He also led the global rollout of the Travelex Cash Passport travel card business, which was sold to MasterCard in 2011 for $500m, and Travelex Global Business Payments, which was sold to Western Union in 2012 for $1bn.

In addition to his current role at Ixaris, Mr Sear is Non-Executive Chairman of Semafone and Bango (AIM: BGO) and serves as Non-Executive Director at FTSE 100 credit card issuer Provident Financial Services and leading cross-border tax and payments specialist Fintrax.

“Ixaris is one of the most promising European companies in fintech and is at the heart of much-needed innovation in payments,” explains Mr Sear. “Over the past year the group doubled its monthly revenues across both B2B and B2C business lines. I am very excited about the opportunity to help this dynamic, fast-moving Group with the next phase of expansion and to assist the team as they scale their ambitions for their consumer and commercial payments products.”

“Our B2C business, EntroPay, has for a while been the established leader in offering virtual prepaid cards to consumers, and while our B2B business is more recent, it is fast becoming established as the go-to provider of innovative B2B payment solutions,” says Ixaris Founder and CEO, Alex Mifsud. He continues: “Finance teams at businesses of all sizes across Europe are telling us that automation and improved efficiencies in their payment functions are critical in creating value for the wider business. Innovation in payments is widely acknowledged as the largest fintech opportunity and we are delighted to welcome David as a key member of the team.”

“David’s experience in both B2C and B2B fast-growth payments business is a superb fit with Ixaris’ focus. His appointment brings strategic leadership and a deep understanding of what it takes to build the kind of payments business we want to create. The fact that he has chosen to join Ixaris is also a gratifying endorsement of our potential.”