FinTech Magazine - August 2021

Fintech CEOs of 2021

August 2021 | fintechmagazine.com

Digital partners: Building the fintech ecosystem

The Partner of Choice for Modern Fintech Scott Abrahams, SVP Business Development and Fintech, describes how Mastercard is pushing the boundaries of payments, innovation, and financial inclusion FEATURING:

ČSOB

TRIPACTIONS

CPQI

THE ULTIMATE FINTECH & INSURTECH EVENT OCTOBER

12th - 14th STREAMED LIVE FROM TOBACCO DOCK LONDON A BizClik Media Group Brand

Confirmed Speakers Include: Jonathan Holman

Head of Digital Transformation: Corporate & Commercial Banking Santander UK

Scott Abrahams

SVP Business Development and Fintech Mastercard

Bryan Carroll CEO TNEX

Rafa Plantier

Head of UK & Ireland Tink

Lee Sarkin

Head: Data Analytics Munich Re

EARLY BIRD TICKETS HERE

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The FinTech Team EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

WILL GIRLING

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

SCOTT BIRCH

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ PRODUCTION MANAGERS

OWEN MARTIN PHILLINE VICENTE JENNIFER SMITH PRODUCTION EDITOR

JANET BRICE

CREATIVE TEAM

OSCAR HATHAWAY SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL HECTOR PENROSE SAM HUBBARD MIMI GUNN JUSTIN SMITH REBEKAH BIRLESON DUKE WEATHERILL JORDAN WOOD VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER

KIERAN WAITE

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

SAM KEMP EVELYN HUANG HABBIE AMOS JACK NICHOLLS MARTA EUGENIO MOTION DESIGNER

TYLER LIVINGSTONE MARKETING MANAGER

EVELYN HOWAT

PROJECT DIRECTORS

JAKE MEGEARY MICHAEL BANYARD

JOE PALLISER ADAM FERGAR MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR

RICHARD TURNER

SALES AND MARKETING DIRECTOR

JASON WESTGATE MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER

STACY NORMAN PRESIDENT & CEO

GLEN WHITE

FOREWORD

WINDS OF CHANGE Embracing new opportunities might drag us out of our comfort zones, but it also leads innovation and growth

“Seismic shifts occur daily, and adaptability is critical to success and growth”

This month we've said goodbye to FinTech Magazine's editor-in-chief, Will Girling, as he ventures off to new pastures, and we wish him every success in his latest role.

While the majority of us dislike change, the world of fintech is no stranger to it. Indeed, it's an industry that thrives on innovation. Seismic shifts occur daily, and adaptability is critical to success and growth.

Over the past month, we've seen some incredible changes in this space. Possibly the most notable would be El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin as a mainstream currency.

What changes this will usher in remains to be seen. But it's likely that other countries, upon observing the success of El Salvador's move, will very likely follow suit.

New cryptocurrencies are also emerging with a raft of mysterious names. Expect to hear more about HEX, Dash, Solana – and the quirky gamer crypto, My DeFi Pet very soon.

Meanwhile, armchair investment platforms like Robinhood are racing towards their IPO. Each of these steps brings us ever closer to a democratised, global, financial system, a transformation of truly epic proportions.

Therefore, having a birds' eye view of the latest changes and developments in this incredibly dynamic and exciting world is a privilege that we savour.

Keep watching this space and enjoy the magazine!

FINTECH MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

JOANNA ENGLAND

joanna.england@bizclikmedia.com

© 2021 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

fintechmagazine.com

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CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 08 Big Picture 10 The Brief 12 Global News 14 People Moves 16 Timeline:

Israel’s rise to being

a global fintech leader 18 Trailblazer:

Maggie L. Walker 20 Five Mins With: Izzy Dawood

24

36

The partner of choice for modern fintech

Artificial intelligence and the future of financial services

Mastercard

Finserv

58 44

Banking

Intangible assets will reshape banks’ value post-COVID

TripActions

How one fintech company evolved for the future

66 CPQI

Bank on the right outcome and future proof your institution

82

Payment Solutions

The future of digital ecosystems in the fintech space VENTURE CAPITAL

90

ČSOB

Customer service powered by data meets ČSOB

104

Technology

The Big Question: Is governance blocking fintech’s growth?

112 Top 10

Fintech CEOs of 2021

BIG PICTURE

San Francisco Bay retains global fintech hub leadership San Francisco, California, US Number one not just in the US but the entire world, San Francisco Bay remains the premier fintech hub according to Findexable’s 2021 Global Fintech Rankings Report. With its tech supremacy practically unmatched globally, it’s unlikely that this West Coast behemoth will be supplanted any time soon...

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August 2021

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THE BRIEF “Under the right circumstances, [remote working] can actually be more productive than traditional working models” Nick Gallimore

Director of Talent Transformation, Clear Review 

BY THE NUMBERS Fintech LinkedIn community poll - 330 respondents

Which emerging market do you think shows the most promise in finance?

22%

42%

Chile

Thailand

READ MORE

“The more open fintechs become, the more opportunities they have to expand their ecosystem”

14% Hungary

Paul Crerand

22%

Field CTO EMEA, MuleSoft 

Russia

READ MORE

“I often see a disconnect between [fintech’s] investment focus on market growth versus compliance” Suchitra Nair

Partner, Deloitte EMEA Centre for Regulatory Strategy  READ MORE

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August 2021

$26.5tn

49%

90%

ESTIMATED VALUE OF GLOBAL FINANCE IN 2022 (US DOLLARS)

OF US BANKS CURRENTLY BELIEVE PARTNERSHIP WITH FINTECHS IS IMPORTANT

OF SMARTPHONE USERS WILL MAKE A MOBILE PAYMENT BY 2022

DID YOU KNOW? More ‘cash’ for the board game Monopoly is printed every year ($30bn) than actual US dollars ($972mn)

 MOLLIE Series C funding round saw the Dutch fintech reach a new valuation of $6.5bn.

Investor Blackstone Growth called Mollie “one of Europe’s most exciting high-growth businesses.”  TINK

DEFINING THE INTANGIBLE What are you?

The name’s Assets. Intangible Assets, the secret to getting a competitive advantage in banking.

You sound like one of those awful business buzzwords that get bandied about.

That’s because your mindset is outdated.

Banking isn’t about bricks and mortar anymore. Did you know 71% of customers bank online now?

That doesn’t help me work out what you are.

Well, basically, I’m everything that transcends the strictly physical: company culture, values, training opportunities, rewards, engagement, well-being…

Okay, okay. I see your point. But surely if we’re making money, that’s all that counts?

Do you need glasses? Because that’s very short-sighted. 90% of millennials said they’d switch brands based on their values.

Yes, but our employees…

And 62% said they’d take a pay cut in order to work for a more responsible company.

It’s time to seriously think about what your bank stands for.

