IBS Intelligence Global FinTech Interviews

Joost van Houten, Chief Executive Officer, Sentinels Fenergo, which supplies digital KYC and CLM solutions recently acquired transaction monitoring platform Sentinels, which aims to streamline AML and transaction monitoring workflows for financial institutions, with the aim of increasing fraud protection and reducing false positives. Robin Amlôt of IBS intelligence speaks to Joost van Houten, CEO...

Gadi Mazor, Chief Executive Officer, Biocatch Advanced behavioural biometrics are the new frontier in financial fraud prevention. Increasing evidence of authorised push payment fraud may be a sign that the banks are winning the battle against fraudsters on other fronts, but the human side of fraud is harder to manage. With behavioural biometrics it is possible to flag up potential APP fraud as it...

Rob Straathof, Chief Executive Officer, Liberis As an SME lending FinTech, Liberis has provided financing to SMEs across Europe, the US and the UK since it launched in 2007. Liberis has also supported the creation of over 50,000 UK jobs to date by advancing £570 million to more than 18,000 businesses through its embedded finance business model. The platform enables payment processors, acquirers, a...

David Brown, Founder & CEO, Hi Pandemic-induced supply chain shocks, combined with the spike in energy costs caused by the war in Ukraine, have sparked a global cost-of-living crisis that is driving a rethink of the monthly pay cycle. Hi , a UK-based social enterprise FinTech recently teamed up with Norway-based Zalaris to offer a flexible payroll solution to firms across the globe. Robin Amlô...

Linh C Ho, Chief Marketing Officer, Zelros According to the US Federal Highway Administration, the average US driver clocks up around 11,500 miles per year. In this nascent age of artificial intelligence, data derived from driving habits – telematics insurance – offers the potential for personalised, usage-based insurance. This can be linked either to how you drive or as and when you drive. And th...

Christoffer Malmer, Head of SEBx, SEB Group SEBx was founded in 2018 by Nordic corporate bank SEB Group with the purpose of exploring new technologies and developing new customer offerings. It claims to combine the speed, agility, and legacy-free infrastructure of a FinTech startup, with the trust, experience, capital, licence, and knowledge of an incumbent bank. SEB recently entered a strategic p...

Steven Strange, Head of Product (Asset Management), ION Markets What will sustainable investment look like in a post-pandemic world? Solutions that enable the seamless integration of rules into trading systems are essential to buy-side firms looking to maintain a competitive edge. Transition to the cloud could remove issues associated with investment compliance. With the need for seamless complian...

Vince Graziani, Chief Executive Officer, IDEX Biometrics Focus groups from the European Central Bank’s investigation into digital currencies show that consumers want a digital euro to be as flexible as the fiat euro. In many ways the technology developed in the creation of cryptocurrencies may well lend itself to the development of fiat digital currencies with an added layer of security and, there...

Peter Woeste Christensen, Director, Lucht Probst Associates GmbH (LPA)  Peter Woeste Christensen, Director at capital markets technology and consulting firm LPA, believes that the rise of CBDCs has the potential to completely replace the current corresponding banking model. A shift from physical cash to CBDCs could move the current deposit model to a pure custody model, where banks no longer have...

Louisa Murray, COO UK & Europe, Railsr The first wave of FinTech has digitised conventional financial services, most notably through neobanks that have improved the consumer banking experience and educated large sections of the population to trust banking beyond legacy banks. However, the needle had not moved enough, according to Louisa Murray, COO UK & Europe, Railsr. She believes that Fi...

Carlos León, Director of Financial Markets Infrastructures and Digital Currencies Solutions, FNA Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the EU has imposed a number of financial sanctions and restrictions targeting Russia’s major banks, freezing assets and banning the country from the international bank messaging system SWIFT. But what will be the significance and future ramifications of these...

Brian Kaas, President & Managing Director, CMFG Ventures CMFG Ventures is the venture capital arm of CUNA Mutual Group, a credit union partner since 1935. More than 95% of US credit unions count on CUNA Mutual Group for a range of financial products and services. The VC unit has some 27 portfolio companies and has invested $240 million. Brian Kaas, President and Managing Director of CMFG Ventu...

