So in June 2026, the Payset team headed to Tălișoara, Transylvania, for our 2026 company offsite at Daniel Castle, bringing colleagues from across the business into the same place for discussions, team activities and time together outside the usual routine. There was serious work involved. There was also wine, an F1 challenge, a Murder Mystery, and some questionable engineering involving marshmallows.
A fairly balanced agenda.
A little less inbox, a little more 2031
One of the main working sessions asked teams to imagine a day in the life of a Payset customer in 2031.
Instead of focusing on the next task or project, people had space to think several moves ahead. How might customer expectations change? What could financial services look like in five years? Which problems might disappear, and which new ones could take their place?
Other sessions explored how AI could improve team efficiency, alongside brainstorming and problem-solving exercises designed to approach familiar questions from less familiar angles. Curiosity and continuous learning are easy things to put on a careers page. They become more useful when people are actually given the time to follow an idea somewhere unexpected.
Different challenges, same teamwork
Over the next few days, collaboration took several forms. There was Human Bingo, Blind Geometry, the Marshmallow Challenge, Bean Around the World, and Crescendo. Then came Flat Out F1, where teams had to work together against the clock.
None of this had much to do with fintech on paper.In practice, the skills felt familiar: communicating clearly, making decisions with incomplete information, adapting when the first plan does not work, listening to people who see the problem differently, and taking ownership when something needs doing.
At Payset, we work across teams constantly. Being good at your own job is only part of it. Understanding how other people think, what they need from you and when to let somebody else take the lead matters just as much.
Sometimes building something strange together is a surprisingly good reminder of that.
Taking the work seriously, not ourselves
The agenda also left plenty of room for the less measurable aspects of company culture…
There was a BBQ, wine tasting, music, drinks, and a Murder Mystery dinner, as well as time simply labelled Rest & Drinks & Fun. Looking back on the experience, Shachar Ronen, General Counsel, said that “everything was handled with care, professionalism, and a genuine desire to create something special for the team.” His take on the activities: “creative, thoughtful, fun, and often wonderfully unexpected.”
Shachar’s reflections match one of the simplest ways we describe Payset culture: we take our work seriously, not ourselves. For Perry Asforis, Managing Director, the impact went beyond the agenda itself, creating “memories that will last a lifetime” and friendships that now extend “way beyond just being work colleagues.” In a geographically diverse company, those connections matter.
Remote and hybrid work give people freedom and flexibility, but they also mean you can know somebody extremely well as a colleague without ever really knowing the person behind the role. A few days together changes that.
You find out who becomes far too competitive during a team challenge, who quietly spots the solution before everyone else, and who takes a fictional murder alarmingly seriously. These are the moments that rarely make it into a company value statement, but often do the most to build trust.
What our global team brought back
Eventually, everyone packed up and returned to their usual countries, calendars, and Slack channels. But the best part of an offsite is not what happens while everyone is away. It is what follows people home.
Maria Catanea, our Head of Operations, summed it up best:
“I hope the memories, energy, passion, determination, curiosity about our teammates, and moments of relaxation stay with all of us for a long time and continue to be with us in our daily work, at least until our next offsite.”
That feels like a pretty good measure of success. For a few days in Transylvania, Payset stopped being a team spread across a map. Then everyone went home knowing a little better the people on the other side of the screen.
