Jens Bader and Israel Rosenthal vow to ‘break the payments monopoly’
Former paysafecard CCO Bader says payments start-up MuchBetter will charge operators on net deposits while “eliminating fraud and abuse”
Egaming payments specialist Jens Bader is vowing to “break the monopoly” in digital wallets after teaming up with former PokerStars COO Israel Rosenthal and other senior leaders from the gaming and financial industries to develop a new payments concept.
Speaking to EGR Intel, the former Secure Trading and paysafecard CCO said his new venture, MuchBetter, will offer operators greater transparency, protection from fraud, and a commercial model “aligned with the interests of the industry and customers”.
“It’s a perfect storm,” Bader said. “The industry has been requesting a new wallet to break the monopoly in the market, and this is it – a social money, peer-to-peer concept.”
MuchBetter, co-founded by Bader and Rosenthal along with former Rational Group director of payments Prasannaa Muralidharan and WorldPay Solution Architect Shanmuhanathan Thiagaraja, will work on a monthly net deposit commission structure, rather than total deposits volume.
“This is really our knowledge in gaming coming into play as there is a fundamental flaw in how the other wallets work from a commercial perspective,” Bader said.
“In gaming, you use your wallet to transfer money to an operator and then you might be withdrawing money back – it’s in-out, in-out, so it’s churning.”
Bader explained that operators would only be charged commission on customer net deposits and a marginal per-transaction fee.
Similarly, should the customer withdraw more than was deposited for the month, no transaction charge would be levied with only a small per-transaction fee applied.
“This model means we have no motivation to influence customer deposits,” Bader said, in reference to cash back schemes which can see punters rewarded for moving money in and out of their wallets.”
MuchBetter is due to launch in the next four weeks with a raft of leading operators, firms which EGR Intel is currently unable to disclose due to commercial sensitivities.
“Operators love the commercial concept, and the slickness of the app,” Bader said. “And they have all signed-up pre-launch.”
MuchBetter will be available via an app downloadable from the Apple and Google app stores with the wallet linked to a user’s device and mobile number to prevent cases of fraud and the opening of multiple accounts.
Users will sign in using fingerprint ID (or PIN). The process to transfer money to merchants or users, is a simple Tap on the phone. “Our mission is to make payments simple, safe and rewarding” said Bader.
Bader will be CCO of MuchBetter holding company MIR, Rosenthal CEO, Muralidharan COO and Thiagaraja CTO. The company has also hired former PokerStars treasury director Donna Crellin as chief administrative officer.