Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Matt Allan, NayaOne

"Everyone loves a good underdog and creating an even playing field for the market - we just want to help founders grow."Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we caught up with Matt Allan, the Head of Engineering at the digital sandbox and Fintech-as-a-Service provider, NayaOne, to discuss connecting banks to potential fintech partners and creating a safe environment for companies to experiment and innovate. Ecosystems are essential for the next digital phase of financial services as they provide a space where all players, no matter the size, can come together - reducing the months-long partnership journey common in the industry, to a matter of weeks.

FF Virtual Arena: Interactive Digital Banking Features Radar – What Banks Need To Know

In this exciting Virtual Arena, we catch up with Peter-Jan Van De Venn, the VP of Global Digital banking at Mobiquity, about the company’s recent Interactive Digital Banking Features Radar report and what banks and financial institutions should be focusing on the most in this age of online, digital-first banking. 
“The bar is continuously raising, everybody is looking out for competition and that’s how it starts. You look at what the competition has so you know the necessities of your region – and if that continuously changes, of course, you need to invest.” 
Considering the tectonic digital transition occurring in the industry, FI’s are scrambling to offer modern customers personalized products and services to get ahead of their contemporaries. For Van De Venn, this represents a great shift to customer-centricity in the banking sector – banks are not unique and cannot attract new clients through legacy alone. 
“We say to our clients, you’re very special but you’re not that different, so leverage the fact that the foundational scope that everybody has – try not to spend too much of the budget on that – but spend it on the 20% that you can differentiate,” said Van De Venn. 
The most damning statistics to come out of the report reveal that almost 80% of daily banking functionalities provided by banks to customers are similar. This trend indicates that banks are just starting to embrace digital banking, but are not going far enough in being full-fledged disruptors. 
“N26 used VR because you could pick different colours for your card, so you can use your app and VR to see your card on your desk before you order it,” explains Van De Venn. “They’re saying – hey we are using new technologies, we are a neobank, so every new technology, we will experiment with it and bring it to our app.” 
What has become the standard for digital banking has often emerged from the creative work done by fintechs and neobanks. The further push in innovation does not mean banks and FIs need to offer as many differentiating features as they can – a banking app does not need to be all things to all people – but they should offer robust products which they know their customers need. 
For Mobiquity, there are three key pillars to building a successful digital solution; Customer Experience Strategy, Digital Products & Services and Digital Branding & Marketing. Whether it be multiple modes of customer service, or an instant and straightforward security process, ‘musts’ come first and customer retention is guaranteed by being able to deliver efficiently on those essentials. Once the core human needs have been established, the product builds itself.

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos 2022 with Charles Radclyffe, Ethics Grade

Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we caught up with Charles Radclyffe, the CEO of ESG-orientated agency, Ethics Grade, to talk about the power of technology and its effects on ESG in the industry.
For Radclyffe, the approach to social efforts is far removed from the operations commonly found in financial reporting - the data needed to implement diverse and sustainable business practices must be personalised to the end user.

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos 2022 with Ian Manocha, Gresham

Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we sat down with Ian Manocha, the CEO of the software development company, Gresham Technologies Inc. to talk about data quality and how small mistakes can lead to catastrophic problems.
Data management is becoming ever more complex due to the level of systems inputting data, banks are tasked with managing that data across different jurisdictions and privacy requirements - for Manocha, sometimes that infrastructure is easier built on-prem.

The Paytech Show 6.03: Cross-Border Payments in North America: Creating a United Ecosystem