I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.

Sounds like it’s your assets that are truly intangible.

Visa has acquired Swedish fintech Tink for the sum of $2.15bn. A leader in the European Open Banking scene, Visa’s acquisition could be a harbinger for the next stage in both Tink’s history and data-driven financial services.  WAHED Islamic fintech Wahed has

AUG21

brought industry expert Umer Suleman on board to lead its UK-wide expansion plan. Suleman was previously at UKIFC, Daiwa Capital Management, and EY.  MONZO Along with three other UK & Eire banks, Monzo has been issued a warning by the CMA for failing to deliver customers bank transaction histories in a timely manner. These records are essential for credit and mortgage applications.  WHITE SQUARE CAPITAL Among the hedge funds that bet against GameStop during the infamous short squeeze

GOOD TIMES BAD TIMES

An outstanding $800mn

event in January 2021, White Square Capital is now the first to shut down as a result of its losses.

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GLOBAL NEWS

2

1

Binance banned from operating in the UK by FCA USA

Accel closes US$3bn across three funds in the US and EMEA Based in Palo Alto, California, Accel has been operating since 1983. It’s latest $3.05bn funding drive breaks down as: $650mn for its 15th US early-stage fund; $650mn for its seventh European and Israeli early-stage fund; and $1.75bn for its sixth growth fund.

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UK

August 2021

Crypto exchange Binance has been banned by the UK's financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA told the company to stop 'any regulated activity' in the UK. Binance said the FCA notice would have no "direct impact" on the services it provides from its website.

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5

SWEDEN

4

SINGAPORE

Klarna joins two leading climate change programmes

Singapore FinTech Association launches new networking club

Klarna had already pledged to implement decarbonisation strategies in line with the Paris Agreement. To realise that ambition, the global retail bank, payment solutions provider, and shopping service has announced it is joining The Climate Pledge and the Race to Zero campaign.

The SFA announced the launch of a new SG FinTech Club, which will act as a networking hub among local fintechs based in Singapore. More than 1,400 fintechs are based in the citystate, employing an estimated 10,000 people and accounting for 13% of its GDP in 2020.

THE PHILIPPINES

Voyager Innovations raises US$167mn in funding for PayMaya Voyager Innovations has reportedly netted $167mn in an investor funding round for its Manila-based fintech PayMaya. The raised capital will be used to speed up its expansion plans, which include obtaining a digital banking license from the Philippines Central Bank.

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PEOPLE MOVES PAUL CHUA FROM: UBS TO: BANK OF SINGAPORE WAS: H EAD OF WEALTH PLANNING, SINGAPORE NOW: G LOBAL HEAD OF WEALTH PLANNING

Concluding an almost two decade stint at UBS, Paul Chua will be taking on a new challenge as he refocuses on the global wealth management market in his role at the Bank of Singapore (BoS).

An executive with over 30 years’ worth of sector experience, including tax, wealth planning, and advising ultra-high net worth families on estate management strategies, Chua is well-suited to the demanding and vital office. He succeeds Tariq Salem, who will remain at BoS in a different capacity.

“We are confident that [Chua] will be a key addition to our wealth planning team to help develop deeper and more meaningful relationships with our clients,” commented Lim Leong Guan, Global Head of Products, to whom Chua will report.

“ Chua is known as an industry veteran who extends a personal touch when dealing with clients” Lim Leong Guan Global Head of Products, Bank of Singapore

DAVID WAH FROM: CREDIT SUISSE TO: CREDIT SUISSE WAS: C O-HEAD OF CLIENT ADVISORY GROUP NOW: G LOBAL HEAD OF ADVISORY

KATE JONES

David Wah’s ongoing loyalty to Credit Suisse - he has been with the investment bank for almost 30 years - was rewarded with a promotion to one of its most important deal-making roles.

He holds a BSs in Economics from the LSE (1986) and a Doctorate in Law from the University of Chicago. Before joining Credit Suisse in 1992, Wah was an Associate at US law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

FROM: PENSION PROTECTION FUND TO: PENSION PROTECTION FUND WAS: NON-EXECUTIVE BOARD MEMBER NOW: CHAIR OF THE BOARD Functioning as a non-exec member of PPF’s board for over five years, Kate Jones will replace Arnold Wagner as the organisation’s head.

Across Jones’ career, she has been prized for her expertise and leadership abilities, holding managerial roles at Barclays and executive positions at BlackRock, Schroders, and Smart Pension.

“I’m proud to have the opportunity to lead the PPF in the next important phase of its evolution as we look to our future challenges,” said Jones.

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TIMELINE ISRAEL’S RISE TO BEING A GLOBAL FINTECH LEADER If one country and city made a significant impression in 2021 Findexable’s Global Fintech Rankings list, it was Israel and its capital Tel Aviv.

Renowned as a location that readily fosters innovation, possesses rich engineering talent and well-funded services, and high-quality educational facilities, Israel’s continued growth in fintech seems almost inevitable.

2016 to 2017

2018 to 2019

Israel’s potential becomes apparent

Investments grow and then plateau

Fintech regains national momentum

Israel’s fintech sector initially consisted of approximately 90 startups worth only US$13mn.

Despite these humble origins, the seeds of a highly profitable sector were sown by the State’s support for tech development.

The government’s programme appeared to bear fruit, and by 2016 Israeli fintechs were attracting $730mn of investment.

A new period of exponential growth began to capture the market: 2018 = $1.05bn investment and 170 exits; and 2019 = $1.96bn and 1,080 exits.

However, a brief period of stagnation then ensued: 2017 saw an equivalent amount of investment but significantly fewer exits (12 compared to 56 the previous year)

By now, Israel had managed to establish a number of key fintech markets, such as digital payments, business finance, and personal finance.

Its ecosystem now included Visa, Mastercard, JPMorgan, Citibank, Barclays, Finastra, and more.

2010

In 2010, the Treasury spearheaded a new initiative designed to attract financial R&D: a $28.5mn subsidy fund over the next five years.

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August 2021

2020

2021

Israel houses over 750 fintechs

Tel Aviv bounds over the competition

Called the ‘Startup Nation’ by some, Israel had managed to grow its fintech stable to more than 750.

Although it placed a respectable 12th in Findexable’s 2020 Global Fintech Rankings, Israel leapt over the competition in 2021 to secure a place in the top three, behind only the US and UK.

Among the startups are eToro, Payoneer, and OurCrowd. The country’s ecosystem is further supplemented by two fintech accelerator programmes and the national sector association FinTech-Aviv.

Tel Aviv was no less impressive: it rose from 18th to 5th in the fintech hub rankings. From here on out, all eyes will be on the Startup Nation’s capital; can it crack the top three and edge out London or New York by 2022?

