Eric Heurtaux
Chief Executive Officer, Planet
Morgan Hammersley
Chief Technology Officer, Planet
‘Future-proofing’ used to be the reassuring phrase you could put in a strategy deck and move on. Lately, it has started to feel like a luxury.
Inflation shocks, supply-chain whiplash and geopolitical jolts arrive with little warning and sometimes together, and they never respect a roadmap.
For Eric Heurtaux, CEO, Planet, the ambition has become more practical: Make the business of payments infrastructure, currency tech and hospitality and retail software storm-proof. Not invincible, just clear-eyed about what can break and ready to keep trading when it does.
Systems that never fall over are the goal, and an ambition that sometimes sets unachievable expectations.
We live in a world of sleek apps and one-click checkouts, but Morgan Hammersley, Planet’s CTO, is quick to point out what sits underneath. “Payments look modern and simple on the surface, but the easier it is for the end customer, the more complex it often is behind the scenes,” he says.
“Much of the banking and payments infrastructure the ecosystem relies on was designed years ago and has had to evolve continuously as customer expectations, regulation and transaction volumes have moved on.”
Built to bend, built to learn
The fragility, Morgan points out, comes from the sheer number of links modern commerce depends on.
Hospitality systems and retail platforms have to talk to the point of sale. Checkout has to recognise the right currency and tax-free status. Fraud checks, refunds and reconciliations need to line up in the background. When one connector slows down, or a third party changes an API at the wrong moment, it’s instantly felt at the till or on the booking screen.
“The last few years have been unsettled globally, so we’ve focused on building resilience into our core,” Eric says. “Planet today is not the same as two or three years ago. We’ve done the heavy lifting, refreshed governance and the management team and made major investments in infrastructure and processes.”
Payments look modern and simple on the surface, but the easier it is for the end customer, the more complex it often is behind the scenes
Because the company can deliver end-to-end solutions or a single component, it sees more of the real-world ecosystem than most. That breadth matters when something breaks. The backend work has translated into a marked fall in major incidents, alongside much faster recovery when issues do occur. Just as importantly, each incident becomes a chance to tighten processes, improve tooling and come back stronger.
In a choppy market, the most valuable partner is rarely the one with the boldest promises. It’s the one who has put in the unglamorous work and can keep things running as conditions change.
