Payment strategy & architecture
Design the operating model across acquiring, banking, orchestration, payouts, treasury and reconciliation—grounded in how the business actually makes money.
Senior global payments & fintech advisory
Complex payments.
Clear direction.
Paulus Hook helps founders and enterprise teams design, source and launch global payment, banking and digital-asset infrastructure across markets.
From proposition to production
01DefineModel · flows · markets
02StructureArchitecture · controls
03SourceBanks · acquirers · rails
04LaunchNegotiate · execute
Independent advice, built around your business
PaymentsBankingOrchestrationDigital assetsCommercial strategy
Where Paulus Hook helps
Strategy with operating depth.
Senior counsel at the intersection of commercial ambition, infrastructure and risk.
Acquiring & banking
Translate the business into a bankable proposition, identify the right partners and lead the process from first conversation through underwriting and launch.
Orchestration & optimization
Build resilient payment stacks, improve routing and acceptance, and align provider coverage with product, geography and risk—not a generic vendor map.
Complex & high-risk verticals
Shape credible market-entry and payment strategies for models that require nuanced underwriting, strong controls and careful partner positioning.
Crypto & stablecoin infrastructure
Connect fiat and digital-asset rails across on-ramps, off-ramps, settlement, banking and treasury with a clear-eyed view of commercial and regulatory constraints.
Commercial strategy & negotiation
Source partners, test proposals, structure durable economics and negotiate the terms that determine long-term flexibility, cost and control.
Micah KershnerFounder & Principal
About Paulus Hook
Global perspective.
Operator mindset.
Paulus Hook is an independent, founder-led advisory firm built on more than 25 years of operating experience across payments, fintech and digital assets.
Founder Micah Kershner has helped global platforms expand regulated payment acceptance across the globe, working directly with acquirers, sponsor banks, card networks, product, risk and compliance teams.
Before founding Paulus Hook, Micah served as Senior Vice President of Crypto & Digital Assets at Paysafe, Vice President of Crypto at Worldpay and Senior Vice President of Sales at FreedomPay. At Worldpay, he represented the company on the governing councils of Hedera Hashgraph and Klaytn, bringing a global payments perspective to two leading public blockchain ecosystems. His career spans card acquiring, wallets, local payment methods, open banking, payouts and stablecoin settlement—and includes helping build the payment rails used by some of the world’s leading digital-asset platforms.
View Micah on LinkedIn ↗Selected work
Built for the hard parts.
Representative engagements are anonymized to protect client confidentiality.
01
Market entry · Complex vertical
A multi-market acquiring strategy built for reality
For a fast-moving platform entering new markets, Paulus Hook developed a phased payments architecture spanning local and cross-border acquiring, alternative payment methods and orchestration. The work turned an ambitious launch target into parallel, underwriter-ready routes with clear trade-offs, dependencies and fallback paths.
OutcomeFrom provider list to executable market plan02
Banking · Treasury infrastructure
Making a sophisticated model legible to banks
For a technology-enabled business with multiple entities and complex transaction flows, Paulus Hook clarified the account structure, flow of funds, diligence scope and treasury-data requirements—then shaped the partner narrative and outreach process around the information banks actually need.
OutcomeA clearer proposition and faster senior-level dialogue03
Crypto · Commercial strategy
Bridging product ambition and payment infrastructure
For a digital-asset business, Paulus Hook advised on banking, acquiring and fiat-rail design while sourcing and evaluating partners across the stack. Commercial diligence ran alongside solution design so launch speed did not come at the expense of durable economics or operational control.
OutcomeIntegrated infrastructure and partner strategyHow the work gets done
Direct, rigorous and close to execution.
Paulus Hook works as an extension of the leadership team—bringing independent judgment, a senior network and the persistence to get critical partners aligned.
“The work is not finished when the deck is delivered. It is finished when the path is clear and the right parties are moving.”
Micah Kershner · Founder, Paulus Hook LLC
Start with the model
The right payment strategy begins with the customer, flow of funds, unit economics and risk—not a familiar provider list.
Make complexity clear
Banks and acquirers move when the proposition is complete, credible and easy for decision-makers to understand.
Run paths in parallel
Critical infrastructure rarely arrives on a perfect timeline. Build primary, secondary and fallback routes deliberately.
Stay through execution
A strategy is only useful if it survives underwriting, negotiation, integration and launch.
Start a conversation
When the payment path is not obvious, that is usually where the work starts.
Paulus Hook takes on a focused number of advisory engagements with founders, investors and enterprise teams. For enquiries, email info@paulushookconsulting.com.
Discuss an engagement ↗