Paysafe names Chirag Patel as CEO of its Digital Wallets division

The specialized payments platform Paysafe announced on Tuesday it has appointed international payments executive, Chirag Patel, as CEO of its global Digital Wallets business. Patel will report directly to Group CEO, Philip McHugh when he joins the company in early September.

Patel replaces former Digital Wallets CEO, Lorenzo Pellegrino, who is stepping into a strategic advisory role for Skrill Limited.

Patel brings over 20 years of experience, he joins Paysafe from Santander Group where he was Global Head of Payments. While there, he launched a global payments platform and significantly increased usage of the bank’s payments products and services. Before Santander, Patel was Amazon’s Head of Payments, Europe and International Expansion, where he was responsible for the company’s product roadmap for emerging payments technologies and international payment expansion. Before Amazon, he held senior executive roles in payments and financial services for other well-known financial institutions including Softcard (acquired by Google), American Express Services Europe Limited, and Merchant Services Group Int.

Philip McHugh, Paysafe’s CEO, said: “Chirag has an awesome track record as a high-performing payments’ executive and has successfully launched and grown multiple consumer-facing and B2B payments products and services around the world. I’m thrilled to have someone of his caliber and energy-level to take our Digital Wallets business to the next level of growth.”

He added: “I’d like to add my sincere thanks to Lorenzo for the immense passion and drive he has shown over the past 15 years as he launched our digital wallet solutions around the world. We now offer two of the most popular and sophisticated digital wallet brands on the planet and have strong foundations to continue building on as we grow the business.”

Patel commented: “I am really looking forward to joining the Paysafe team next month and to be given the opportunity to lead its exciting Digital Wallets business. I believe there is enormous potential to extend the offering to more and more customers given Skrill and NETELLER’s worldwide presence, combined with Paysafe’s great technology and talented team.”

Paysafe’s digital wallet solutions, which include Skrill and NETELLER, enable consumers to store, withdraw and make purchases in over 40 currencies from a virtual account as well as buy and sell interests in cryptocurrency and make international money transfers. They are used by 3.5 million consumers around the world and generated $20.4 billion total payment volume in 2020.