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TRAILBLAZER © National Museum of American History

The first AfricanAmerican woman to charter a bank in the US

“NO PERSON IS YOUR FRIEND WHO DEMANDS YOUR SILENCE OR DENIES YOUR RIGHT TO GROW ”

MAGGIE L. WALKER President St. Luke Penny Savings Bank

Job Title: Company:

P

erhaps the most inspirational ‘Legend’ of finance we’ve covered so far, Maggie L. Walker (née Draper) was a true pioneer and trailblazer. Officially the first woman of African-American descent to charter a bank in the US (St. Luke Penny Savings Bank), she accomplished this feat in 1903 – approximately 38 years after the abolition of slavery and 17 years before women were granted the right to vote.

Born on 15 July 1864 in Richmond, Virginia, not long after the American Civil War, Walker grew up primarily in the care of her mother, Elizabeth Draper, a laundress and former slave.

At the age of fourteen, Walker

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August 2021

17 Jul 1864 Born

15 Dec 1934 Died

became heavily involved with the Independent Order of St. Luke, an organisation dedicated to fighting racial and gender injustice, promoting education, and caring for the sick.

By age 35, she had ascended to the Order’s highest role of Right Worthy Grand Secretary, which she would retain until her death.

Aside from this humanitarian work, there was another strong passion in her life: business. Following a brief stint as a teacher, Walker proved herself to be a capable and innovative financier and insurance executive. In addition to herself as President, the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank also appointed several

other women to board positions. The bank eventually merged with two others in the Richmond area to become The Consolidated Bank and Trust Company. Walker served as Chair of the board.

During her time in finance, Walker’s greatest achievement was the dedication and tireless support she provided to women and Black communities until her death in 1934. Raising funds for underprivileged school-aged girls, sanatoriums and nursing homes in Black neighbourhoods, Walker’s humanity was truly boundless.

In 1925, Virginia Union University granted her an honorary Master of Science degree.

Although this was the only indication of a

future legacy to be bestowed during her lifetime, subsequent homages to Walker’s memory include the Maggie L. Walker High School in Richmond, a posthumous induction into the Junior Achievement US Business Hall of Fame (2001), and a bronze statue of her likeness on Broad Street in Richmond (2017).

It may seem incredible that she managed to set a new precedent in female-led finance at the dawn of the 20th century, yet Walker’s story is a testament to the good that banking institutions can yield with the right visionary leadership at the helm. Now more than ever, we must seek guidance and inspiration from her example for the challenging times that still lay ahead. fintechmagazine.com

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FIVE MINUTES WITH...

IZZY

DAWOOD CFO PAYSAFE

We all know the companies, but what about the people behind them? Dawood explains the importance of staying humble, what he’s looking forward to doing after the pandemic, and his proudest achievements from 2020.

Q. WHO WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD HERO AND WHY?

» It had to be Stefan Edberg, the

Swedish tennis player. Growing up I was an avid tennis player and loved his grace and poise as he played the game..

Q. WHAT'S THE BEST PIECE OF BUSINESS ADVICE YOU EVER RECEIVED?

» ‘Always do the right thing, even when no one is looking.’ This will keep you

“ Always do the right thing, even when no one is looking. This will keep you grounded and humble” 20

August 2021

grounded and humble. If you stay true to this, I don’t think you can go too far wrong.

Q. WHICH ACTIVITY ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING WHEN THE PANDEMIC IS OVER?

» The answer to this is definitely overseas travel! We have more than 12 global locations for our teams at Paysafe, and six of these are larger international hub offices – two of which are in Bulgaria and London, where many of my team and colleagues are based. I’d really like to visit them as soon as I can.

Q. IS THERE A PERSONAL OR WORK ACHIEVEMENT FROM THE PAST 12 MONTHS OF WHICH YOU ARE PARTICULARLY PROUD?

» I joined Paysafe in September 2020,

so less than a year ago, but the highlight for me from my time here so far is, without a doubt, leading our successful SPAC and listing on the New York Stock Exchange on March 31 of this year. Being part of the team to start a new and exciting chapter for the business is a real privilege.

Q. WHAT INSPIRES YOU IN FINTECH TODAY?

» Almost everything; it’s incredible

how the industry is using technology to make financial services easier and more

accessible for consumers all the time, and always pushing the incumbents to get better.

During my career, I’ve been especially fortunate to come across several inspiring leaders such as Anthony Noto from Sofi, Colin Walsh from Varo Money, and Sallie Krawcheck from Ellevest, all of whom I hold a lot of respect for. These are great examples of people who have shown resilience and ability to persevere in order to reach their goals.

“ During my career, I’ve been especially fortunate to come across several inspiring leaders” fintechmagazine.com

21

THE ULTIMATE FINTECH & INSURTECH EVENT OCTOBER

12th - 14th STREAMED LIVE FROM TOBACCO DOCK LONDON A BizClik Media Group Brand

Confirmed Speakers Include: Jonathan Holman

Head of Digital Transformation: Corporate & Commercial Banking Santander UK

Scott Abrahams

SVP Business Development and Fintech Mastercard

Bryan Carroll CEO TNEX

Rafa Plantier

Head of UK & Ireland Tink

Lee Sarkin

Head: Data Analytics Munich Re

EARLY BIRD TICKETS HERE

Creating Digital Communities

THE PARTNER OF CHOICE FOR MODERN FINTECH WRITTEN BY: WILL GIRLING

PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

24

August 2021

MASTERCARD

fintechmagazine.com

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MASTERCARD

Scott Abrahams, SVP, Business Development & FinTech, UKI, describes Mastercard is pushing the boundaries of payments, innovation, and financial inclusion

E

ver since the company was founded in 1966 as ‘Interbank Card Association’ and later rebranded to its current name in 1979, Mastercard has steadily become one of the most ubiquitous and far-reaching payments solution providers globally.

Indeed, some might consider that there could be few worlds left to conquer for this financial services mainstay. However, finance is not a static world, and Mastercard is aware of this fact.

Never resting on its laurels, the company is continually striving not just for its own innovation but the development of tomorrow’s disruptors: fintechs. “What's fascinating about Mastercard is that it allows you to bring together everything in payments, but also elevate it to the next level,” says Scott Abrahams, Senior Vice President, Business Development & FinTech, UK and Ireland, at Mastercard. As the events of the COVID-19 pandemic have already demonstrated, relying on the same payments infrastructure is untenable, and customers have been set on a new path towards unprecedented digital adoption. This, he states, is his primary focus, “The next big thing in payments will be the consideration of how the payment ecosystem is going to evolve and meet customer needs.”

