FinTech innovation is commonly measured in deployment cycles, not dialogue.
But as emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) advance, it’s becoming crucial for human-centered design to take center stage in the payments space.
“The customer experience is the product,” Mark Sundt, chief technology officer at Stax Payments, told PYMNTS. “Technology is only valuable to the extent that it solves real human problems.”
In a space flooded with point solutions and product-first thinking, this prioritization of the nonfunctional aspects of service — how something feels to use — may be a departure from traditional FinTech design thinking.
“I’m a true solution-selling type of person,” Sundt said, adding that he encourages teams to design backward from the emotional outcomes. “Truly understanding the issues your customers are wrestling with — they’ll readily tell you if you have the conversation and you’re in listening mode.”
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This is not just poetic thinking; it’s strategic. Stax, a payments infrastructure provider for software platforms and resellers, operates at a critical junction in commerce. It’s not just serving customers; it’s serving customers’ customers.
That, Sundt argued, makes empathy key to business success. In this “second-degree empathy,” Stax isn’t simply enabling transactions — it’s enabling experiences on platforms it doesn’t control, for users it may never meet.
Listening as a Technological Advantage
Much of Sundt’s current focus at Stax lies in eliminating friction from the payments journey, particularly in onboarding, risk management and data delivery.
“Onboarding is a big one,” he said. “How do we actually bring our customers in and slipstream them into payments flows as quickly as we possibly can?”
Rather than asking what technology can do, teams are now asking how it should feel — a subtle but powerful recalibration.
“People will remember how easy your onboarding was. They’ll remember if the dashboard made sense or if they got stuck,” Sundt said. “We look at those nonfunctional requirements — speed, friction, trust — as the real drivers of loyalty.”
To do that, it is crucial to prioritize product discovery, qualitative feedback and an iterative mindset. By encouraging his team to “walk a mile in the customer’s shoes,” Sundt operationalizes empathy into product strategy.
The result? Solutions that resonate not just at a technical level but at a human one.
“It’s the home run,” he said. “Helping your customer’s customers. That’s when you know you’ve made an impact.”
One of the most telling metrics is the speed of the month-end close.
“If you want to understand where friction lives in a company, talk to the CFO,” Sundt said. “They need data fast, accurate and in context.”
For its own part, Stax is investing heavily in accelerating reconciliation, improving transactional visibility and delivering data that’s not just accessible — but actionable. For Sundt, the future isn’t just about faster FinTech. It’s about smarter operations that close the loop between action and insight.
Conversational Commerce and AI Agents
If customer empathy is Stax’s North Star, AI is Sundt’s rocket fuel to get there. He’s particularly enthusiastic about agentic commerce, what Visa recently dubbed “intelligent commerce.”
In this vision, the line between search and purchase disappears. A user can ask a question, get an AI-curated answer and complete a transaction, all without ever switching apps or sites.
“You don’t even get a pointer anymore when you do a Google search. You get a Gemini result,” Sundt noted. “Why couldn’t that be the moment of purchase?”
“It’s one of those, like, how do you facilitate impulse purchases during a conversational AI?” he added. “That’s kind of this holy grail.”
It’s not just blue-sky thinking. Sundt believes these kinds of seamless, intent-based transactions are the logical evolution of the commerce experience.
“I like to play pickleball,” he joked. “Go find a court that’s available at 9 o’clock on Saturday — just book it. I can go look it up myself, but I want the agent to just go do it.”
This isn’t about automating everything. It’s about enabling choice, driven by context, trust and security. Tools like tokenized one-time-use cards, preference-based personalization and transaction behavior profiling will make this vision both safe and scalable.
Ultimately, it all reflects a growing awareness across industries: the most impactful solutions come not from shipping quickly, but from listening deeply.
