Payments & technology consulting

Payments and technology, built to launch.

Solta designs payment products and leads the technology that delivers them, from architecture through a well-run software delivery lifecycle to launch. Led by Mark Povey, 25 years in payments and technology across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific.

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UNDERSTAND 01 Discovery AI 02 Scope AI 03 Market fit AI SHAPE 04 Marketing ideas AI 05 Solution design 06 MVP / POC AI BUILD 07 Partners & devs 08 Manage delivery AI 09 Deliver outcome LAUNCH & LEARN 10 Market evaluation AI 11 Launch campaign 12 Enhancements AI FEEDBACK LOOP
How an engagement runs: 12 steps in four phases, looping on customer feedback. AI marks steps where AI tools speed up the work.

What we do

Two practices, one team accountable from design to delivery.

Payments products

Card, wallet, acquiring and remittance products designed so your board, sponsor and regulator can all follow them.

  • Product architecture: funds flow, scheme and BIN sponsor model, ledger, KYC tiers and controls
  • Partner selection: processors, sponsors, KYC, fraud and wallet vendors
  • Launch readiness: regulatory pathway, scheme and wallet certification, operating model

Technology & delivery

Technology leadership for teams that need to ship reliably, whether the build is in-house, outsourced or both.

  • Fractional technology director: senior leadership without a full-time hire
  • SDLC management: requirements, agile delivery, QA, release and change control
  • Architecture & vendors: platform selection, build-vs-buy, managing development partners
  • Technical due diligence: independent review of a platform, team or roadmap
1M+SuperGold cards delivered for NZ's Ministry of Social Development
MastercardIssuing and acquiring established across the Pacific Islands
25 yearsLeading payments and technology delivery in mature and emerging markets

How we work

From idea to a product customers use, and better each release.

Most projects stall between the idea and the first release: a market nobody tested, the wrong partner, a delivery process nobody owns. Solta runs the whole path in four phases, and you can bring us in at any one of them.

  1. Understand

    Discovery of the problem, your customers and the economics. Scope what's in and out. A product-market fit check on whether enough people will pay for it.

  2. Shape

    Early marketing ideas to test the message, a solution design, then an MVP or proof of concept that tests the riskiest assumption before the big spend.

  3. Build

    Select and appoint partners or developers, manage the delivery process (backlog, sprints, QA, release), and deliver the outcome you scoped.

  4. Launch & learn

    Evaluate the market response, run the launch campaign, then turn real usage and feedback into enhancements, which starts the loop again.

Where AI fits

AI does the legwork. People make the calls.

We use AI tools throughout an engagement to move faster and spend your budget on decisions, not admin.

  • Discovery and scope: summarising interviews, documents and research; drafting requirements and user stories for review
  • Market fit and marketing: scanning competitors, pricing and reviews; generating positioning and campaign concepts to test
  • MVP and proof of concept: AI-assisted prototyping to get something testable in days rather than weeks
  • Delivery: code review, test generation and plain-English status reporting
  • Feedback loop: analysing usage data and customer feedback to rank the next enhancements
Prepaid & debit card programsDigital wallets & push provisioningSoftPOS & merchant acquiringCross-border remittance & FXInstant & web-to-wallet issuingFractional technology directorSDLC & release managementVendor & dev-partner managementTechnical due diligence

Work

Built in practice, in markets others skip.

Solta engagement

Touch to Pay

As Technology Director, Mark oversaw development of SoftPOS and payment terminal solutions to widen card acceptance across enterprise and SME merchants.

Solta engagement

iGo Direct

Reviewed and reframed iGo Direct's prepaid Visa offering, and led the design of a web-to-wallet instant issuing capability.

Co-founded venture

Fintech Pacific

Established Mastercard issuing and acquiring licensing, remittance, merchant acquiring and digital wallets across the Pacific Islands. Current work includes a PNG kina prepaid card: issued in Australia, FX locked at load, built for use in PNG and activated straight into Apple or Google Wallet.

PNG card · in design
Track record

Eyede

Delivered the rollout of more than one million SuperGold cards for the Ministry of Social Development and the Snapper contactless transport system. The business grew 10x, earning places in Deloitte's Asia Pacific Fast 500 and the NZ Fast 50.

About

Mark Povey, Founder

Mark is a payments and technology leader with more than 25 years designing, scaling and modernising acquiring and issuing solutions and the platforms behind them. Through Solta, he works with banks, fintechs, payment providers and growing businesses to bring new products to market and keep their technology delivery on track.

He has founded and led ventures across New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific, including co-founding Fintech Pacific, serving as GM Australia at Centrality.ai, CEO of UShare and a board director at TrackBack.

His strength is bridging technology, compliance and commercial models, in mature markets and in the ones most providers skip.

Contact

Tell us what you're building.

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