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August 2021

MASTERCARD

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“ I believe we may have delivered more innovation during this time than ever before” SCOTT ABRAHAMS

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & FINTECH, UK & IRELAND, MASTERCARD

Previously the Vice President and General Manager of Global Supplier Relations EMEA at American Express, Abrahams joined Mastercard in 2014 as Senior Vice President, Business Development & FinTech, UK and Ireland, at Mastercard. “What attracted me is the fact that it combines a strong brand with a strong legacy of innovation,” he explains. “The company brings those two aspects together in a way that not only services our customers but works with them to move payments into the future.” There is a sense that fintech startups, by dint of being smaller, more agile, and more digitally focused, are able to deliver 28

August 2021

a better customer experience than their larger, more established counterparts. Rather than viewing this as a challenge, Abrahams declares that this capability is actually what excites him most about partnering with fintechs in the first place. In fact, Mastercard endeavours to reflect this paradigm in its own operations, “The speed at which this company moves is thrilling. We don't spend too much time talking; we act, we deliver, and then look for ways to improve. That can sometimes be a challenge for bigger companies, but our partnerships with startups have kept us young and nimble.”

MASTERCARD

SCOTT ABRAHAMS TITLE: SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & FINTECH, UK & IRELAND INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY Scott Abrahams is the Senior Vice President, Business Development & FinTech, UK and Ireland, for Mastercard. In his role, Abrahams is responsible for developing and executing UK&I Acceptance and fintech sales and marketing strategy to drive Acceptance growth and increase revenue performance across the company.

In addition to his UK and Ireland responsibilities, Scott is the European Executive Sponsor for Mastercard’s Priceless Planet Coalition and tasked with leveraging the company’s partnerships in the region to meet our goal of restoring 100 million trees to the planet by 2025.

Before joining Mastercard, Scott was Vice President and General Manager of Global Supplier Relations EMEA at American Express. He was responsible for revenues from suppliers such as British Airways, Emirates, Air France and Hilton. He has held the positions of VP of Client Management UK and GM Nordics at American Express. He previously worked as Head of Relationship

EXECUTIVE BIO

This organisational philosophy, it turned out, was highly fortuitous as the pandemic began to alter how practically every business operated globally. “We all had to adapt; it was a time of change,” Abrahams reflects.

Mastercard immediately set about ensuring the welfare of both its employees and its customers, restructuring where needed, particularly in environments that would have previously required face-to-face interaction. “Obviously, a large aspect of the work we've done during COVID has been the digitisation of the payment ecosystem at an unprecedented speed. Digital had been at

Management at Barclays Bank, focusing on implementing innovation, change, motivation and culture within his team.

MASTERCARD

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August 2021

MASTERCARD

“The speed at which this company moves is thrilling.

We don't spend too much time talking; we act, we deliver, and then look for ways to improve” SCOTT ABRAHAMS

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & FINTECH, UK & IRELAND, MASTERCARD

the core of our strategy for the last few years, but it became our number one priority.” The pandemic has noticeably accelerated the gradual relegation of cash in favour of cards.

Therefore, Mastercard’s mission has been to make the increasingly online customer journey as safe and secure as possible.

Providing the foundations of a vibrant fintech scene that’s helping to achieve this goal is Mastercard Accelerate. Designed to make it easier than ever before for startups to work with Mastercard at every major developmental stage, from market entry to ongoing innovation, the initiative helps fintechs focus on their own goals using specially designed tools:

1966

Year Founded

20,000

Number of Employees

US$15.3bn (2020) Revenue

• Increased speed through Mastercard Fintech Express • Scalable growth with access to Mastercard’s tech, partnerships, and expertise (Start Path) • Greater flexibility through Mastercard Engage, a free global programme for connecting fintechs with thousands of customers • ‘Mastercard Developers’, which allows the company’s partners to access cutting edge products and services through a single API gateway fintechmagazine.com

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MASTERCARD

Mastercard: Scott Abrahams talks about Fintech

“ Mastercard allows you to bring together everything in payments, but also elevate it to the next level” SCOTT ABRAHAMS

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & FINTECH, UK & IRELAND, MASTERCARD

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August 2021

“I believe we may have delivered more innovation during this time than ever before.

There’s certainly not been any less,” states Abrahams. “The idea is that if a fintech wants to launch a payment solution, we can work with issuers and processors to get them up and running within weeks.” Examples of this innovation in action include payment card consolidator Curve, Samsung Pay+, and Starling Bank’s ‘Connected Card’. The latter was a highly inventive solution for self-isolating individuals who needed to entrust their payment card to others while still retaining control of it. Any expenditures are drawn from an allocated space kept separate from the customer’s main account and with purchases capped at £200 (US$280). “Starling had a goal, and so did we: enable innovation on the backend, support

MASTERCARD

it in the journey, understand what it wanted to do, and use our tools to make it happen,” he adds.

Abrahams is clear that COVID hasn’t really altered Mastercard’s approach to delivery at all, merely accelerated and refined it for a new era. The promise of fintech isn’t just the optimisation of the status quo but also the potential to create a better and fairer world.

Mastercard, he says, doesn’t just subscribe to the ‘finance for good’ philosophy; it lives and breathes it. “Financial inclusion is at the very core of what we do, and that’s being clearly pursued from our Executive Chairman Ajay Banga and all the way down through the organisation.” With millions in the UK alone still unbanked and underserved, the global scale of the challenge is easy to extrapolate.

Partnering closely with communities in the UK,

such as the Emerging Payments Association (EPA), Inclusion Foundation, and the Inclusive Economy Partnership, Mastercard is dedicated to participating in initiatives that will lead to a more connected world.

As he looks ahead to the rest of 2021 and beyond, Abrahams is certain that fostering financial inclusion, sustainability (Mastercard launched the Priceless Planet Coalition in 2020), and supporting small businesses (“the backbone of the UK economy”) will form important focus points of development for the company. Combined with an ongoing drive towards digitisation, innovation, and partnership, he says that Mastercard will “continue being the partner of choice for fintech” and “continue pushing the boundaries of payments, both internally within MasterCard and externally.” fintechmagazine.com

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MASTERCARD

Solidarity In Action

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August 2021

MASTERCARD

MASTERCARD EMPOWERS BLACK AND ETHNIC MINORITY-OWNED FINTECH

Mastercard has been focused on digitisation for many years, but, as Abrahams says, innovation is not a “one and done” affair, and as new technologies emerge, Mastercard is working to make the everexpanding universe of digital transactions safe, smart, and accessible. “Our consumers need to pay when they want, how they want, to whom they want, and how much they want. We need to have the customer journey in mind, and we need to make sure they are safe throughout the transaction. Payments are a very sensitive part of life - people might take them for granted, but our money must always be protected.”

One of Mastercard Accelerate’s initiatives focused on inclusion, Start Path, is jump-starting Black and ethnic minority-owned fintechs around the world. Part of the company’s In Solidarity pledge, this programme strives to not only boost Black founders/CEO, but also help create new networks and elevate Black talent on the world stage. Michael Froman, Vice Chairman and President of Strategic Growth, recently told us: “Driving financial inclusion is not new to Mastercard; we’ve long realised that the only sustainable economy is an inclusive economy and we’ve been delivering programmes and partnerships over the last decade that have brought more than 500 million unbanked people around the world into the financial system.”

