IBS Intelligence Global FinTech Interviews

Daniel Carpenter, Head of Regulation at Meritsoft Trading activity and dividend arbitrage schemes are seeing increased scrutiny from authorities following the Cum-ex tax scandal. Sunniva Kolostyak speaks to Daniel Carpenter, Head of Regulation at Meritsoft, a Cognizant company, about what institutions can do to ensure compliance and in turn, build trust.  

Kasaye Eshetu, Director, Alternate Channels Department, Dashen Bank Yemiru Chanyalew, CEO, Moneta Technologies Meabh Maguire, Global Commercial Manager, CR2 At the recent Global FinTech Innovation Awards, the Amole digital wallet from Dashen Bank was named Most Innovative Digital Wallet Deployment. Since the launch of the Amole Digital Wallet in Ethiopia in July 2018, spearheaded by Ethiopian base...

John Cragg, CEO, MYHSM MYHSM is the global provider of Payment Hardware Security Modules (HSM) as a Service. In January the business was acquired by Aachen, Germany-based Utimaco. MYHSM’s employees and customers will be integrated into Utimaco’s Information Security business. John Cragg of MYHSM tells Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence what the deal means for MYHSM now and for the future.  

Christoph Gugelmann, Co-Founder and CEO, Tradeteq   Tradeteq recently secured over $9 million in Series A funding. CEO Christoph Gugelmann tells Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence how making trade finance an investible asset class can make banks work their balance sheets harder and in turn support more SMEs and corporates. Tradeteq provides banks, credit insurers and asset managers with technology an...

 Ed Adshead-Grant, General Manager, Payments, Bottomline Technologies New competitors such as FinTechs and challenger banks are leveraging customer data to provide value-added services. The pressure on banks to shift their focus to such services in transaction banking will only multiply. Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence discussed how the integration of ISO 20022 in payment systems can help with Ed...

Michael Whitt, Head of Partnerships, ApexEdge ApexEdge offers banks and financial institutions a ‘concierge’ service for their retail customers offering monthly bill and subscription management solutions to support their financial health. With the pandemic still raging and data suggesting that a significant majority of US consumers overpay on monthly bills, Michael Whitt of ApexEdge told Robin Aml...

Daniel Kornitzer, Chief Business Development Officer, Paysafe UK-regulated Paysafe is an online payments specialist operating around the world. The firm has identified 10 likely trends in payments for 2021: The impact of PSD2 on biometric authentication  Real-time payments goes global A renewed focus on 5G The subscription model grows in popularity  Paying with crypto goes mainstream AI and machin...

  Duncan Barrigan, CPO, GoCardless The global pandemic has accelerated the need for recurring payments solutions, whether for businesses looking for liquidity or as a tool for the growing subscription economy. Sunniva Kolostyak speaks to Duncan Barrigan, Chief Product Officer of recurring payments specialist GoCardless, about the challenges of the past year, Success+, vaccines and Open Banking.

Brad Hyett, CEO, phos   UK-based FinTech phos, which enables merchants to take payments directly on their NFC-enabled smartphone, has seen the popularity of software point-of-sale – softPOS – increase with the acceleration of cashless adoption. Brad Hyett, the CEO of phos, speaks to Sunniva Kolostyak about the technology, Apple’s acquisition of softPOS provider Mobeewave earlier this year, and Cov...

Stephane Leroy, Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer, Quanthouse   We review the rise of the ‘robot’ trader and the evolution of screen-based trading to API-based trading with Stephane Leroy of Quanthouse. He talked to Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence about how API tools and connectivity can help capital market participants lay the foundations for automated funds. 

 David Snitkof, VP Analytics, Ocrolus  US banks have been looking to tighten their underwriting standards. The average FICO score (a credit score created by the Fair Isaac Corporation) actually rose in July – in the middle of a pandemic that ought to raise the risk of defaults. So, FICO scores aren’t telling the whole story. David Snitkof of FinTech infrastructure firm Ocrolus explains the issues...

Guy Mettrick, Global Industry Lead – Financial Services, Appian   Artificial intelligence or applied intelligence? Either way, take-up is set to increase rapidly in 2021 with, for example, AI-powered fraud detection coming down in cost and becoming more readily available. Guy Mettrick of Appian discussed the outlook for AI, operational resilience and low-code solutions with Robin Amlot of IBS Inte...

