Former Visa MD Joins Blockchain Startup to Boost the One-Click, No-ID Payments Revolution

Alastair Johnson, founder and chief executive of Nuggets, welcomed the addition: "He'll help us build the relationships we need to roll out the product as quickly as possible. We're thrilled that, after so long working on customer payment journeys at Visa, Kevin will be helping us bring even more fundamental and exciting change to the way people manage payments and ID." Johnson noted that Jenkins represents a true payments pioneer whose experience at a global payments institution makes him ideally suited to accelerate Nuggets' growth trajectory.

The appointment arrives roughly a month following Nuggets' announcement of a strategic partnership with QFPay, one of China's largest mobile payment solution providers. QFPay powers transactions for major Asian platforms including Alipay and WeChat Pay. The company has processed more than 500 million mobile payment transactions, collectively representing over $30 million in transaction volume. Through this partnership, merchants within QFPay's network of more than one million partners can now integrate Nuggets' capabilities, allowing customers to transact and manage identity verification without divulging personal identification documents, payment card information, or other sensitive personal details.

Jenkins' background encompasses senior roles at both Visa and Mastercard. Reflecting on the current state of payments, he stated: "The current model of businesses holding personal information is broken. It needs fundamental change, study after study shows that customers are frustrated by the payments journey: the many steps they have to take, and the security fears." He contends that Nuggets has achieved something distinctive: "to achieve a balance between security and convenience," which he believes the payments sector has lacked historically.

At Visa, Jenkins spearheaded the rollout of contactless payment technology across U.K. merchants. His efforts included a partnership with Transport for London that proved transformational, generating more than one billion contactless transactions and comprising roughly 40 percent of the city's pay-as-you-go transit journeys on a daily basis.