Find out more about Mastercard’s pledge to bridge the wealth and opportunity gap here.

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL SERVICES WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND

A

lgorithms were the first form of technology in the financial services sector. In 1986, APEX (Applied Expert Systems) introduced PlanPower, a commercially applied AI financial technology that was used to create financial plans for those with an annual income over US$75,000 per year.

Now, AI is a critical part of the fintech space in terms of collecting data, analysing information, safeguarding and facilitating transactions, creating customer centric products and streamlining processes.

Managing the AI monster But with great technology comes great responsibility and the application of AI and data collection in financial services is one that raises many questions in terms of management, security and regulation.

The European Union recently introduced rules that will begin to shape the way AI is used, with a particular focus on the financial 36

August 2021

AI has given birth to the fintech industry, making digital transactions and data aggregation a new way of life, but what does the future hold?

services sector. Shawn Tan is chief executive of AI ecosystem builder Skymind, a machine intelligence startup company supporting the open-source deep learning framework Deeplearning4j and the JVM-based scientific computing library ND4J. He explains, "They [the new rules] include regulations around cases that are perceived as endangering people’s safety or fundamental rights, such as AI-enabled behaviour manipulation techniques. There are also prohibitions on how law enforcement can use biometric surveillance in public places with broad exemptions.”

Tan says some “high-risk” cases also face specific regulatory requirements before and after entering the market. Meanwhile, transparency requirements have been introduced for certain AI use cases, such as chatbots and deep fakes, where EU lawmakers believe risk can be mitigated if users are made aware that they are interacting with something that is not human.

FINSERV

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FINSERV

“Compare that to your average AML (anti money laundering) officer, and they are completely outgunned” JULIAN DIXON CEO, NAPIER

He adds, “These rules are important, and we welcome them – and we predict there will be other regions in the world that will follow the EU's lead because we need regulation to keep customers and their data from being exploited and to protect their civil liberties."

AI data and diversity Diversity is a hot button topic in terms of AI usage, along with the emergence of bias. Dr Garfield Benjamin, a postdoctoral researcher at Solent University in Southampton, UK, is working on social aspects of AI, algorithms, platforms, and privacy.

Benjamin says the regulatory aspect of AI in the financial sector will likely include more thorough audits of training data and algorithms to identify areas where bias is treating people unfairly or blocking people from certain products.

“We have seen that in advertising as well, where certain groups (often women or Black people) don’t see Facebook adverts for better financial products like mortgages or job opportunities.”

Benjamin continues, “The whole point of algorithmic decision-making is to discriminate – to judge people according to certain criteria like where they live, their age, their occupation.

But we can design the algorithms and AI to support people or to make existing social biases worse. The future of regulation is looking to address some of these concerns.”

The future of AI chatbots in financial services According to Juniper Research, chatbots are the future of fintech customer servicing as they handle a multitude of requests from customers that can be managed by AI technology rather than human call handlers which can be deployed to deal with more complicated queries. Research shows that: • Successful banking related chatbot interactions will grow 3,1505% between 2019-2023.

• 826 million hours will be saved by banks through chatbot interactions in 2023.

• 79% of successful chatbot interactions will be through mobile banking apps in 2023.

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CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Trends in financial services AI Dan Johnson, Director of Automation, FutureWorkForce, says four main areas will see major changes within the next five years: Process control and optimisation (PCO) utilising process mining and management tools will help companies make business processes more efficient, fast and increase overall productivity.

Customer Experience improvements utilising virtual or Robo assistant chatbots powered with AI and ML will respond within seconds.

With the growing competition on the market, quick customer engagement will be a must.

Credit scoring: The majority of currentlyused credit scoring systems are outdated.

Their decisions are based on a supposed customer base, including demographics, age, marital status, possible preferences. AI and ML usage for decision making, compliance and proactive customer marketing will be adopted to reduce churn and improve customer experience.

Insecurity, the increased use of AI by cyber defence tech companies will provide proactive mechanisms for fighting off attacks and protecting valuable data from hackers.

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AI and cybercrime As well as data regulation and bias management, the latest technology is also being used to improve security for financial service providers. Julian Dixon, CEO of Napier, a provider of anti-financial crime compliance solutions, says the incumbent anti-money laundering market was saturated with legacy technology providers that were falling short in their abilities to deliver to stakeholders.

However, now the situation is improving, and the balance is being addressed, making users and their data safer, says Dixon. “The number of fines that organisations using this outdated technology were receiving was also on the rise, which suggested a clear problem with the processes that were in place.”

He believes there has been a change in thinking, and organisations are starting to embrace the use of machine learning and AI in compliance.

“You cannot underestimate the levels of criminal activity within the finance sector. Those who have prospered from illegal activity have an unlimited budget, an appetite to continue and access to sophisticated technology.

“The whole point of algorithmic decision-making is to discriminate – to judge people according to certain criteria” DR GARFIELD BENJAMIN

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER, SOLENT UNIVERSITY

FINSERV

“Compare that to your average AML (antimoney laundering) officer, and they are completely outgunned. The only way that you can begin to solve this is through the application of technology,” Dixon says.

Some experts also predict the permanent shift towards digital banking and contactless payments will lead to great levels of fraud – accelerating the trend towards using AI to track and identify malicious activity such as card payments and identity theft.

Jane Loginova, CEO and co-founder of Radar Payments, explains, "Artificial intelligence possesses the sophisticated power to replicate the analytical behaviour of human intelligence, as well as enable decision-making in real-time and offer predictive security notifications.”

She believes financial institutions and fintechs will continue to invest in AI based security systems that “can significantly reduce digital attacks and spot suspicious activity in real-time.” fintechmagazine.com

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FINSERV

“We need regulation to keep customers and their data from being exploited and to protect their civil liberties” SHAWN TAN

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF AI ECOSYSTEM BUILDER, SKYMIND

Loginova says the best systems will be integrated with artificial neural networks (ANN), which, combined with deep-learning models, will speed up data analysis and decision-making.

She adds, “It will also enable the network to nimbly adapt to new information it encounters in its system."

The customer experience Ultimately though, AI has been most effectively employed as a vehicle for customer centric services. Aside from trouble-shooting chatbots, the technology provides an almost unending array of solutions to make life easier for the customer and incentivise the marketplace.

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Jenny Hotchin, Legal Practice Lead, iManage, helps law firms with financial services practices and in-house legal teams in organisations (including financial services firms) deliver legal services more effectively using technology, including AI. In her opinion, it is the handling of financial services through AI technology that has taken its usage to a new level.

