Greta Atminaitė looks after Strategic Payments Partnerships at Vinted, where she can combine her passion for payments, with sustainability and making second-hand first choice. Find out how she went from building relationships to building a team that’s helping the world buy and sell second-hand items.
It was completely unplanned. I studied management, economics, and business strategy, then spent seven years in various sales and commercial roles before securing a job with TransferGo in Lithuania. At that time, I knew very little about payments. Working in a fintech company became my “payments school,” teaching me everything I now know about the industry I love.
Interestingly, my accidental entry into the payments industry is not unique. Recently, I participated in a PSP advisory panel, and all 15 experts on the panel had also stumbled into payments by chance rather than by design.
At first, I was amazed that an entire industry is built around payments. As a consumer, paying is something you do automatically, without being aware of how it all works, who is involved, or how they make money. Once on the other side, you’re suddenly exposed to new terms like KYC, optimizations, orchestration, tokenization, chargebacks, and refunds. There’s a lot of complexity and a vast ecosystem running it.
Being able to interact with external parties is a key part of both sales and payments. Having a commercial understanding to negotiate, structure deals, and develop strategies is crucial. My sales experience gives me a better perspective; it helps me “read the room,” especially during contract negotiations. It also provides me with a lot to draw on, from knowledge of different markets and topics to a great network of contacts I can leverage for Vinted.
I really enjoyed my time at TransferGo, so I was in no rush to move. However, I was always an active member and a big fan of Vinted and its mission to make second-hand first choice. A few years ago, I saw that Vinted was hiring a payments relationship manager It was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.
When I joined Vinted, I was the first in the payments team to manage external partnerships, allowing me to create and shape my own role. It’s a move that has worked out great for both me and the company.
As the business scaled, payments became more complex. It’s not simply about launching a regular Euro country and making it run smoothly. We needed people who could create opportunities for cost and performance optimization and liaise with the many third parties involved.
Vinted also recognized that PSP (Payment Service Provider) relationships had become critical. Customer acquisition is very expensive, but the last step—the payment—is out of our hands. Losing customers at this stage is extremely costly. My role is crucial in preventing this by managing the PSP relationship and performance more closely and acting as a connector between internal and external teams.
Payments are an important part of the strategy of the company. I report directly to the VP of Payments, who is part of the marketplace leadership team and reports directly to the Group CEO. This structure ensures that payments have good visibility and representation in the C-suite.
Our payments domain consists of around 90 people and growing. It’s a large team, especially considering that when I joined, there was only one product team with a product manager, an engineering manager, a couple of engineers, and a QA team. Now, we have six full-stack product teams and a sophisticated payments function.
We have expanded from one to six product teams so we are usually on a look out for payments’ talents in all areas: product, data science, engineering, and QA.
I’m also pleased to say we’ve recruited someone to work alongside my role. This will give me the space to focus on more strategic projects and ensure that daily and urgent work doesn’t eat up time time from strategic and long-term thinking.
Our approach is highly collaborative. Payments initiatives are brought to the product director and product managers, who incorporate them into the roadmap. These initiatives are evaluated based on their ROI, costs, potential earnings, compliance, platform stability, and direct conversion to revenue. We also conduct extensive testing, including A/B testing, before deciding whether to scale an initiative.
We have a high-level marketplace strategy and plan, with payments serving as a support function. If the marketplace decides to launch in a new country, it becomes part of our roadmap. We have six teams: some support the immediate needs of the marketplace, while others focus on our future strategy and growth. We work according to quarterly plans, with two quarters mapped out at a high level and one quarter in detailed planning at any given time.
Constant change – it’s both the best and worst aspect of working in payments. No two days are the same, and you never know where challenges will come from. It could be a new requirement from the scheme, a new initiative, regulation, feature, or a new fraud pattern that needs addressing. This makes the work really interesting, but at the same time, there is no such thing as ‘business as usual’.
It’s a great choice for anyone looking for a career in a fast-moving function with lots of opportunities to make a significant impact on a business. The industry itself is both welcoming and interesting. If you can find a role that fits your skills, needs, and future career goals, it’s an excellent accelerator for whatever you want to achieve.
My advice would be: “Be agile, don’t be afraid of change, and enjoy the ride.” If you do happen to get a week or two when things are calm, embrace it, because there’s likely to be another adrenaline rush right around the corner.
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