Matthew Lucas - Shine

Can you briefly introduce Shine, your business, and your challenges around securing bank transfers?

Founded by serial entrepreneurs Rico Andersen and Martin Hegelund, Shine's mission is to make entrepreneurship easier by eliminating time wasted on financial administration. Shine provides a financial copilot through a single platform that combines invoicing, accounting, payroll, business accounts, payments, and financing solutions.

Shine is a leading European fintech unicorn operating in France, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany, serving more than one million customers. In France, Shine is licensed as a Payment Institution by the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) and was recognized as "Best Business Bank" by the ESCDA in 2024, 2025, and 2026.

What needs or constraints led you to choose a Verification of Payee (VoP) solution rather than building one in-house?

When we first learned about Verification of Payee (VoP), we immediately understood the complexity of the challenge: connecting every bank in real time to obtain a secure and reliable response within seconds in order to protect our customers.

It quickly became clear that we needed a specialized RVM provider. Building such a solution internally would have been extremely challenging and risky, especially given the regulatory deadline.

What were the key factors that led you to choose Qombo for your VoP project?

We conducted a formal RFP process involving several RVM providers. The factors that ultimately led us to select Qombo were, first and foremost, the responsiveness of their team. They were consistently available to explain how VoP would work before production deployment and provided valuable insights into implementation best practices.

We also appreciated how straightforward their solution was to integrate, something our engineering teams confirmed during the evaluation. Finally, having access to comprehensive documentation well ahead of the October 2025 deadline allowed us to assess the solution thoroughly and make our decision with confidence.

How did the integration of the solution go? What helped make deployment and production rollout successful?

The integration went very smoothly. Our engineering team connected to the API without any major issues, and we received excellent support while setting up our sandbox, staging, and production environments.

Qombo was highly responsive throughout the entire project. Every question we raised was addressed quickly, which significantly streamlined the deployment process.

How would you describe the support provided by the Qombo team throughout the different phases of the project?

The support we received from Qombo was outstanding, from the initial RFP process through post-production deployment.

The Qombo team took a proactive approach to ensuring the success of our implementation. They continuously monitored our production metrics and benchmarked them against other customers and other RVM providers, allowing us to quickly identify optimization opportunities.

This level of support and strategic guidance made a real difference to the success of the project.

What do you think about the Slack community created by Qombo to share regulatory / technical updates and best practices with fintechs?

The Slack community created by Qombo is an excellent initiative.

As fintechs and banks, we're all facing the same challenges. It's quite rare, at least in my experience, to find a community where we can openly discuss implementation questions, share test cases, and ask each other "How are you handling this?" without any commercial agenda or concerns about sharing knowledge with competitors.

The purpose of both VoP and FNC-RF is to share information, exchange best practices, and fight fraud collectively. The Slack community is, in my opinion, the natural extension of that philosophy.

After the VoP project, you decided to continue working with Qombo for the French FNC-RF framework by implementing Qombo Sharing. Why did you choose Qombo again?

Following the success of our VoP project, we launched a similar evaluation process for the FNC-RF framework, including an RFP and a technical and functional assessment of several providers.

We chose to continue working with Qombo based on the same criteria that led us to select them for VoP. Qombo proved to be the strongest solution for fraud information sharing.

First, because of the complementarity of their products and the team's deep understanding of how the FNC-RF process would operate in practice.

Second, because of the level of support they committed to providing throughout the implementation. Thanks in part to that support, we were among the first ten institutions to go live on FNC-RF, which speaks for itself.

What benefits do you see today from using both Qombo VoP and Qombo Sharing?

The benefits of using both Qombo VoP and Qombo Sharing have been significant.

Most importantly, implementing Qombo Sharing required very little additional technical work. Our users access the same dashboard and benefit from the same security mechanisms, including access controls and certificates.

We were able to integrate the new solution into our day-to-day operations without any major disruption. This seamless experience and the consistency between both products significantly reduced our workload and allowed us to focus on other strategic priorities.

What would you say to a fintech considering working with Qombo on a VoP and/or fraud information sharing project?

To any fintech considering working with Qombo on a VoP or fraud information sharing project, I would say this: you'll be working with a highly skilled, responsive, and genuinely committed team.

What we have with Qombo is a true partnership, far beyond a traditional vendor relationship. They are constantly looking for ways to improve the implementation, and they're always open to feedback to make the overall experience even better.

You'll find a partner that evolves alongside you, has the expertise to support you, and is fully committed to helping your project succeed.