Lasma Kuhtarska, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Noda – Interview Series

Lasma Kuhtarska, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Noda, is a finance and business development expert who helped shape the company from its earliest stages through her strategic vision and execution. Her background includes studies at the Stockholm School of Economics and further specialization in data science at Harvard Business School, along with early career experience in financial analysis at her country’s central bank. She has spent several years guiding Noda’s growth, previously serving as Strategy Advisor before taking on broader responsibilities, and remains passionate about empowering women in business while exploring new cultures and outdoor adventures in her personal life.

Noda is a payment infrastructure company that enables seamless, secure, and instant bank payments for digital businesses. Its platform connects merchants directly to banks through open banking, offering faster checkout experiences, lower fees, and reduced fraud compared to traditional payment methods. The company focuses on simplifying financial interactions between consumers and businesses, providing tools for authentication, data-driven insights, and real-time account access. Through this approach, Noda aims to modernize how payments flow across digital markets and help merchants optimize conversion and operational efficiency.

You began your career in financial analysis at Latvia’s central bank before moving into fintech. What was the key insight or frustration that led you to co-found Noda, and how did those early analytical experiences shape your initial vision for the company?

In my work at Latvia’s Central Bank and later at SEB Group, I saw how much inefficiency still existed in financial processes even inside highly regulated and well-established institutions. Legacy systems, manual workflows, and long operational chains were common. Tasks that should have been simple often required multiple steps, multiple teams, and unnecessary waiting.

As an analyst, you see these issues clearly because your work depends on clean data and predictable flows. You notice where information gets stuck, where delays are caused, and where the infrastructure limits rather than supports the work.

The important insight for me was that these problems were not outliers. They were structural. Traditional systems were built for a different era and were struggling to keep up with the speed and transparency now expected in digital commerce. That realisation is what pushed me toward entrepreneurship.

When we founded Noda in 2018, the vision grew directly out of those early observations. We wanted to build a modern financial toolkit that removes unnecessary friction, simplifies operations, and gives businesses a more transparent way to manage and accept payments. My analytical background helped me pinpoint where the real bottlenecks were and how technology could improve the system rather than complicate it.

When Noda was first coming together, what core problem in payments or banking infrastructure convinced you that the market was ready for a new kind of open-banking platform?

For merchants, the existing payment ecosystem created unnecessary friction. Processing delays were common, fees were high, and the overall checkout experience relied heavily on card details and manual inputs. For users, entering long card numbers or personal information felt outdated and insecure.

The introduction of PSD2 in 2018 was the turning point. It required European banks to open their APIs, which created a foundation for pay-by-bank experiences that were faster and more secure. We saw an opportunity to build a solution that benefits both merchants and consumers across Europe. The market was ready for a system that provided payment efficiency without the limitations of traditional rails.

Noda now connects to thousands of banks across dozens of countries. How did you approach building and maintaining such a large bank-connectivity network?

Noda is an IT-driven company at its core. A significant portion of our team consists of senior engineers, developers, and technical specialists, not just people with experience in tech companies. This deep engineering background has been essential in helping us build strong coverage in a relatively short time.

We use a hybrid connectivity approach. In some regions, we build and maintain direct integrations with banks. In others, we collaborate with regional partners that already operate stable, well-tested connections. This combination allows us to scale efficiently while adapting to the unique requirements of each market.

We also invest heavily in monitoring and quality control. Connectivity isn’t something you set up once and leave. Bank APIs evolve, new security standards appear, and systems need continuous testing and refinement. Because we have a heavily technical team, we’re able to manage this complexity and maintain high reliability across all regions.

Direct bank-to-bank payments are quickly becoming a strong alternative to traditional card rails. How do you see this shift influencing merchant costs, conversion rates, and overall user experience?

Direct bank payments change the economics for merchants immediately. By reducing reliance on card networks, transaction fees drop significantly. For large businesses processing high volumes, the difference is substantial, often translating into hundreds of thousands in annual savings.

Settlement speed is another benefit. Card-based settlements can take days or even weeks, which affects cash flow and planning. Account-to-account payments settle instantly or within a day, which means merchants have faster access to revenue and can reinvest it sooner.

For users, the experience is simpler and more secure. There is no need to enter card numbers or personal data. You confirm the payment inside your banking app, which most people already trust. The process is quick, intuitive, and reduces drop-off during checkout.

What do you consider Noda’s strongest competitive advantage today in a crowded global open-banking landscape?

