--- title: "Payment Systems | Monika Liikamaa and Kirsi Larkiala | Negotiator 121" titleOriginal: "Maksujärjestelmät | Monika Liikamaa Kirsi Larkiala | Neuvottelija 121" episodeNumber: "121" guest: "Monika Liikamaa, Kirsi Larkiala" datePublished: 2022-02-13 duration: "01:01:35" youtube: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_g-bhK8vCE" originalLanguage: "fi" topics: ["saas_software","finnish_economy_policy"] subtitleMethod: "none" provenance: "Owner page assembled from YouTube metadata and the neuvottelija.fi episode record. No chapter marks are published here: the publisher's list holds only two marks, at 0:00 and 0:56, and it is a split of the show-note text rather than a chapter list, so republishing it would assert timestamps that do not hold. No transcript is published either — the channel has no English caption track for this episode and the Finnish one is YouTube's automatic track. One guest runs a payment company whose funding round and listing ambition are discussed in the episode, which makes those passages promotional; the criticism of P27 and of named banks is the guests' own, and none of those institutions is represented. Recorded February 2022, before P27 was abandoned." fiCanonical: "https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/156-maksujarjestelmat-monika-liikamaa-kirsi-larkiala-neuvottelij" canonical: https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep121-maksujarjestelmat-liikamaa-larkiala/ --- # Payment Systems | Monika Liikamaa and Kirsi Larkiala | Negotiator 121 English subtitles are not available on this page. This is an episode summary, not a curated transcript. ## Summary Enfuce's founder and co-chief-executive Monika Liikamaa and the finance-sector all-rounder Kirsi Larkiala explain what actually happens behind a card payment. Liikamaa sets out why debit and credit are entirely different products, how a payment travels from the terminal through the acquirer and the card scheme to the issuer, and why a closed ecosystem such as the S Group's is the cheapest way to pay. Larkiala argues that the Nordic P27 project is mostly a soft landing for banks that failed to make strategic decisions in time, and both unpack why payment traffic has never made money in Finland. The episode also covers the risk a central bank digital currency poses to commercial banks, security of supply in telecom connections, the public-cloud breakthrough achieved with the financial supervisor, and Enfuce's road from bootstrapping to a 45 million growth round. ## Two products, not one Debit moves money you have; credit creates an exposure someone underwrites. They travel different rails, cost different amounts and carry different rights, and the habit of treating a card as a card is where most arguments about payment fees go wrong from the first sentence. ## The cheapest payment never leaves A closed ecosystem — the S Group's being the Finnish example — avoids the acquirer, the scheme and the issuer entirely. That is not a clever optimisation; it is the removal of three parties who each take a margin, and it explains the cost difference without any appeal to efficiency. ## What a CBDC does to a bank If people can hold central bank money directly, the deposit base that funds commercial lending is what leaves. That makes a central bank digital currency a question about bank funding rather than about payments, and it is the most consequential thing in the episode. ## Watch The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: [Maksujärjestelmät | Monika Liikamaa Kirsi Larkiala | Neuvottelija 121](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_g-bhK8vCE). A Finnish edition of this episode is published at [www.neuvottelija.fi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/fi/episodes/156-maksujarjestelmat-monika-liikamaa-kirsi-larkiala-neuvottelij). ## In depth The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: [English](https://www.neuvottelija.com/ai/ep121-maksujarjestelmat-liikamaa-larkiala/) · [suomeksi](https://www.neuvottelija.fi/economy/ep121-maksujarjestelmat-liikamaa-larkiala/). ## Explore the ideas in depth - [Enterprise AI Agents: Economics, Governance and the Shift From Tools to Workers](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/enterprise-ai-agents-economics-and-governance/): A guide to enterprise AI agents — the real cost model behind agent work, why owning your own stack is becoming a strategic question, a working governance framework with approval gates and audit trails, the agent risk matrix, the EU AI Act timeline as it stands, and who captures the productivity gains. Grounded in a real multi-agent lab, two 2026 keynotes, and Neuvottelija conversations. - [Nordic SaaS Valuation & M&A: How AI Reprices Software Companies](https://www.neuvottelija.com/guides/nordic-saas-valuation-and-ma/): How software companies in the Nordics are valued and sold as AI moves inference into the cost of goods sold — where multiples stand in mid-2026, the metrics that get repriced, why vertical SaaS defends its premium, AI due diligence, and the shift from seats to outcomes. Grounded in Translink's SaaS valuation work and Neuvottelija conversations. --- Cite as: Sami Miettinen, Neuvottelija — Payment Systems | Monika Liikamaa and Kirsi Larkiala | Negotiator 121, https://www.neuvottelija.com/podcast/episodes/ep121-maksujarjestelmat-liikamaa-larkiala/, 2022-02-13. For quotes include episode 121 and timestamp.