IBS Intelligence Global FinTech Interviews

Bankmed completed its core transformation programme end July/beginning of August. Fouad Baalbaki, CIO of Bankmed, and V Ramkumar, Senior Partner of Cedar Management Consulting International take Robin Amlot through the process of a remote installation amid the Covid-19 pandemic…

Investigating the economics of the neobanks and the potential threat to their business models from ‘big tech’; FinTech guru Lex Sokolin discusses where the neobanks go from here with Robin Amlot of IBS Intelligence. Can cross-selling create a sustainable business model?

FeedStock is a platform offering solutions for both buy-side and sell-side players in the financial markets. Co-CEO Lucas Wurfbain spoke with Robin Amlot about how AI-driven data analytics can help protect revenue and support productivity through the proper evaluation of human-to-human relationships both within the organisation and with external stakeholders and clients.

Technisys offers Cyberbank – an API-centric, microservices-based digital banking platform. This cloud-native offering is performing strongly in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, with Technisys expanding staff numbers, winning fresh deals and, as co-founder German Pugliese-Bassi explained to Robin Amlot, sticking to its pre-pandemic business targets.

Already 55% of all money services businesses’ (MSBs) transactions are FinTech-based with 73% of new entities relying on an internet-based model rather than an agent-based model. Christian Spaltenstein, Managing Director, Americas, for AFEX discusses with Robin Amlot how MSBs can and should differentiate themselves and how APIs will change the cash management ecosystem.

The global payment-as-a-service market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 16.9% to 2027. That presents opportunities. Volante Technologies recently raised $35m in a funding round led by Wavecrest with strategic participation from VISA Ventures, Poste Italiani, Citi Ventures, and BNY Mellon. Volante’ CEO spoke about the funding and the company’s future plans with Robin Amlot.

Italian FinTech Supply@ME offers a platform focused on inventory monetisation, which , the company says, enables a range of manufacturing and trading businesses to improve their working capital position via a “true sale” of the inventory to special purpose vehicles incorporated by Supply@ME that also provides a new asset class to investors.

The Investing and Saving Alliance (TISA) is a cross-industry financial services body in the UK. Its latest initiative is TISAtech – a new digital marketplace that brings together financial institutions and FinTechs for greater collaboration and innovation. Keith Phillips, CEO of TISAtech outlines the aims and ambitions of TISAtech to Robin Amlot.

In the face of the pandemic, digital customer services are coming into their own with consumers moving their banking activities to digital channels and institutions prioritising digital transformation. Dan Michaeli, CEO of Glia, explains to Robin Amlot why and how traditional contact centres are being replaced by what he calls engagement centres…

A new report entitled ‘Payments in a Post-Covid-19 World’ has been published by P20, the voice of the global payments industry. It explores the challenges faced by the international payments sector during the pandemic and offers suggested actions that payments companies can take to ensure effective, innovative and responsible operation. P20’s CEO Duncan Sandys discussed the report with Robin Amlot...

In the wake of the Wirecard debacle, the UK body, the Emerging Payments Association has published a review paper entitled ‘Avoiding a payments lockdown’ , presenting it to the UK ’ s Financial Conduct Authority and HM Treasury. The paper seeks to identify vulnerabilities in the current payments business model, how UK institutions were impacted and what regulators need to do next. Tony Craddock dis...

When it comes to Open Banking, are consumers really seeing any benefits? Brian Hanrahan, Chief Commercial Officer at Sentenial, joins the IBS Views podcast to discuss Nuapay, the Open Banking payments provider and Sentenial subsidiary, its recent partnerships, and how the public has taken advantage of Account-2-Account payments solutions during Covid-19.

The banker is dead! Long live the banker! Chirag Patel believes the ‘traditional’ banker is no longer viable in an era where banking innovation can transform economies. He believes that the new banker must be a product-led technology enthusiast… and he’s walking the walk, having moved from ecommerce behemoth Amazon to Santander, one of the oldest financial institutions in the world.

Thomas Schumann Water Risk Indices are the first-ever index family specifically designed to minimise water risk in equities. This first iteration of the index was initially a collaboration with three FinTechs: Equarius Risk Analytics, Fuzzy Logix, and C8 Technologies. Subsequent to the preliminary index development, institutional index experts Anatase were brought in to re-engineer the index metho...

The key to success in private banking is client engagement. In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic that has put pressure on institutions to use digital channels in a more effective manner to maintain the personal customer experience. The onus is on private bankers to adapt accordingly.

Banks will need to be as agile as FinTechs in the future. Retail banking is likely to be virtual post-Covid-19 but, warns Matt Locsin of Publicis Sapient, banks face a particular challenge in the threat of disintermediation by tech companies that could see revenue from fees shrinking and traditional bases of differentiation, other than price, disappearing.

Have we learnt anything from previous crises? With focus on resiliency and business continuity at an all-time high, Brian Collings, CEO of Torstone Technology, discusses what it’s like to provide post-trade solutions in a Covid-19 environment, and which lessons the financial sector has picked up from the global financial crisis in 2008.

One of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has been to increase the risk of money laundering through cross-border correspondent banking. Banks are reliant on counterparties to determine account owners and monitor transactions for risk – with variable results! Mark Gazit, CEO of Israeli cybersecurity firm ThetaRay warns that existing AML systems may not be up to the task of identifying new types o...

VMware has released research showing an increase in both cyberattack volume and breaches during the past 12 months in the UK. The research was supplemented with a survey on the impact of Covid-19 on the attack landscape. According to the supplemental survey, 92% of UK cybersecurity professionals said attack volumes have increased as more employees work from home and 93% said their organisations ha...

In recent months there has been a shift in investors’ attitude towards cryptoassets with major hedge funds and banks moving into Bitcoin. Central bankers are also investigating digital currencies. Copper Technologies CEO Dmitry Tokarev discusses how crypto can and is moving into mainstream financial services.

Paper-based financial workflows have proved to be ‘not fit for purpose’ in a remote working world, especially where complex financial instruments are concerned. Digitisation of workflows can increase efficiency but more tellingly, in light of Covid-19, can also make sense from a health and security perspective, as Jesse Chenard, CEO of Monetago explains.

FinTech start-up Shaparency completed fund-raising in less than three months and, having launched, describes itself as a disruptive RegTech platform, which aims to increase the efficiency of board and shareholder operations. It uses blockchain technology to provide an integrated digital platform so that businesses may run board meetings and shareholder meetings remotely.

Crown Agents Bank is a UK regulated provider of wholesale FX and cross-border payments services. CEO Albert Maasland discusses how digital technology is allowing Africa’s emerging markets to leapfrog traditional financial processes and how the efficiency and effectiveness of digital payments technology is standing up to the impact of Covid-19.

Coronavirus is dragging the world to the digital ‘extreme’ – whether we like it or not. However, with the UK already on its way to becoming a cashless society, will COVID-19 be the catalyst for the UK to fully embrace digital payments? And if so, how does the digital payments industry unite the nation on such a divided topic? Sunniva Kolostyak speaks to Luc Gueriane, Chief Commercial Officer at Mo...

There has been much talk of a ‘new normal’ with regard to working conditions and remote working but what has that meant in practice for many businesses? And have they got it right? Many companies are not geared in terms of tools, processes, mindset and employee engagement to make the most of the opportunities now being presented. New consultancy Ideologic has been established by Jared Whitaker, fo...