About us

Yaspa connects identity and money

We use open banking to power real-time payments and instant verification.
For operators, that means lower costs, stronger security, and faster growth.
For customers, it’s a simple, seamless experience every time.

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Our senior team

Leading the future of payments

James Neville

Co-founder and CEO

James has 10+ years of experience as a founder, as well as holding previous roles as CTO at Worldpay and Just Eat. He has an MBA from Cass, and is one of the industry’s leading experts in payments and identity verification.

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Chris Lowe

Chief Financial Officer

Chris is an ACA-qualified finance leader with deep experience across Corporate Finance, FP&A, and digital strategy. As CFO at Yaspa, he drives financial planning, strategic modelling, and commercial decision-making – bringing particular expertise in data-led growth.

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Kate Marsden

Chief Marketing Officer

Kate has an MBA from London Business School and over 25 years’ experience in the tech and digital space, including at BT, Defaqto, RiskScreen, and numerous startups.

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Dr Toby Sucharov

Chief Technology Officer

Toby heads-up our tech team. In 2015 he sold the company he co-founded, Corosin, to Playtech, and has continued to work in the iGaming sector. Toby holds several patents, and has a PhD in Medical Physics from Sheffield.

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Chris Watkins

Chief People Officer

Chris brings over 20 years’ experience in people and talent strategy. He supports Yaspa’s leadership team in scaling through smart operations and culture, drawing on deep expertise from high-growth fintech and SaaS environments.

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Sarah Ahle

Head of Compliance

Sarah is a compliance and AML specialist with over 15 years’ experience in financial crime prevention. As Yaspa’s Head of Risk and Compliance and Deputy MLRO, she leads on regulatory practices and ensures effective risk management across the business.

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Max Collinge

Head of Product

Before joining Yaspa, Max spent over 5 years developing Natwest’s open banking solution, PayIt. He uses his extensive expertise in payments to drive Yaspa’s product roadmap.

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Amie Kadhim

Head of Commercial

Amie leads Yaspa’s sales team, building on her broad experience in the legal, financial, tech and sales industries, including at PaymentSense/Dojo. She has a degree from the University of London and a diploma in law.

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Phyllis Ogan

Director of Integrations & Customer Support

Fintech leader with 17+ years in payments, open banking & product strategy. Driving innovation at Yaspa by bridging business and tech for smarter financial solutions.

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History

The Yaspa journey so far

Yaspa started in 2017 as ‘Citizen’, a company with the vision of connecting identity and payments. Over the years our product offering has evolved, and sometimes pivoted a little, but that focus has remained the same.

We believe there is a sweet spot in the combination of payment and identity data that will dramatically improve payment velocity, security and consumer trust.

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2017

Citizen is founded by two tech execs, focused on providing identity and payment solutions

2019

We are one of the first open banking providers to be regulated as a payments institution by the Financial Conduct Authority

2022

Citizen wins the Open Banking Expo Award for ‘Best Open Banking Product’

2023

Citizen rebrands to Yaspa, as the company continues to expand across Europe

2024

Yaspa is awarded Innovate UK grant for Safer Gambling platoform

2025

Yaspa wins Best Payment Facility at The Card & Payments Awards

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Investing in the future of payments

Our investors

Life at

The Yaspa team comes from a broad range of countries, companies and backgrounds. Unusually for many fintechs, we have a 50:50 gender split at senior level, and support the UK government’s apprenticeship programme across multiple disciplines.

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