SurePay Appoints Robert Soetens as CPO to Scale Global Fraud Intelligence Platform

SurePay has appointed Robert Soetens as Chief Product Officer to lead the expansion of its fraud risk intelligence platform, a move that signals the company's shift from account verification to proactive fraud prevention. For fintech professionals, this leadership change highlights the industry’s urgent pivot toward cross-border risk signals as Authorised Push Payment fraud continues to escalate globally.

What was announced

The appointment of Robert Soetens as Chief Product Officer marks a strategic expansion of SurePay’s executive team. Soetens, who previously served as Vice President of Product at digital banking platform Backbase for seven years, will now lead the growth of SurePay’s fraud risk intelligence platform. This platform is built upon a payment verification network that the company has operated since 2016, currently reaching more than 4,500 banks and 30,000 businesses globally. Simultaneously, SurePay co-founder Marcel Rienties has transitioned into the newly created role of Chief Innovation Officer. While Rienties focuses on identifying emerging fraud trends, Soetens is tasked with scaling the platform that addresses them.

The company currently processes more than 20 million payment checks every day, operating national verification schemes across the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, and Ireland. The leadership change comes amid a sharp rise in financial crime; UK Finance’s 2026 Annual Fraud Report indicates that payment fraud losses in the UK reached £1.28 billion in 2025. Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud alone rose 19% to £576.4 million, with case volumes increasing to over 248,000. By strengthening its product leadership, SurePay aims to transform its existing network into a system that provides actionable risk signals to financial institutions before transactions are completed.

"What drew me to SurePay was the strength of the foundation already in place, a unique network and data position that very few fraud prevention companies have. That is a rare thing to inherit, and it means we don't have to reinvent the wheel to grow, we just have to build on what’s here the right way. My focus now is turning that network into something smarter. It sees payment behaviour that no single institution can see on its own, and our platform turns that into risk signals banks can act on. The ambition is simple. Stop fraud before money moves."

Robert Soetens at SurePay.

The companies involved

SurePay was founded in 2016 with the primary objective of ensuring that payments reach the correct recipient on the first attempt. Headquartered in the Netherlands, the company has established itself as a dominant player in the account verification and fraud risk intelligence sector. It is widely recognised for its role in implementing Confirmation of Payee (CoP) and Verification of Payee (VoP) services across Europe. Beyond its Dutch roots, the firm has expanded its physical presence with offices in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, reflecting its move toward a global network model.

The company’s infrastructure is designed to mitigate misdirected payments and combat various forms of fraud, including APP fraud, by providing real-time verification against bank records. Under the leadership of CEO and co-founder David-Jan Janse, SurePay has transitioned from a domestic utility to a cross-border intelligence provider. Its network now serves as a critical layer of defense for thousands of financial institutions and tens of thousands of corporate clients, processing a high volume of daily checks to maintain the integrity of the international payment ecosystem.

What FF News has reported before

FF News has closely tracked SurePay’s expansion across the European continent. In July 2025, we reported on the SurePay Accelerates European VOP Rollout: Belgium Becomes First Eurozone Country Live With Verification of Payee, a significant milestone for the company’s regional footprint. The firm has also focused on ecosystem integration, as seen when SurePay Joins Forces With FIS Strengthening Delivery Of Verification And Confirmation Of Payee Across The EU And UK to enhance its delivery capabilities. Further broadening its reach, the company joined the Surepay Joins Temenos Exchange to Expand Access to Verification of Payee and Confirmation of Payee in early 2024. Additionally, SurePay has supported technical adoption in the UK market, as noted when SurePay Launches Developer Portal to empower UK PSPs to implement Confirmation of Payee for payment service providers.

What this means

This leadership shift signals a maturation of the fraud prevention market. Verification of Payee is no longer a standalone compliance checkbox; it is becoming the foundation for a broader intelligence layer. By hiring a product leader from a digital banking giant like Backbase, SurePay is positioning itself to compete on the seamlessness of its platform integration within the banking stack. The industry is under immense pressure to solve the APP fraud crisis, and the move toward sharing risk signals across a community of 4,500 banks suggests that the era of siloed fraud defense is ending. The primary challenge remains how quickly these shared signals can be standardised across varying international jurisdictions.