IBS Intelligence Global FinTech Interviews

Matt Rowsell, Chief Product Officer Merchant Services, nets So the pandemic introduced everybody to online transactions but what are the next steps in digital payments? Will transactions involving digital currencies and/or cryptocurrency become next evolution in payments. What learnings are there from chip & PIN and the introduction of contactless payments for the banking sector with the prosp...

Angela Koll, Senior Business Expert for Trade & Supply Chain Finance, Commerzbank The Marco Polo Payment Commitment is a blockchain solution for trade finance, originally established in 2017 by Commerzbank, members of the R3 Blockchain Fintech Consortium and representatives of European and Asian banks. Angela Koll, Senior Business Expert for Trade and Supply Chain Finance at Commerzbank is a c...

Bob Dowd, Chief Executive Officer, moneycorp Americas The B2B payments landscape changed in the wake of the pandemic but implementation of technology in B2B payments hasn’t grabbed headlines in the way B2C payments have. That looks set to change with rising demand for modernised payments infrastructure and digitisation at all points of sale. Bob Dowd, Chief Executive Officer of moneycorp Americas...

Rodrigo Vicuna, Chief Financial Officer, Prime Trust This year will see increasing adoption of digital assets while innovation in FinTech will see services become commoditised, an increasing focus on retail ‘hobby’ investors and a move away from institutional investors, and further evolution in digital currencies. That’s the gospel according to Prime Trust, a US-based infrastructure platform for F...

Daniel Kornitzer, Chief Business Development Officer, Paysafe The pandemic has seen many businesses accelerate plans to upgrade their online checkouts as consumer payment preferences have evolved. Analysis of ecommerce trends by payments platform Paysafe, published in Lost in Transaction shows SMEs globally ranking reliability, cost and security as their top 3 priorities in payment partners. Along...

Scott Eaton, CEO, Nivaura   Nivaura is digitising capital markets and simplifying processes to allow transactions to flow unfettered through financial channels, dramatically reducing the time and cost of capital markets transactions. The company’s CEO Scott Eaton spoke to IBSi’s Reporter Gaia Lamperti about the improvements that can be made to ensure efficiency in primary markets with the use of d...

Alessandro Tonchia, Head of Strategy, Private Banking & Wealth, InvestCloud Wealth management firms are not yet using the knowledge they have to boost client interaction. Too much of what they know resides in the heads of wealth managers, private bankers and relationship managers rather than in a database the firm itself can leverage. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence speaks to Alessandro Tonchi...

Piers Marais, Product Director, Currencycloud   Just 1 in 4 consumers say they prefer to buy their products and services from a single company, yet about 88% of financial services companies see themselves as a one-stop-shop. The figures were among the findings of B2B Payments firm Currencycloud’s recent report ‘Elastic Bundling in Financial Services.’ In an interview with Gaia Lamperti, IBS Intell...

David Messenger, CEO, LianLian Global   With the recent Chinese regulatory crackdowns on a lot of sectors, it has become essential for foreign companies in business with the country to understand the emphasis on new regulations. Cross-border payments company LianLian Global is based in Hangzhou and helps its global customers to break into the Chinese market. CEO David Messenger discusses with IBS...

James Booth, VP Head of Partnerships, PPRO Global provider of local payments infrastructure PPRO recently published its annual Almanac , a study expecting a 70% growth of digital payments in Europe in the next five years, as well as tracking the rise of ecommerce and changes in consumer behaviour. IBSi’s Reporter Gaia Lamperti discussed the findings and how the payment landscape might look like in...

Marshall Choy, SVP Product, SambaNova Systems US firm SambaNova Systems is building what is being claimed as Europe’s fastest AI supercomputer for Hungary’s OTP Bank. The partnership between the two will deploy a multi-rack AI system, built on SambaNova Dataflow-as-a-Service GPT, offering the most advanced language model in the world at a commercial bank. The system will also be provided as a nati...

Terry Duffy, SVP & GM, Digital First Software & Services, NCR Personalisation will mature in 2022 with financial wellness initiatives leading the way but while the rush to digital will continue, in the US, physical will also transform with merged channels and more connected user experiences. Look for banks and credit unions to solidify their crypto strategies and embrace the as-a-service m...