Our strongest advantage is technology and accessibility. Our unique API powers on of the broadest bank-connection networks across Europe, giving businesses of all sizes access to modern open-banking payments. Many open-banking providers focus solely on large enterprises and offer highly technical solutions that require substantial engineering resources. We built Noda so that companies of any size, from fast-growing startups to major enterprises, can adopt open-banking payments in a way that fits their needs.

For large customers with complex infrastructures, we offer a comprehensive API that allows full customisation of the payment experience – branding, UX, flows, and deep integrations into internal systems. Enterprises can adapt Noda to match their exact product and operational requirements.

At the same time, we also provide ready-made plugins for major ecommerce platforms and no-code tools such as payment links, QR codes, and hosted checkout pages. This allows smaller teams to integrate Noda quickly, even without a dedicated engineering department.

We also prioritise human support. Every client, regardless of size, has a dedicated manager and access to technical assistance. We keep communication personal, which is not always the case in our industry.

You’ve highlighted that standardised open-banking data can help reduce AI bias. Can you explain the types of bias that currently affect financial decision-making and how better data standards help mitigate them?

The industries where standardized data creates the most impact are lending, credit, and consumer finance. These sectors rely heavily on transaction data for decision-making. Before open banking, lenders often worked with incomplete or outdated information. They had to rely on credit bureau scores, manually submitted bank statements, or demographic proxies.

These gaps created several types of bias. Self-employed workers, gig-economy participants, and small businesses were often underestimated because their financial activity did not fit into traditional scoring models. Some decisions were influenced by indirect indicators that had nothing to do with real financial behaviour.

Standardised, real-time data allows lenders to build assessments based on what people actually earn and spend rather than assumptions or demographic patterns. It leads to decisions that are more accurate and more inclusive.

AI regulation in financial services is still developing. Where do you see the most urgent gaps—especially regarding model oversight, explainability and consumer protection? 

AI adoption in financial services is advancing much faster than regulation, and this creates several related gaps that most institutions are still struggling to navigate.

One challenge is that many organisations now rely on AI models, whether for credit scoring, fraud detection, or customer interactions, without a clear, standardised framework for governing them. Requirements for documentation, risk evaluation, or third-party model oversight vary widely, which can leave institutions with limited visibility into how automated decisions are actually being made.

Another issue is transparency around those decisions. Regulators want AI-driven processes to be explainable, but there is still no shared definition of what “explainable” means in practice. A model description that works for an internal compliance team may still leave a consumer confused about why a transaction was flagged or a loan application rejected. This inconsistency makes it hard to meet both regulatory expectations and user needs.

Finally, there’s the broader question of consumer impact. AI systems can unintentionally reproduce historical biases, yet guidelines on fairness testing, data usage boundaries, and remediation processes remain vague. When a customer is affected by an automated decision, it’s often unclear what they’re entitled to know, how they can challenge the outcome, or who ultimately bears responsibility.

Which industries or regions do you believe are most poised for rapid adoption of next-generation open-banking payment solutions?

In markets that are already mature, growth will continue. In the United Kingdom, open banking has more than 15 million active users, and adoption keeps rising. The same trend is visible across the European Union, especially in the Nordics, Baltics, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Southern Europe.

Regulatory support for instant payments will accelerate this further. As more banks adopt instant rails, account-to-account payments will become a natural part of the checkout experience.

Industries with high online activity are adopting open banking the fastest. Ecommerce, travel, utilities, digital services, and gaming are strong early adopters. We also see increasing interest from offline retail. QR code payments for tips or small purchases are already appearing in the UK and parts of the EU. As consumers get familiar with bank-based payments, adoption in retail will grow.

Looking 5–10 years ahead, what is your long-term vision for Noda, and how do you see open-banking payments reshaping global financial infrastructure?

Over the next decade, I see Noda playing a central role in making payments across Europe more accessible and affordable. As open banking expands, supported by PSD3 and instant payments regulation, I believe we will reach a point where account-to-account payments become the primary option for many transactions.

This shift will have a meaningful impact. Merchants will gain access to lower fees, faster settlements, and higher conversion rates. Consumers will have more control over how their financial data is used and how they authorize transactions. With that level of control, new financial tools will emerge, including smarter budgeting, clearer cash flow insights, and personalised services.

What motivates me most is the opportunity to create a more level playing field. Card networks have dominated the industry for a very long time. Open banking gives businesses of all sizes the ability to adopt efficient payment methods without the barriers that existed in the past.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit Noda.