Vincent Choi

Vincent Choi is a British entrepreneur of East Asian heritage and the co-founder and CEO of Pomelo Pay, a London-based fintech company that enables businesses to accept contactless card payments using any smartphone — without requiring dedicated card machine hardware. His work sits at the intersection of payment technology, financial inclusion, and the modernisation of how small businesses manage transactions.

Vincent founded Pomelo Pay in 2017 with an initial focus on helping UK businesses accept payments from Chinese visitors, who were more accustomed to QR code-based payment infrastructure than the NFC card terminals standard in the West. That early insight — that payment infrastructure was fragmented and needlessly hardware-dependent — shaped the company's broader thesis: that any smartphone should be capable of serving as a point-of-sale terminal, lowering the barrier to payment acceptance for businesses of all sizes.

Under his leadership, Pomelo Pay became one of the first UK payment companies to enable merchants to take card payments by tapping cards directly onto a phone using NFC technology. The company partnered with Mastercard, obtained FCA e-money authorisation, and achieved PCI Compliance Level 1 — the most stringent certification available. Vincent has been a regular commentator on the future of payments, open banking, and the role of digital infrastructure in supporting SME growth.

Pomelo Pay has since evolved into a broader B2B payments platform serving businesses across the UK and Asia, combining QR code payments, payment links, online shops, and tap-to-pay capabilities in a single, hardware-light product suite. Vincent raised £1.1 million to support further product development and expand the platform's distribution across UK small businesses and sole traders.