Dive Brief:

• Paysend, the London-based cross-border payments company which is expanding into the U.S. market, named a Miami-based financial services executive with more than two decades of combined experience in senior finance roles at New York-based American Express and San Francisco, California-based Visa to the role of CFO for the Americas, according to a release emailed to CFO Dive.

• At Paysend, Yuri Biondo will have regulatory responsibility for the company’s U.S. money transfer licenses and work to support its partnership with the Spanish-language media outlet TelevisaUnivision, according to the release. He will report to the Group CFO, Wilhelm Rohde, and work with Jairo Riveros, chief strategy officer and managing director for the Americas.

• The move comes about six months after the firm hired another AmEx veteran: Rupert Bedell became Paysend’s chief marketing officer in January after most recently serving as the business-to-business marketing lead at Amex for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Industry Dive sister publication Payments Dive previously reported. “We are pleased to add further top payment industry talent to our bench which will support our growth trajectory,” Rohde stated in the announcement.

Dive Insight:

Paysend, which was formed in 2017 and recently opened a U.S. headquarters in Miami, is looking to appeal to Hispanic consumers and Latinos globally, according to a May 12 Payments Dive report. But offering remittance services for migrants sending payments to family and friends in other countries is an increasingly competitive space.

Biondo, 50, joined Paysend Monday, according to a company spokesperson in response to questions from CFO Dive. The Americas finance chief is a new position in which Biondo will be “playing more of a strategic role in advancing Paysend's U.S. presence, specifically regarding the establishment of new strategic partnerships and the maintenance of current partnerships, including Paysend's recently established partnership with TelevisaUnivision,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

Biondo, who has most recently held the role of global corporate controller at Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Tribal, started out his career as an audit senior at the Big Four firm Ernst & Young in Sao Paulo, Brazil, according to his LinkedIn account.  

In 1997, he joined Amex in Sao Paolo, working his way up from his early role as an internal control analyst to hold such titles as planning and forecasting senior manager, consumer card, in Sao Paolo as well as director of finance in international consumer services in the Miami, Florida area. He later joined Visa where he worked as a director of financial planning and analysis and a vice president and regional controller.

Biondo called Paysend “a true success story” in the announcement. “Over a relatively short period of time, it has become one of the leading global money transfer services, and I am delighted to be joining the group to play my part in the continued growth, working alongside Jairo,” he said in the statement.