The advanced nature of AI today already greatly exceeds the average person’s data literacy level, Hotchin says, which is one of the reasons for increased regulation, including the proposed new AI Act. “I was one of those people that would only go and look once my card had been

FINSERV

“We get frustrated as the user experience we tolerate in our working lives is often far inferior to that which we enjoy in our consumer lives,” she says.

Indeed, Hotchin argues that the increasing reliance on AI is not motivated by technological advancement but rather by human understanding of how best to apply it “usefully across all areas of the firm in a way that is rewarding and therefore adopted.”

rejected for lack of funds. Even when I had online banking and a banking app in my hand, the experience was such that I checked it no more than once a week.

“Now the user experience I get from challenger banks, products and services is so rewarding I have totally changed my behaviour. I don’t just know my bank balance. I know what is going on with my mortgage, my savings, my investments, even my pension.”

Hotchin points out that consumers are so used to a seamless user experience that if it isn’t provided, they will simply seek it elsewhere. It’s become an expectation of the financial services space.

The future of AI in financial services As AI continues to be a growing force within fintech, experts believe its usage will spread across more sectors, increasing crossovers which will inevitably result in tensions – most specifically in the area of access to data.

The pandemic has also caused an accelerated shift away from physical and towards digital communication, affecting the entire financial industry.

But the motivation to increase AI within the sector will ultimately be driven by how much financial services organisations invest into upskilling their workforce. This upskilling is required to get real value from democratising insights, says Spencer Tuttle, SVP WW Sales at ThoughtSpot, the AI & search-driven analytics provider.

“According to the data, the industry is at a halfway point when it comes to upskilling their employees, with 49% of respondents saying training initiatives for employees to better understand AI are currently in place.”

He adds, “An end goal is to be able to react at the speed of thought to changing conditions, markets, and information: Making the best use of time because getting to understanding has not been a fast process in the history of business intelligence.

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TRIPACTIONS

HOW ONE FINTECH COMPANY EVOLVED FOR THE FUTURE WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND PRODUCED BY: JAMES WHITE

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TRIPACTIONS

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Example of an image caption

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TRIPACTIONS

For TripActions, the challenge of the pandemic sent innovation into overdrive—and positioned the company as a global leader in travel and spend management

T

he pandemic may have irrevocably changed the worldwide business climate, but some companies have managed to turn adversity into opportunity, by making agile changes that drive innovation.

That’s exactly what happened at TripActions, the leading international corporate travel and spend management platform, said Robin Gandhi, the company’s SVP of Product and Payments. Since the onset of the pandemic, a series of strategic expansions has transformed TripActions from a travel management company into an end-to-end travel and spend solution—and a respected trailblazer in the fintech space. “While it’s been a difficult time for us in the travel industry,” he explains, “we’ve been able to really innovate and prepare for our customers to get back to normal.”

Here’s how TripActions has positioned the company for the future.

Pandemic expansions As disruptive as the pandemic has been, it’s what companies have spent this period focusing on that will define how well they perform moving forward. TripActions has used the time to create innovative new functionality, improve existing functionality, and plan for what comes next. On the travel side of the business, this includes releasing enhanced notifications for health restrictions, finding more seamless ways to repurpose unused travel credits, and building functionality to easily enable group and event travel so remote teams can meet more easily. fintechmagazine.com

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The Modern Era of 'No Expenses' with TripActions Liquid ™

That shift to a more remote workforce also hastened change on the payments and expense side of the business, says Gandhi.

“We recognized the acceleration of digital payments and the need to capture both travel and non-travel spend in real time.”

After all, a distributed and remote workforce requires employees to shift their spend to spot purchasing transactions (for things like office supplies and digital subscriptions) and make more business spend decisions on their own. CFOs and controllers want to give their employees the ability to make these decisions without losing control and visibility over where and why employees are spending.

This remote workforce will also expand travel spend scenarios for trips like headquarter visits or team meetings. “You have employees like engineers who almost never travelled pre-pandemic, who are now going to be flying three to four times in a year,” says Gandhi, “and they will need to 48

August 2021

book flights, stay in hotels, take Lyfts, buy food, drinks, and go out on team outings.

That's a big shift that finance teams need to think about.”

The launch of TripActions Liquid These were just some of the goals for TripActions LiquidTM—a fintech solution purpose-built for enabling spending to happen digitally, seamlessly, and without putting the company at risk.

The larger goals of TripActions Liquid have been focused on two areas that are especially important to finance teams right now: saving time and saving money. Digital payments can reduce the time it takes for finance teams to review and reconcile spend manually, says Gandhi, so they can focus on strategies to drive the business forward.

TripActions Liquid is also an essential tool for tracking where spend is happening.

CFOs and controllers are hyper-focused on ensuring that there is clear visibility on

TRIPACTIONS

ROBIN GANDHI TITLE: SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND PAYMENTS INDUSTRY: COMPUTER SOFTWARE

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: UNITED STATES Robin Gandhi is the Senior Vice President of Product Management and Payments. He leads the product, engineering, design, and operations efforts for TripActions' Liquid offering, the next-generation spend management solution.

Prior to TripActions, Robin headed Adyen's global issuing offering as well as acquiring and partnerships for North America, working with the global card schemes, banks, financial institutions, and third-party partners that make omnichannel commerce possible for their merchants across the globe. He has a strong payments background, having come to Adyen from Digital River World Payments.

In addition, Robin has over 10 years in management consulting, having spent time at Accenture and Mitchell Madison Group. He also founded his own firm, Broadroots Consulting, which was acquired by the New York-based agency, Converseon. Robin holds an MBA from the top-ranked INSEAD business school in Fontainebleau, France.

“ One of the key reasons for TripActions’ success has been our laser focus on user experience” ROBIN GANDHI

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND PAYMENTS, TRIPACTIONS

TRIPACTIONS

and control is pretty powerful—not only for me as a user, but also for my finance team.”

Another money-saving benefit of techforward solutions: a reduction in fraud.

With so many businesses relying on remote workers and online commerce solutions during the pandemic, the opportunities for hacks and breaches have skyrocketed.

Gandhi believes that context-driven data, coupled with artificial intelligence (AI), is the most efficient way to monitor transactions, secure data, and avoid attacks.

That’s why the company built TripActions Liquid with AI functionality. “We can notice trends that could indicate fraudulent behavior more quickly, so companies can stop bad actors and keep company funds safe,“ he points out.

AI can also use receipt and merchant data to better categorise spend and improve how transactions are classified, making it more seamless for employees and finance teams to reconcile without manual intervention. every penny, says Gandhi, and they need the detailed level of information—in real time— that tech-forward solutions can provide.

“Knowing the exact state of the business in real time can allow companies to make better financial decisions,” he says.

With the digitisation of payments and people located all over the world, a lot of spending (that’s not T&E and not procurement) can happen with a virtual card. TripActions Liquid allows a company to generate a virtual card for a single vendor that the company can refill with a certain amount of money every month, quarter, or year.

