovation and infrastructure, Open Banking, Embedded Finance, crypto, fraud and financial crime prevention, and more – all developed in collaboration with industry experts and leaders.