 Thomas Borrel, Chief Product Officer, Polymath Security tokens on the blockchain are an increasingly hot topic and could result in the creation of new financial instruments. Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence discusses how digital assets are evolving alongside regulation with Thomas Borrel of Polymath and what still needs to happen for institutional investors to get on board. 

Matthew Williamson, VP Global Financial Services, Mobiquity  Bank ABC, an international bank headquartered in Bahrain, established Ila Bank   in November 2019 to function as a digital-only bank offering its services through a mobile app. One year on, on the sidelines of the BankSec 2020 / Self-Service Banking Europe 2020 conference, Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence spoke to Matthew Williamson of Mo...

Ilia Maksimenka, Chief Executive Officer, PlasmaPay If digital banking is being described as Banking 2.0, does that make decentralised finance Banking 3.0? Using blockchain technology, it is possible to securely store crypto and fiat currency, buy and exchange digital assets, send and receive payments and create payment networks. So why wouldn’t you? Ilia Maksimenka of PlasmaPay discusses the poss...

Seamus Donoghue, VP Sales & Business Development, METACO METACO provides security-critical infrastructure that enables financial institutions to enter the digital asset ecosystem. The firm raised $17 million in its Series A funding round in July 2020. Seamus Donoghue of METACO talks to Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence about what banks need to do to get to grips with digital assets and tokenisat...

Paul Brennan, Head of Product Management, LEVERIS Data is at the core of the future of banking, according to Irish BaaS provider LEVERIS. Speaking to Sunniva Kolostyak, Paul Brennan, it's Head of Product Management, discusses the benefits of embracing data analysis, and what banking could look like if it makes the customer the heart of the business.

Eyal Moldovan, General Manager, Payoneer  E-commerce activity grew 11% in the US in the first four months of 2020, equivalent to a decade of growth. Eyal Moldovan of online payments specialist Payoneer told Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence, this growth story is here to stay – US-based Wayfair saw ecommerce activity up 153% in Q2 and up 155% in Q3. For Moldovan, innovation is key – both in the way e...

Richard Meeus, Director of Security Technology and Strategy, Akamai Homeworking for many was one of the themes of 2020 but alongside this came a soaring number of cyberattacks. At the same time, investment increased in many projects to support the need for remote connectivity for employees while developing new cloud and multi cloud strategies. Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence spoke with Richard Mee...

Pan Yiannakou, Founder and CEO, Swarm Swarm intelligence is a phenomenon observed in the natural world where the collective behaviour of a colony of simple ‘agents’ generates far more advanced actions than the cumulative performance of the individuals. Pan Yiannakou, CEO of Swarm explained to Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence how Swarm, the ‘AI trading’ trading company is leveraging swarm intelligen...

Arun Jain, Chairman & Managing Director, Intellect Design Arena Intellect Design Arena has reimagined and says it offers the world’s first future-ready multiproduct FinTech platform, built on the principles of Design Thinking. Chairman and MD Arun Jain has been telling Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence how the company’s API-led solutions enable the creation of unique, custom-made frameworks for...

Terry Duffy, SVP & GM Digital First Software and Services, NCR This year, banks and financial institutions had to determine how to operate remotely, make branches safe, and shift to a hyper focus on digital. What will 2021 bring – what are the priorities and the planning needed? Terry Duffy of NCR discussed the outlook for next year with Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence. 

Laurent Descout, Co-founder & CEO, Neo Pain points in corporate banking continue to impact on SMEs – pain points that Covid-19 has only served to magnify. FinTech solutions may hold the answer and more with new technologies becoming available to leverage data and analytics to improve decision-making and reduce costs. Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence spoke with Laurent Descout of Neo, which clai...

Josep Alvarez, Partner, Head of UK Banking Practice and EMEA Blockchain/DLT strategy, NTT Data UK  A report by GSMA and NTT Data on the use of QR codes as a method of payment suggests that mobile POS payments will account for $4 trillion, nearly half of all digital payments by 2024. Josep Alvarez of NTT Data explains to Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence that the use of QR codes, currently dominated...

John Cragg, CEO, MYHSM MYHSM is the global provider of Payment Hardware Security Modules (HSM) as a Service. John Cragg of MYHSM tells Robin Amlot why FinTechs with bright ideas need to make sure their payment solutions meet Payment Card Industry (PCI) security requirements and how Payment HSM-as-a-service can help speed the process.