Startup.info spoke to Versatile’s President and COO Vicki Turjan, for their “Innovators vs COVID 19” series. A variety of subjects are covered in the interview, from the effects of COVID-19 on retail and consumer financing to the driving factors behind Versatile’s philosophy on innovation.

On Versatile’s Culture of Innovation: “We are aware that we operate in a highly competitive and volatile market. Dozens of new, would-be competitors are launching every year. As a result, our company has operated and thrived on an “Innovate or Die” philosophy. We are ferocious readers on the markets we serve and understand that innovation doesn’t just happen organically. You need to have input from trusted experts — so we talk to our customers, partners and shoppers constantly to understand the problems and opportunities they are facing, and work with them to develop the tools, solutions and experiences so that they can achieve their goals. We focus on solving these problems and finding opportunities to make our partners “the hero” — whether it’s a company stakeholder leveraging our analytics tools to optimize the performance of the financing program, a sales associate assisting a shopper with finding a financing program that fits or parents buying a new bed set for their child.”

On Versatile’s competitors and future: “The Fintech space is evolving every day. Banks are becoming Fintechs, while Fintechs are pivoting to become banks. You can view “competition” through so many lenses, but ultimately we have found the most success in “connection”. Our primary priority is providing our customers and partners (merchants and retail lending providers) with the best tools to drive applications, sales and customer satisfaction. We understand that our merchants are most successful when leveraging the tools and technology their employees and shoppers are comfortable with. Our decades of experience in complex system integrations enable our team to be confident when working with systems from industry-standard platforms to custom-developed solutions. This enables our team to provide our customers with novel and innovative tools and experiences while our customers and partners can focus on what they do best; selling fantastic products and building great financing programs and services, regardless of the infrastructure and technology they use.”

Read more of the interview at startup.info