Annual Report 2023

Dear reader,

As we look back on 2023, it is clear to us that this was a successful year for our company. It is one that we will remember both for its valuable learnings and our continued discipline along the way. However, we do not look at our business in isolation, and have continued to see a range of global conflicts, humanitarian crises, and climate emergencies affect many parts of the world. We did not turn away from these difficult realities, but rather further tapped into our people and platform to drive positive change. We believe that this is not just our responsibility, but one that should be shared by all businesses.

We also recognize that our ability to meaningfully respond to such global crises relies on the strength and stability of our business. In past Annual Reports, we talked extensively about how we are shaping Adyen for long-term success. In 2023, this meant building upon our solid foundation to bring us into our next phase of scale. From developing our platform entirely in-house, to investing in our banking and branch licenses, opening new regional offices, and continuously solidifying our commercial reputation, we have been playing the long game in the lead-up to what has been a critical year for us.

As a business, we experienced our own unique dynamics throughout the year. Market volatility and shifting customer priorities led us to incorporate meaningful changes into the way we externally engage. As was the case during other tumultuous periods that have occurred since our founding – the COVID-19 pandemic being a prime example – this year again proved that we are capable of effectively addressing and adapting to the landscape around us. As a partner to our customers, one of our key differentiators is our ability to identify opportunities amid complexity. In 2023, we applied the same mindset to our own approach by embracing the call to thoughtfully evolve. Our Investor Day in San Francisco was one such expression. By providing deeper insights into our business performance and objectives in November, we were able to improve our dialogue with the investor community and further demonstrate that we are proceeding with a clear vision toward our promising horizon ahead.

Nowhere was our long-term view more apparent than in our counter-cyclical decision to build our global team at an accelerated rate. 2023 marked the close of a two-year initiative in which we significantly invested in positioning our team to become its most far-reaching and effective to date. We are proud to have remained laser-focused on executing against our strategy, which made this the year we successfully brought to life our plan of expanding our global team to its next maturity level.

This hiring initiative took place as the broader tech industry took measures to reduce their team sizes. Fortunately, our healthy business standing enabled us to proceed in the way we knew would be essential to achieving our growth ambitions: by doubling-down on the necessary technical and commercial hires, particularly in offices outside of Amsterdam. Along the way, we benefited from a favorable talent market as a tailwind. By the end of the year, our global team totaled 4,196 FTEs – a quantity with equal parts quality, as we went to great lengths to ensure Adyen’s well-known talent standards remained at the high level we pride ourselves on upholding.

To ensure we preserved our exceptional talent bar, we continued to prioritize Formula fit, rolled out a standardized global onboarding program, and conducted final interviews with members of our Management Board or Global Leadership Team (GLT). In 2023, this group of senior leaders was more diverse than ever before, and their wealth of perspectives, backgrounds, and experience levels thoroughly enriched the recruitment and decision-making process. With their dedicated involvement, we ended the year with a global team equipped with the skills required to deliver on our key growth ambitions.

We know that facilitating fast and effective collaboration at a larger and more international company requires a deliberately global mindset. For that reason, we continued to champion an office-first approach across our 27 locations and enjoyed coming together again for our ‘Connect’ event during the summer. During this week-long, annual gathering, we enabled in-person connection through a range of content-rich programming spanning our business priorities and strategy. 'Connect’ presented an ideal opportunity to host many of our global team and functional meetings in person, and organized valuable team-building and networking exercises. During the event, many colleagues also utilized their time to make a wider impact, with around 2,600 volunteering hours facilitated for worthwhile causes.

Nurturing our relationships was not only a priority internally, but also across our global customer base. This year, we drove forward our cornerstone land-and-expand strategy, which continued to unlock the majority of our annual growth – more than 80% of which came from existing customers once again. The strength of this approach lies in demonstrating the upfront value of our offering, then proving what our partnership can do on a larger scale and longer-term, securing notable wallet-share gains as we go.

To meet our customers’ needs, we always listen carefully to their priorities, which shifted notably during 2023. Their valuable insights helped shape our product roadmap. Our customers’ increased attention on cost optimization allowed us to leverage our single platform to help lower their total cost of ownership. From network tokenization, to optimized debit routing, and a wide range of alternative payment methods, our single integration increased conversion and enabled significant operational efficiencies for our customers. Our ability to save on costs was also seen in our advanced authentication suite, which in 2023 expanded to include a Data-Only and Trusted Beneficiaries functionality, empowering businesses to broaden their decision-making resources, reduce fraud, and ultimately drive end-conversion uptick.

Alongside our cost optimization capabilities – a benefit we have more actively incorporated into our sales and account management strategies – 2023 saw us roll out a number of exciting innovations. This year, we satisfied consumer demand for more sophisticated in-person payment experiences by launching Tap to Pay on Android. This software-based solution allows both SMBs using Adyen for Platforms and enterprise Unified Commerce customers to convert any compatible Android device into a payment terminal accepting contactless payments, with benefits ranging from enhanced checkout experiences, to more streamlined operational processes, and reduced hardware costs. Following the launch of Tap to Pay on iPhone in the US in 2022, we also expanded this service into the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Australia over the course of the year.

Beyond innovating across our product offering, we further served our customers by deepening our local presence and end-to-end capabilities throughout the regions in which we operate. This year, we were pleased to be among the first to receive certification to utilize the FedNow(R) Service, the Federal Reserve’s instant payment infrastructure. Sitting at the forefront of fund transfer, this certification sharpened upon our capabilities in order to keep our customers at the industry's cutting-edge, and further optimize costs throughout the transaction flow along the way. In a similar vein, in the second half of this year, we expanded our global acquiring footprint by obtaining our UK license, with which we were able to obtain direct access to the Bank of England's (BoE) centralized clearing and real-time payment rail (the Faster Payments Services, or FPS).

Lastly, in 2023, we continued to ensure we were meeting our customers’ needs while honoring our shared responsibility to protect the future of our planet and its people. The principal embodiment of this commitment is our annual pledge to dedicate 1% of our annual net revenue to initiatives that support the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Through our donations product, Giving – which you will read about in greater detail later in this report – we spent 2023 empowering more businesses to incorporate our leading donation technology into their payment flows. Bolstered by the resources of our 1% fund, we ensured that 100% of contributions reached the intended nonprofits by absorbing scheme fees that would otherwise dilute donations before they reach the intended parties.

2023 was certainly one to be remembered. We are proud to have navigated its polarities with the continued focus, resilience, and adaptability that Adyen considers second nature. We took many learnings with us and ended the year as a stronger team, company, and partner as a result of having gained them. Still, we would be remiss to close only on a note of positivity. After all, we are living in times of persisting unrest, and it is a testament to our global team that we continue to find ways to support the planet and its people amid the world’s challenges.

As we look ahead to 2024 and beyond, we remain committed to driving positive change wherever we can. We stand firmly behind the long-term vision for our business, determined and ready to propel ourselves closer to realizing it. We’ve reached the next phase of scale, yet this is only the beginning. Now is the time to keep our heads down and execute on our substantial opportunity. 2023 marked another decisive step on the path to getting there.