Sendi Young, Managing Director Europe, Ripple   The European FinTech space has seen a boom in recent years, with the UK in particular, fuelling huge growth in the sector. In the first half of 2021 alone, FinTech investment in the region reached $39 billion according to KPMG. In conversation with Sendi Young, MD Europe at Ripple, IBSi’s Reporter Gaia Lamperti discussed how this momentum translated...

Tamer Al Mauge, Managing Director MENA, Codebase Technologies; Pankul Verma, Principal, Cedar Management Consulting International  Why are there so few standalone neobanks in the MENA region and why have so many traditional banks there launched neobank subsidiaries? Is the region overbanked as many have claimed and what does it take for a neobank in MENA to be regarded as a success? Robin Amlôt of...

Landon Glenn, Founder & CEO, ASA Technologies FinTechs are very good at leveraging data to serve affinity groups, but they are, by and large, not bankers and nor do most of them want to be bankers. Collaborative banking is a concept being promoted as a solution that removes any compliance and regulatory burden from FinTechs, allowing them to focus on their core competencies while creating a ro...

Omar Shaikh, Founder & CEO, Cocoa Invest   Several regulators around the world operate sandbox environments. What benefits does going through this process bring for the FinTechs involved? Cocoa Invest is an Islamic digital wealth manager and recently completed its time in the Central Bank of Bahrain’s sandbox. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence discusses what the FinTech gained from the experienc...

Brian McKenney, Chief Innovation Officer, HSBC ; Angus Ross, Chief Growth & Revenue Officer BaaS, Finastra Research canvassing the opinions of 1,600 senior industry executives reveals the true extent of the appetite for BaaS (Banking as a Service), with almost 85% of respondents already implementing or planning to implement BaaS over the next 12-18 months. More than 80% of regulated financial...

Pete Cherecwich, President of Asset Servicing, Northern Trust Founded over 130 years ago, a global financial institution with $16 trillion in assets under custody and more than 20,000 employees, Northern Trust has quickly incorporated digital innovation in its strategy to speed up internal processes and enhance the client experience. Gaia Lamperti, Reporter at IBSi, sat down with Pete Cherecwich,...

Josh Rogers, Founder & CEO, Minterest Since highs in November 2021 Bitcoin, the poster child for digital assets, has more than halved in value, exacerbated by the slump in crypto value in the wake of the crash of Terra. So, has the froth and speculation been driven out of digital assets – were they just a balloon looking for a pin? Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence speaks to Josh Rogers, Founder...

George Ioannou, Managing Partner, Foolproof – a Zensar company Survey after survey shows consumers don’t know where to turn for financial advice and in many cases are relying on friends and family rather than take expert opinion. George Ioannou, Managing Partner of Foolproof discusses with Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence the importance of IFAs embracing digital and explores why IFAs should pay att...

Carrie Goodman, Director of Financial Institution Management, Compliance Systems Consumerisation is permeating every aspect of digital banking, including compliance. However, compliance, the last step in the consumer journey, is often overlooked. That means no matter how slick the rest of the customer journey has been, it will all be forgotten by those irritated by a clunky compliance journey just...

Earl Melivo, Director of Country & Business Development, Philippines, WorldRemit Digital remittance transactions are expected to exceed 50% of global international money transfers by 2032. Despite, or perhaps even because of the pandemic, the volume and values of digital remittances have grown steadily in recent years with many countries shifting to a digital first approach. Robin Amlôt of IBS...

Nelson Wootton (pictured), Co-founder & CEO; Steve Round, Co-founder, SaaScada   Financial institutions should be taking a more customer centric approach, owning the relationship with consumers with products designed to fit around their customers lives. How to do this? The answer may be with a core banking system that creates a technology ecosystem of best-in-class solutions. Robin Amlôt of IB...

Sune Engsig, Chief Evangelist, Leapwork Using a no-code automation platform makes it easier for financial institutions to automate repetitive processes allowing for faster adoption and scaling. Such a platform holds out the prospect of reduced development costs and the use of fewer specialist resources than traditional test automation. It could also mean speedier product development. Robin Amlôt o...

Amon Ghaiumy, Co-Founder and CEO, Ophelos With the ever-rising cost of living and fuel poverty reaching many for the first time in their lives, debt is going to be an unwelcome reality for struggling households. Opehlos is a debt resolution company that works on bringing a more humane and fair approach to debt collection processes with the use AI technology. The firm’s CEO and Founder, Amon Ghaium...