Global by Design: Why Payments Expansion Fails Without Local Mastery with EBANX

In Episode Five of THE SHIFT, Danny Levy sits down with Eduardo de Abreu, CPO and CEO Singapore at EBANX, to unpack one of the most misunderstood challenges in global fintech:Why scaling payments across high-growth markets isn’t about expansion - it’s about precision.Recorded live at Money20/20 Asia, this conversation moves beyond the surface-level narrative of “emerging market growth” and into the operational reality of building a truly global payments company across Latin America, APAC, Africa, and India.Because while many companies enter new markets, very few actually understand them.And in payments, that gap is where strategies break.Eduardo shares a rare, inside look at EBANX’s decade-long journey - from its early days in Latin America to its latest expansion into APAC, anchored by a new regional HQ in Singapore. Together, they explore what it takes to navigate fragmented payment rails, regulatory complexity, and deeply local consumer behaviours — all while maintaining a scalable global model.The discussion dives into:The real decision-making behind entering complex, high-growth marketsWhy APAC is fundamentally different from Latin America — and what that means for product and strategyThe biggest mistakes companies make when trying to “copy-paste” expansion modelsHow EBANX balances local adaptation with global scaleThe role of AI and product design in managing systemic complexityWhere the next wave of opportunity lies beyond the obvious marketsWhat the future of cross-border payments will demand over the next 3–5 yearsLeadership lessons from building and scaling teams across multiple regionsGrounded in real-world execution and hard-earned lessons, this episode challenges the idea that global scale comes from standardisation - and instead makes the case for localisation as a competitive advantage.Because in the next era of payments, the winners won’t just be global.They’ll be locally fluent, everywhere they operate.And that’s THE SHIFT.