What can payment providers learn from great game design? Quite a lot, according to Hajar Noreddine, VP of Business Development at ZBD. In this Q and A, she reflects on the unexpected career turn, the importance of designing fintech with empathy, and why the gaming industry sometimes hesitates to experiment with new models, even when the opportunity is clear.
1. Name a game you love, and one thing payment providers could learn from it.
One game that really stayed with me is The Last of Us. Beyond the gameplay, what makes it powerful is how intentional and emotionally driven every decision feels. There’s no unnecessary complexity, everything exists to serve the player’s journey.
That’s something fintech can learn from: design with empathy first. Too often, payment products are built around features instead of real human experiences. Great games guide players through complex systems without overwhelming them. Financial tools can do the same. If players can navigate intricate worlds and master layered mechanics, users can absolutely manage sophisticated financial flows, as long as we design with empathy and clarity first.
2. Tell us about a career curveball or moment that really impacted your journey.
Not many people know this, but I entered ad-tech by accident. After graduating with a Business Administration degree, majoring in finance with a minor in Marketing, my plan was clear: build a career in finance or investment. It felt like the perfect mix of my love for mathematics and my people-oriented personality.
While applying for finance roles, I took a temporary import/export job at a retail company. A month in, a friend told me about an opportunity in ad-tech. It paid better, so I treated it as a short-term move while continuing to pursue finance.
What I didn’t expect was how much I’d enjoy it. The pace, the creativity, the blend of data and strategy, and the caliber of people in the industry… it all clicked. Before I knew it, I was turning down finance offers and leaned fully into this path. Ten years later, that “temporary” decision shaped my career in ways I never could have planned.
3. If you could redesign one common industry practice — in gaming, fintech, or BD — what would you scrap immediately?
I would scrap the fear of experimentation with new approaches.
The games industry is changing incredibly fast, yet developers often stick to traditional growth methods, tools, and models, simply because they’ve worked in the past. Even when the data supports innovation, there’s still hesitation.
From my experience, the companies that take educated risks are the ones that gain first-mover advantage and lasting user loyalty. Others end up following.
This mindset is also why, for the first time in history, non-gaming apps surpassed gaming apps in revenue last year. I’ve seen that non-gaming companies tend to be more open to testing new tools, SaaS solutions, and business models. Innovation requires courage, and often, the highest returns come to those willing to try first.
4. What’s an important topic the gaming industry isn’t discussing enough?
Sustainability: both for players and developers.
We talk constantly about growth, revenue, and engagement, but not enough about long-term player trust and healthy monetization. Games shouldn’t just optimize for short-term wins; they should build ecosystems players want to stay in for years.
The studios that will last are the ones that prioritize balance, transparency, and long-term player relationships.
5. What’s something about ZBD’s direction or product evolution that genuinely excites you right now?
I’d known ZBD for three years before joining, and like many in the industry, I initially saw it as a Bitcoin rewards company. That’s where it started, but the company has grown far past that. Embedded rewards – with payouts in any currency – are just a slice of the end-to-end payments stack that helps studios move beyond today’s fragmented approaches, and enables them to boost engagement in a way we’ve never seen before.
After joining, I was genuinely impressed by the depth of ZBD’s capabilities and the products they’ve been building for studios and publishers. We’re working on things that haven’t been introduced to the gaming industry before, across mobile, PC, and console.
As a gamer myself, I can confidently say, these are solutions that the industry actually needs. ZBD isn’t just following trends, we’re working to make money movement inside games feel like a natural part of the experience, and helping shape what the future of gaming could look like for both gamers and developers.
6. What’s a misconception the gaming world has about fintech, and vice versa?
Gaming often sees fintech as rigid, slow, or disconnected from player experience. On the other hand, fintech sometimes views gaming as “just entertainment” rather than a sophisticated economy with deeply engaged users.
In reality, both views miss the point. Gaming understands engagement and retention at a level most industries can’t match, while fintech excels at infrastructure and scale. When those strengths combine properly, they unlock entirely new experiences for users inside digital ecosystems.