Gandhi explains, “As an example, I can get a single purchase card for my NetSuite membership that renews every year for $5,000 and only works with that vendor.

Tracking spending with that kind of visibility

Customer centricity A focus on the user lies at the heart of many business strategies these days, especially in fintech. For TripActions, customer centricity

“ While it’s been a difficult time for us in the travel industry, we’ve been able to really innovate and prepare for our customers to get back to normal” ROBIN GANDHI

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND PAYMENTS, TRIPACTIONS

TRIPACTIONS

T&E FRUSTRATIONS According to a TripActions survey, businesses are experiencing these common frustrations in managing their T&E

DID YOU KNOW...

is not just essential to its strategy, but a core component of the company mission. Gandhi believes this philosophy has been a game changer for the company.

He explains, “One of the key reasons for TripActions’ success on the travel side has been our laser focus on user experience.

From the beginning, we always believed that we needed to create delightful experiences for the end customer.”

TripActions Liquid grew from the same philosophy. “Whether the user is the employee submitting the expense, the manager reviewing the expense, or the finance team approving and reconciling the expense,” says Gandhi, “we want to ensure that we’re providing the best possible experience for everyone.”

41% cited chasing receipts 29% cited time wasted in reconciliation 26% said they had no visibility into real-time spending 4% said they had no payment audit trail

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TRIPACTIONS

2015

Year founded

1,200+

Number of employees

50+

Markets globally

5,000+

Corporate customers

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TRIPACTIONS

“Knowing the exact state of the business in real time can allow companies to make better financial decisions” ROBIN GANDHI

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND PAYMENTS, TRIPACTIONS

Employees have also traditionally disliked doing expenses because the process was more focused on getting the expenses into the ERP rather than improving the overall experience. “That experience is what we’re changing, by completely eliminating the idea of expense reports, and it’s why we’re seeing such high interest in our offering.”

Strategic partners Such developments would not be possible without the close collaboration of strong partners, and TripActions has strategically constructed its network using a multipronged approach. The first step involved building an infrastructure that could support a seamless, user-friendly experience to handle the complex processes involved in spend management.

TRIPACTIONS

Powering In-Person Connections to Move Businesses Forward | TripActions

Most of these solutions didn’t exist five years ago. But recently, a number of great fintech infrastructure companies like Stripe, Plaid, and Modern Treasury have changed how we think about issuing, acquiring, and bank integrations. “It’s helpful to have access to these offerings as we reinvent the idea of expense management as we know it,” Gandhi says.

Strategic partnerships TripActions partnered with Stripe as the issuer processor, a key component of the system. Having a modern issuer processor allows decision making to occur at the 54

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moment an employee swipes a card. “We can immediately check on a few things,” says Gandhi, “such as where the employee is located, based on their travel booking and the location of the merchant; who the employee is with, based on their calendar; and what that employee is allowed to spend, based on their policy.” With Stripe, these checks happen in milliseconds as transactions occur, allowing the TripActions system to make approval decisions dynamically, instead of setting controls beforehand.

Having a global card network also helped TripActions reach customers and secure transactions. The company uses the Visa

TRIPACTIONS

“ Every tech-forward company now has an opportunity to be a part of the fintech ecosystem” ROBIN GANDHI

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND PAYMENTS, TRIPACTIONS

network, offering full coverage wherever TripActions customers are located and allowing instant provisioning of cards to mobile devices.

Gandhi explains that the final piece is the bank connectors, for which TripActions uses Plaid and Modern Treasury. “They enable us to connect directly into employee bank accounts, to pay them back instantly for reimbursements in policy, and to pull personal card transactions for reimbursements,” he says.

Thinking ahead Over the next five to 10 years, Gandhi predicts that more companies will leverage fintechmagazine.com

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a similar multiplayer approach to convert a non-financial service business into a fintech product, with the goal of providing a richer overall customer experience.

“Every tech-forward company now has an opportunity to be a part of the fintech ecosystem, by leveraging the tools being built by these infrastructure companies,” Gandhi says.

The problem-solving solutions that fintechs offer are also making companies

more efficient, as processes and transactions are much better tracked. “At the core, digital payments infrastructure through fintech enables companies to better monitor where and when money is being spent in real time—and for what purpose.”

But at the heart of any successful enterprise today, he emphasises, is a great user experience built on top of best-ofbreed fintech infrastructure. “In our case, we built a killer user experience on top

TRIPACTIONS

“ Combining multiple technologies across a single product vision means we can eliminate the very concept of expenses” ROBIN GANDHI

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND PAYMENTS, TRIPACTIONS

of our own proprietary travel inventory infrastructure.”

It has proved to be a winning combination.

While other travel companies are struggling, TripActions has diversified into offerings that simplify processes for the customer and provide swift solutions. “When you take what we can do with travel bookings and combine it with what we’re building around payments and expenses, the result allows us to bring end-to-end, real-time spend visibility to a company at a level that very few others can provide.”

He continues, “Combining all of these technologies across a single product vision means we can eliminate the very concept of expenses, from submission to approval to reconciliation.”

All of these changes add up to limitless opportunity, says Gandhi. The travel side of the business will be essential, because hybrid and remote work will result in more employees travelling more often for company and team meetings.

And the spend management side of the business will be just as important: With employees coming to the office less often, TripActions Liquid offers them ways to make business decisions on their own—without putting the company at risk.

“Between our travel and payments business, we’re thinking of all of these things,” says Gandhi, “and we’re excited about the new normal.”

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INTANGIBLE ASSETS WILL RESHAPE BANKS’ VALUE POST-COVID BANKING

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BANKING

With commentary from Broadridge and Clear Review, we determine how COVID-19 has changed HR and why intangible assets are giving banks a competitive edge WRITTEN BY: WILL GIRLING

“ As this younger generation begins careers in financial services, they will redefine the inputs that shape the market” RICHARD STINGI

CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICER, BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS

S

hifting generational attitudes, technological innovation, and the COVID-19 pandemic have come together to make human capital resource planning one of the most defining aspects of financial strategy, and this no less true in banking.

Now that an estimated 71% of global customers are opting to use digital banking channels weekly and record numbers of physical branches are subsequently closing even as the pandemic begins to ease, it should come as no surprise that the way bank staff operate is changing too.

Remote working goes mainstream Nick Gallimore, Director of Talent Transformation at human capital management software firm Clear Review, clearly believes that this change won’t dissipate any time soon, “[COVID-19] has proved that remote working is not only possible for the banking sector, but that, under the right circumstances, it can actually be more productive than traditional working models.” In fact, Gallimore suggests that banks’ individual approaches to remote working will form an important point of competitive differentiation in the talent market. This is an opinion that appears to broadly conform with public opinion, which indicates a general preference for ‘hybrid’ fintechmagazine.com

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How Citizens Bank Digitally Transformed Credit Card Fraud and Claims Processes In an era where customer experience can make or break your financial institution, banks have to optimize and automate or risk getting left behind.

