Company Overview
Craig Sobol is Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer at pAIwares, a platform for banks to effectively originate, onboard and retain merchant services customers – all without changing your processing relationship (unless you want to). Learn more at www.paiwares.com.
Can you tell us a little about your background before starting your company?
I’ve been around payments for nearly my entire career. Having experience in consulting, technology and banking has built up expertise that has served several Fortune 500 throughout my 30+ years on the job (man I’m getting old!).
On the personal side, my wife and I live in Charlotte, NC and my two boys have left us empty nesters. Max is a recent American University grad and living in the DC metro area and our younger son, Alex, is an aspiring baseball pitcher at Gaston College here in Charlotte. I love playing piano, a good IPA and have a passion for sports collectables.
How did you start your company? What were the first steps you took to get it off the ground and how did you identify the need for your product/service in the market?
Our journey is an interesting one – we started as consultants, identified a business opportunity, partnered with our clients to build a technology solution and watched their (and our) business grow.
Once our time with that client ended, we were encouraged to build a more universal solution for other, similar clients – all around merchant services. That was so successful that we sold the solution to KeyBank in 2021.
When I parted ways with KeyBank in 2023, a few business partners and I decided to go back into financial services through consulting. We listened to customers, watched the trends and finalized a new software product and solution set now called pAIwares. We’re on a mission to bring merchant services to the bank using AI and our vast expertise of the industry and ecosystem.
What innovations or unique features set your company apart from others in the industry?
Nearly every bank outsources merchant services, meaning banks have disintermediated themselves from the customer experience. Not to mention, starved their AI and analytics capabilities by not having the rich transaction data for business clients.
Our innovation is at the corner of AI, Open Banking, Embedded Finance and payments in unique ways that incorporate decades of merchant services and banking expertise. Example impacts include deposits growth by over 15%, new revenue growth of 60% for merchant customers and countless hours saved by providing a bank-branded, self-service experience.
What has been the most effective strategy for scaling your business?
Our growth model centers on trust and delivery. Every decent sales person can use their techniques to convince the most discerning buyer. What sets us apart is our consultative approach and trust our clients have with us. We work to earn trust every day with our current and soon-to-be clients.
Looking ahead, what are your goals for the future of your company?
At my age, what I’ve learned is to enjoy work. We spend 10+ hours a day thinking about or doing work…if you’re not having fun, you’re missing out. Work with people you enjoy spending time with, lose the ego, and deliver for customers. Once that happens, everything else falls into place.