Luke Massie, CEO, VibePay From open banking to embedded finance, payments are part of the conversation, and the financial technology sector needs to remember why its customers behave the way they do. The pandemic has also seen the rapid rise of a ‘creator’ economy online. These topics, the race to become Europe’s super app and more in this conversation between Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence and L...

Monica Eaton-Cardone, Co-founder and COO, Chargebacks911 Shocked by the stark gender disparity within the FinTech industry where women currently make up just 7% of start-up founders, Monica Eaton-Cardone, Co-founder and COO of Chargebacks911, launched a new micro-mentorship programme called , LIFT: Elevating Women in Fintech to empower female leadership across the thriving FinTech and payments are...

Phani Tangirala, Senior Director, Delivery, Operations & Solutions, Expleo Solutions Hyper-automation is a business-driven approach that should allow you to identify and automate many of your manual business processes and IT processes. It is a way of bringing together a multiplicity of technologies, tools and platforms that will improve your efficiency and speed of delivery. It is also likely...

Stefan Schwitter, Head of Investment Solutions, SEBA Bank There is increasing institutional interest in cryptocurrencies with asset managers now viewing crypto as ‘digital gold’ and finding a corresponding commensurate place for it in their portfolios. These moves are being matched by progress in the regulation of digital assets and developments such as SEBA Bank’s crypto yield platform SEBA Earn....

Mike Yesudas, CTO, Suntec Business Solutions 2022 may be the year that highlights just how much banks still have to learn about the deployment and use of artificial intelligence. Many financial institutions have a wealth of data but huge technology gaps. They need to be able to leverage this data without jeopardising its security. The bottom line is that too often banks don’t quite have the techno...

Ron Benegbi, Founder and CEO, Uplinq Uplinq is building solutions for small business lenders that support the underserved, unbanked, minority and immigrant small business owner, while providing insights on all other SMBs that no other company globally can offer. Ron Benegbi, Uplinq’s Founder and CEO discuss how the start-up is helping SMBs become financially viable with IBSi’s Reporter Gaia Lamper...

Abhijit Prasad, SVP Working Capital Finance, Kyriba The trade financing gap has hit new heights during Covid-19, and SMEs are the hardest hit globally. Kyriba, an enterprise liquidity management platform, has recently launched its Working Capital Solutions, an attempt to close that gap. IBS’s Reporter Gaia Lamperti asked Abhijit Prasad, SVP Working Capital Finance at Kyriba more insights into this...

Jonathan Libby, Founder of Steady State Finance The technology side of cryptocurrency is getting more sophisticated, with DeFi, in particular, making revolutionary bounds in the financial sector. But price-protection is necessary to guard against asset volatility, giving retail and institutional investors a chance to put their assets to work earning a yield. Steady State, a comprehensive insurance...

Tim Hamilton, CEO and Co-Founder, Praxent What makes you stand out from the crowd? If you don’t know the right answer(s) to that basic question, your bank or financial services business is likely to struggle as we head into an increase complex and competitive future. Getting the customer experience right is key – beware of the pitfalls that your past system-centric approach may create. Embedded fi...

John Waupsh, Co-Founder, Nerve Historically, banks offered services tailored to their local geographies. Today’s banking communities aren’t defined by rivers and railroads but by the shared experience and goals of their customers. Nerve is a mobile app that merges data from streaming revenue sources, aiming to meet the unique business needs of music professionals. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence s...

Prof. Adam Putz, Director of Research, Aumni The median amount raised at Series A clocked in at around $14 million in the last six months, with the top decile at more than $30 million. Contrast these figures with previous bullish number such as those raised by Uber ($11 million) and Instagram ($7 million). What’s more, the valuations of the current crop of startups are accelerating even faster. Wh...

Neil Chapman, Chief Executive Officer, Exabel Data and analytics platform Exabel recently signed a deal under which APG, the largest pension provider in the Netherlands with some EUR 610 billion under management, will use Exabel to integrate alternative data into its investment strategy. Alternative data represents a huge opportunity for professional investors and fund managers but modelling this...

Gary Lewis, Managing Director, Jack Henry Lending Whether it is for asset diversification or the reallocation of credit risk, Jack Henry Lending’s Loan Marketplace centralises communications and transactions related to the purchase, sale, and trade of loans through the full spectrum of geographies, asset sizes and institution types. It creates a broad community of lenders that, together, may diver...