Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Manoj Mishra, CGI

Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we have Manoj Mishra, Vice President, of consulting firm CGI, about banks and the risk of irrelevancy they face if they do not adapt to the new digital-first environment of modern finance. For Mishra, banks need to eliminate the ivory tower mindset and meet customers where they are - modern consumers are a lot more active with whom they decide to bank with and will choose based on how convenient the experience is.

FF Virtual Arena: Partnerships: Fintech’s Secret Sauce

Partnerships have become the cornerstone of modern fintech success. Whether it be incumbent banks collaborating with early-moving underdogs, or fintechs joining forces with each other, the industry is fast learning that the only way to innovate is together. 
In this Virtual Arena, we welcome Richard Stockley, the Director of Partnerships at Currencycloud, and Daniel Cronin, the Co-Founder of Integrated Finance, both infrastructure builders in the world of fintech. We discuss the modularisation of fintech product offerings and how this has led to the need for collaborations between those fintechs, banks, and tech companies who strive ever further toward bundled product offerings. 
“What we have seen in the last couple of years is that fintechs are becoming better at fewer things,” said Stockley. “There is a trend to go narrow and deep, being all things to all men is a difficult task and as different organisations specialise in different areas, they realise they don’t want the whole solution but just a piece of it. So collaboration with those adjacent parts, for their clients to consume a seamless solution for their customers and provide services, is essential.” 
Only in the last five years have fintechs started to hyperfocus on specific capabilities like KYC, AML, and account issuing – this has led to the blossoming of companies who facilitate these integrations between solution builders and service providers, to bring a consolidated product to market. 
“There is an industry-agnostic graveyard of failed partnerships, ” explained Cronin. “What I’ve found is that partnerships work better from the ground up rather than top-down because it builds organic value that way. For example, if a sales guide at Integrated finance is contributing to a deal and they know that there are other components that the entrepreneur or founder needs to deliver this product, that person is incentivised to find those solutions for them, and whom they can go to help with the client’s problem because they can’t do them by themselves. Through trial and error, you build organic relationships that way.”
This approach of companies having the space to perfect their offerings and then integrate them with other services results in a much more comprehensive product for customers. We still have a long way to go for banks to fully cooperate and integrate their services into one singular channel, but starting from the ground up with BaaS solutions and fintechs is slowly producing a knock-on effect in the industry for faster and all-encompassing banking services for consumers. 

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Joanna Appleton, Dow Jones

FF Virtual Arena: How can fintechs help people save their finances?

The COVID-19 pandemic and the current cost of living crisis have proven that the next few years will be congested with economic turbulence. With high interest rates and skyrocketing energy bills, people will be more financially vulnerable than ever. The question stands: How can fintechs help people save their finances in times of strife?
In this Virtual Area, we welcome Jinesh Vohra, the CEO and Co-Founder of mortgage-lending fintech, Sprive, and Richard Logan, the Solutions Director at European payments provider, PPS, to discuss the positive outcomes that have stemmed from the last couple of years and how fintechs have used this period to provide better access to financial services for underserved demographics.
“People do not want to think of the payment,” said Logan. “We saw the fastest growth of adoption of digital payments in jurisdictions with the most stringent lockdown measures. Talking of those people who may have been less able to access these services, we saw in a lot of fintech verticals the proportion of low-income households, and women, and people who hadn’t been served as well by digital means in the past.”
Keeping people in isolation and away from physical banking and payment services led to the need for advanced digital alternatives, from mobile banking to embedded finance – customer demand has shifted toward digital solutions because of necessity.
“Traditional players have to adapt because if you look at the generation that is coming through and leaving school, they’re much more tech-savvy, and they want things quick and fast, ” said Vohra.
Every cloud has a silver lining, and in this current climate fintechs like Sprive and PPS are responding to the needs of the people with their unique expertise in technology and financial management. If we are to power through this recession, it will be through the joint effort of the industry to keep financial services alive.

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Ulyana Shtybel, Quoroom

Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we talk to Ulyana Shtybel, Co-Founder and CEO of software solution provider, Quoroom, about the war in Ukraine and the role the financial services industry plays in the conflict. For Shtybel, strong moral values are the cornerstone of modern society, and companies like SWIFT, which have enacted sanctions against Russia, represent the social responsibility corporates have when those values are violated.

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Silvia Mensdorff-Pouilly, FIS

Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we catch up with Silvia Mensdorff-Pouilly, the SVP of Banking & Payments Europe at FIS, to talk about the emerging trends in the fintech industry, from ISO 20022 and CBDC to digital assets. Mensdorff-Pouilly provides a measured point of view about the future of these products, explaining that the risks around them have yet to be identified and remedied - once those are solved, then innovation in payments can expand.

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Martin McCann, Trade Ledger

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Pascal Aerens, Neterium

Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we talk to Pascal Aerens, the CEO and Co-Founder of RegTech, Neterium, about banking regulation and why sanctions are better than full-fledged war. Around 2% of financial crime is stopped, and for Aerens, this is a testament to the rapidly changing world of banking and the growing sophistication of modern cybercrime.

The Paytech Show 6:04: The Future of Commerce & Orchestration

The future of commerce has expanded across physical and digital lines. From large supermarket chains to small independent businesses, the prerequisite of cash is no more, and customers have more autonomy in paying with whatever they like. It has taken the industry years to get to this point in payments, and as the demand for international flexibility and financial inclusion continues to grow, the best is yet to come. 
In this episode of The Paytech Show, we explore the future of commerce & the historic journey the industry has taken in its development of payment services and point-of-sale (POS) options, and why banks and fintechs should always prioritise the preferences of their end-users. Joining us on the show, we welcome Eddie Johnson, the VP of Products at Aevi, Holly Coventry, the Vice President of International Open Banking Payments at American Express, and Harshna Kayley, the Managing Director of Payment Products/Gateway at Barclaycard Payments. 
“What’s changed in the last two years is that the options are pretty much endless,” said Johnson. “You get to choose how you want to pay when you want to pay, what kickback you get from how you pay, how many payments you want to make for that one purchase – as an industry we need to be able to support that choice.” 
Customer demand has sparked an accelerated interest by industry leaders to create digital-orientated products. This era has also seen players, incumbents and fintech underdogs alike, move ahead of the curb and provide more experimental services for consumers to play with. 
“We saw that the biggest change in the last sixteen years was around mandatory, strong, customer authentication, known as SCA,” said Kayley. “Since March in the UK, online transactions over £25 are subject to an additional identity check. So it does clearly help in combating fraud, and reduces the friction the customer experiences.”
Having the ability to move money in a secure and protected way will always be the main concern of the banks and merchManaging Director, Payment Products/Gatewayants because it determines the trust of their customers. By building more regulations and rules in the payment space, institutions will have the agency to experiment further with different payment options without compromising the relationships they have built with consumers. Moving into a more digital and contactless environment with eCommerce will only expand the use cases of payments and build more personalised experiences between merchants and their customers.
 

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Marijke, Bankifi