Real-time payments are taking the world by storm, with the reliance on cash and cheque being tentatively left in the dust. In this episode of The Paytech Show, we take a look at the rapidly moving world of cross-border payments and why real-time is integral to a more globally connected future. Keeping to the theme, we travel across regions to speak to the fintech leaders in this space and learn more about their views on different payment methods and what that means for businesses and individuals alike. 
In Toronto, we sat down with Abdul Nashat, the CEO of real-time cross-border payments innovator Buckzy Payments Inc. Over in New York we spoke to Elena Whisler, the SVP, of Sales and Relationship Management of The Clearing House. And at home in London, we caught up with Stephen Grainger, the Executive Vice President and Head of Cross Border Services at Mastercard. 
“North America has certainly been a little bit slower when it comes to real-time and, from a regulatory standpoint, for setting up a platform for innovation,” explains Nashat. “There is a little bit of a catching up, specifically in the US and Canada, and so the ecosystem is healthy, and there is a lot of excitement for the things coming into play, centred around real-time payments and payment modernisation.” 
The rippling effect of real-time will extend exponentially to the global international payments ecosystem. Companies, like Buckzy, are developing solutions which will reduce the process of moving money from weeks, to days. 
“We have launched the IXB (immediate cross border) initiative,” said Whisler. “The immediate cross border payments is an initiative we start here EBA Clearing, as well as SWIFT, if we connect a real-time payment network here in the U.S. and one in Europe, what happens, what do we change, what do we facilitate, and what do we do? 
“We still want our businesses and individuals to have that same experience, whether you’re domestic state-to-to, or whether you’re going U.S. to Europe, Europe to the U.S.” 
Implementing these programmes to make money movement more seamless between both regions will also lead to the foundation of a more interconnected ecosystem. The Clearing House is currently in partnership with Buckzy to facilitate just that, showing how real-time is only attainable through the cementing of strong relationships. 
“Cross border payments is all about logistics,” details Stephen Grainger. “We’re working with organisations to help speed up the delivery of those payments and provide more certainty.” 
Certainty and security is the key when it comes to real-time. Along with the speed, it is the confidence that businesses and people need that their payment will come to them in full, on time. Join us as we get up close and personal with the power players in the field, who are putting in the work to make those goals a transparent reality.
Watch the Full Episode – Live on our LinkedIn at 2:30pm GMT

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos 2022: Paul Ruskin, Trace Financial

"Every day is a school day, and you should always be learning something."
Joining us at the FF Salon for day 4 of Sibos 2022, we caught up with Paul Ruskin, the Director of Business Development at Trace Financial, to talk about the importance of conferences like Sibos and why learning about new ideas should be on top of every professionals agenda. For Ruskin, working in sales is about connecting with people to solve common goals - to a larger extent, that is the bread and butter of the fintech industry
It is also the reason Ruskin is much more interested in speaking with the solution builders and engineers of fintech companies, as they are the ones who hold the real answers to how we can improve businesses and modernise financial systems.

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos 2022: Mike Wilkins, R3

Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we sat down with Mike Wilkins, the Head of Industry Solutions at enterprise technology and services provider, R3, to discuss the future of faster payments, and how financial institutions should all be aiming to exact equal access for all.
Wilkins gets candid about the current financial crisis and why such events can provide a window of opportunity for rigorous payments innovation.

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon with Mike Wilkins – R3

“Some of the best ideas have been born out of times of crisis.”
Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we caught up with Mike Wilkins, the Head of Industry Solutions at enterprise technology and services provider, R3, to discuss distributed ledger technology and what having decentralised systems mean for the financial services industry. Wilkins lays out the similarities between DLT and the trading floor, a key focus being the wealth of data there is out there and the consolidated access specific players are allowed – banks and FIs are now seeing a record number of transactions come through every day, so being able to manage high volumes in a secure and regulated way is essential.
We are now in the midst of a financial crisis, an environment that can make or break a fintech company. For Wilkins, this may be a window of opportunity for companies to experiment with new technologies and make a profound mark on the industry – one that would secure their position as a power player in the fintech space.
 

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Zhenya Winter, Bottomline

Fintech Finance Podcasts: The FF Salon at Sibos with Scott Wilson, Mambu

Fintech epitomises new beginnings, Whether it be opening up a new form of payments, or completely restructuring the way businesses operate, the industry welcomes change and first starters. 
Joining us at the FF Salon for Sibos 2022, we sat down with Scott Wilson, who has been the Regional VP of EMEA Sales for the SaaS banking platform, Mambu, for the past 20 months. Wilson discusses his career in the financial services sector, starting as a consultant for PwC, and developing his interest in CX and digitisation which led him to Mambu. 
“We are a platform that can be scaled and grown and expanded across many different countries and geographies,” said Wilson. “Equally, (we have) different customer types. We have customers who are pure-play lenders in emerging markets who offer nano loans, all the way to SME corporate loans in some of the largest regions in the world.” 
Facilitating a diverse collection of clients requires a dynamic approach to business that walks in lockstep with the ever-evolving trends in the industry. For Wilson, transformation is essential, but the pace of it depends on the size of the institution - millions of dollars and an agile approach to change is what banks and FIs must keep in anticipation. 
“Trends are changing quarterly at the moment. For this to be a success, large FIs, Tier 1, and Tier 2 banks, need to have a categorical reserve, budget reserve, and resource reserve to then deploy quickly in agile projects, instead of large-scale transformation projects which lock in that resource and budget that then doesn’t allow them to be flexible.”