Payments tech company Zai has announced the appointment of Shamus Hodgson as its Group CEO. Zai delivers embedded payment orchestration solutions in Australia and supports businesses in simplifying, streamlining and scaling complex payment workflows across a wide range of industries. Zai has recently partnered with leading payments provider Cuscal to further accelerate its offering. Hodgson will also head up Zai's sister company, CurrencyFair, a currency exchange platform with an established international presence offering more than 20 currencies across 160+ countries in high traffic currency corridors.

Shamus Hodgson has significant experience in the finance, tech and fintech spaces. Prior to his role with Zai, Hodgson headed up currency exchange business Lumon, where he built a strong and agile leadership team to guide the company through a similar rebrand, consolidation and subsequent high growth period. Lumon went on to post an annual growth of close to 30% in the year following his appointment, as well as a 27% increase in its revenue forecast. Hodgson has also held management positions with Aviva and IBM.

Speaking on the appointment, Shamus said: "This is an exciting time to be taking the helm of the Zai and CurrencyFair group. Having led a newly merged and rebranded fintech to achieve an annual growth of close to 30% in the following year, I'm eager to take up a new challenge with this group and work towards similar results with the goals set by the group's experienced leadership team."

Chairman of the Board, Gautam Jain, added: "I am delighted to welcome Shamus to CurrencyFair and Zai at this exciting stage for the company. Embedded payments continue to present a huge business opportunity, and our proposition is well positioned to help clients in their digital payments journey. Given his expertise and background, I have no doubt the Shamus will lead the company to new heights. On behalf of the entire board and the team, I welcome him onboard and look forward to working closely with him."

Building on an already solid foundation following this successful merger, Shamus will lead the group as they consolidate and grow their product offerings in key markets. Zai's merger with CurrencyFair and subsequent rebrand was recently awarded 'Deal of the Year' by Australia's leading fintech recognition event, the Finnie Awards. Additionally, Zai was the first to market with a real-time payments offering in Australia. Against the backdrop of a global fintech market that continues to disrupt and innovate, Hodgson's experience will greatly support CurrencyFair and Zai's own accelerated growth plans into 2023 and beyond.

Zai's API-powered platform makes creating and managing end-to-end payment flows effortless, helping businesses manage multiple complex workflows and move funds. Its innovative platform applies expertise in real-time payments to a reliable micro-service architecture to enable authentication, liquidity, payment and settlement. CurrencyFair, on the other hand, offers an online cross-border payment and foreign exchange service to customers globally, currently offers 22 currencies in well-established currency corridors for international payments, with plans underway to offer 25 currencies in the coming year.