Biography
Kai Schmitz is a Senior Investment Officer in the Telecom- communication, Media and Technology department of the IFC, the private sector investment bank of the World Bank. His team is responsible for global equity capital investments in the FinTech and ePayments area, including investments in national payment switches, mobile payment companies, international merchant acquirers and issuers of prepaid instruments across the world.
Previously, Kai led the Remittance Team at the Payment Systems Development Group of the World Bank where he was advising governments, central banks and multilateral organizations on payment system regulation and policy. Amongst other things he led the group’s advisory work with the G20 on market and regulatory issues.
Before joining the World Bank Group in December 2010, Kai helped found and later became Executive Vice President and COO of MFIC, a financial service provider in the US. Kai created and managed the company’s international payment platform (ARIAS) that offers automated payment capabilities to over 90 countries. He spearheaded projects that led to the adoption of the platform by the US ACH system of the Federal Reserve Bank, NTT DoCoMO and many banks and payment companies across the world. MFIC won the $1m Legatum-Fortune technology prize in 2009 and became the subject of a Harvard business school case study. He has been an advisor or Board Board member of different companies and investors in the payment industry, including a bank in Malta and a large private equity fund in the Netherlands.
Earlier in his career he co-founded a remittance processing company in London called Money Systems and worked at law firms in London and Hamburg. Kai holds a JD from University of Hamburg and an MBA from Henley.