Payrails Co-Founder: "It Works" Is the Most Dangerous Phrase in Payments

In payments, there's no such thing as "we sold 90% and we are fine." So why do most enterprises still treat it that way? In this episode of Retail Re:Mix Stories, Dharmendra sits down with Emre Talay, co-founder and COO of Payrails, the modular payment infrastructure platform backed by Andreessen Horowitz and HV Capital. Emre has spent 15 years in payments, from building payment acceptance from scratch as a product manager in 2010, to running BKM, Turkey's local MasterCard switch system, to overseeing fintech across 70 countries at Delivery Hero, before co-founding Payrails four and a half years ago. This conversation gets into all of it. Why "accepting payments" and "payments working" are two completely different things. The real P&L cost of ignoring payment orchestration, and why the number most CFOs see is never the full picture. Why the Middle East's fragmented, country-by-country payment landscape is both a technical headache and a genuine opportunity. And why Emre is convinced AI will reshape payments completely in the next five years, but not willing to build on hype before the value is real. Emre also breaks down what it actually took to raise from top-tier investors, why building a startup feels a lot like raising a kid, and the emotional rollercoaster of the first two years of founding a company. Plus, the one thing he wishes every founder understood: if you're doing this to make money, don't. If you're a founder, a payments operator, or anyone who's ever heard "it works" and wondered if that was actually true, this one's for you. 00:00 – The payments misconception 00:31 – Welcome to the show, Emre 01:12 – 15 years in payments: the early days 05:22 – Biggest problems on the merchant side 09:10 – Building Payrails: the SAP migration analogy 13:21 – The real P&L impact of payments 16:32 – What makes the Middle East different 18:03 – Raising from top-tier investors 19:31 – Advice for GCC founders 21:40 – Is agentic commerce ready yet? 24:02 – What's next for Payrails 28:44 – Family, fatherhood and childcare About Emre Talay Emre Talay is the co-founder and COO of Payrails. Over the last ten years, he's led teams across operations, payment acceptance, risk, and compliance, working on the merchant side of fintech globally. Emre’s merchant-first vantage point is what motivates him to help other merchants simplify the growing complexity of payments, leading him to co-found Payrails in 2022. Follow him here:   / emre-talay   About Payrails Payrails is a modular financial infrastructure platform spanning payment orchestration, tokenization, unified analytics, reconciliation, chargebacks, fee monitoring, and more. It helps high-growth companies turn payments from a cost centre into a growth lever, boosting revenue and margins through AI-native workflows. Trusted by brands including Puma, HelloFresh, Vinted, Preply, Flix, Careem, and inDrive. More about Payrails here: https://www.payrails.com/ About your host, Dharmendra Mehta Dharmendra is the Managing Director, MEA at Fynd and a retail-tech veteran with 20+ years. From startups to global giants, he's all about bold moves, smarter tech, and building brands that mean business Follow him here:   / dharmendra-mehta   Retail Re:Mix Stories is part of Retail Re:Mix, a community of innovators transforming the retail landscape. This podcast is powered by Fynd, an AI-first unified commerce platform that has transformed retail experiences for 300+ brands. Retail Re:Mix: https://www.retailremix.club/ Fynd: https://www.fynd.com/ Special thanks to Poddster - Podcast Studio Dubai, for providing the perfect space to bring this episode to life! #PaymentsInnovation #Fintech #FounderStories #PaymentOrchestration #GCCFintech #DubaiStartups #EmbeddedFinance #startuppodcast