REGISTER NOW WATCH NOW

Featuring Guest Speakers From:

BANKING

(i.e. a set number of days both in and out of the office) working structures moving forwards.

Previously, structuring bank workers in this way was undesirable for businesses, particularly in an environment that both prioritised face-to-face engagement and lacked mature digital platforms to make it feasible. According to Richard Stingi, Chief Human Resources Officer at Broadridge Financial Solutions, recent events (“like nothing in modern business history”) have upended this paradigm. Focusing particularly on the hiring and talent acquisition aspect, he highlights three notable benefits: • A more streamlined interview process using video conferencing applications that eliminated the necessity for travel or “ducking out of the office” • The dissolution of geographic boundaries when sourcing talent • A new ‘connected workplace’ mentality that emphasises flexibility and employee satisfaction

“ The businesses that will thrive in the post-pandemic era are those who focus on hiring people based on the true predictors of success: cognitive ability, soft skills, value, and behavioural fit” NICK GALLIMORE

DIRECTOR OF TALENT TRANSFORMATION, CLEAR REVIEW

Culture and the war on talent At the same time, a rise in the desire for staff composition to reflect a bank’s cultural values, particularly diversity and inclusion, also indicates that there is a tangible business case for changing the status quo.

“Greater diversity within organisations leads to greater innovation, higher quality outputs, and ultimately better financial results,” states Stingi. “The sooner companies rewrite the rules about where they recruit from, how they bring talent into the fold, and how they retain that talent, the sooner we will achieve greater workplace diversity as an industry.” Gallimore generally agrees but also goes one step further: banks’ focus on these issues ultimately stems from society’s own concern; if they do not accommodate modern values, they face fintechmagazine.com

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BANKING

Nick Gallimore TITLE: DIRECTOR OF TALENT TRANSFORMATION COMPANY: CLEAR REVIEW LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM Clear Review is a leading human capital management software business, and I work directly with our customer base, supporting them with their key people transformation projects.

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long-term downturn as top talent goes elsewhere. “We are already seeing a real shift in candidate behaviour, and the inclusivity of an organisation has moved right to the top level of importance when candidates are assessing employers’ brands.”

What Gallimore is alluding to is the ongoing ‘war on talent’, which is only becoming more crucial as technology is increasingly linked with finance. According to Stingi, winning in the current financial environment will be predicated on maintaining an emphasis on ‘flexibility’, thereby enabling employees to skip long commutes and spend more time with their families without sacrificing productivity.

“However, the flexibility in the work environment is in some ways a doubleedged sword, as talent retention is just as important as talent sourcing, and new flexibility gives way to current employees

BANKING

Richard Stingi TITLE: CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICER COMPANY: BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS LOCATION: UNITED STATES

deciding to change careers,” he adds. “It is, therefore, more important than ever to remain connected with current staff.”

Gallimore also suggests that present hiring issues are more of a cultural constraint within banks than a ‘scarcity’ of talent per se. “Many financial organisations make the mistake of creating very narrow definitions

“ Greater diversity within organisations leads to greater innovation, higher quality outputs, and ultimately better financial results” RICHARD STINGI

CHIEF HUMAN RESOURCES OFFICER, BROADRIDGE FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS

Broadridge is a global fintech leader with more than US$4.5bn in revenues. We provide the critical infrastructure that powers investing, corporate governance, and communications to enable better financial lives. In my role, I lead improvement and transformation initiatives across our HR department.

of what ‘good’ looks like. The businesses that will thrive in the post-pandemic era are those who focus on hiring people based on the true predictors of success: cognitive ability, soft skills, value, and behavioural fit.”

Prioritising intangible assets Shifting generational demographics and attitudes are magnifying the ongoing reassessment of corporate value – the 2015 Cone Communications Millennial CSR Study found: • 90% of millennials are willing to switch brands based on their values • 66% engage with CSR/ESG via social media • 62% would willingly take a pay cut to work for a more responsible company fintechmagazine.com

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BANKING

It should be noted that all of these statistics were higher than the US average. Therefore, it appears that a bank’s future success is becoming increasingly grounded in the richness of its intangible assets (culture, values, goals, strategy, employee engagement, etc.) Both Gallimore and Stingi consider this expansion of employee consciousness in finance to be an unequivocally good thing.

“As this younger generation begins careers in financial services, they will redefine the inputs that shape the market,” says Stingi.

“The next generation will also change what the future of work itself looks like in financial services. They are looking for flexibility and are taking advantage of this unique moment in time to do so.” As such, post-COVID banks are likely to emerge as brands more focused on social issues and employee well-being. In this new arena, individual corporate approaches will form the basis of value propositions for both new and existing employees.

“ Under the right circumstances, [remote working] can actually be more productive than traditional working models” NICK GALLIMORE

DIRECTOR OF TALENT TRANSFORMATION, CLEAR REVIEW

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Looking ahead to 2022 and beyond, Gallimore warns of the high levels of “attrition debt” built up in a job market blighted by pandemic-related uncertainty. “As that confidence begins to return, and as businesses show their hands on hybrid working moving forwards, I expect a significant amount of employee turnover.” At that moment of reckoning, he argues, the importance of company culture will be thrown into

BANKING

sharp relief. Stingi concludes by pointing out that COVID-19 has placed new emphasis on the importance of HR departments and leaders, particularly as they established employee well-being strategies. “Now, more than ever, HR executives need to view

themselves as a critical support system of their company’s overall well-being.” Hopefully, the current global health crisis will soon be consigned to the annals of history. Banks must ensure that the lessons learned during this time are not similarly forgotten.

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CPQi

BANK ON THE RIGHT OUTCOME AND FUTURE PROOF YOUR INSTITUTION WRITTEN BY: DAN BRIGHTMORE

PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

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CPQi

CPQi is creating an ecosystem of partners and solutions to drive the digital transformation of financial services

C

PQi is headquartered in Canada and operates across the Americas in Brazil, the USA, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Peru. Exclusively offering Fintech services managed by experienced banking-trained staff, CPQi partners with the likes of Calypso, Murex, Moody’s and Finastra offering solutions that substantially reduce costs for complicated major platforms.

Digital Transformation Digital transformation has swept across the banking industry. As the provision of financial services adapts to the developing digital demands of consumers, key trends have begun to emerge. Reacting to those trends, CPQi boasts the successful delivery of over 25 platform projects and numerous build projects with a keen focus on digital transformation. The company’s CEO, Terry Boyland, has positioned CPQi to support the technological evolutions reshaping how the world does business via four key pillars: Cloud, DevOps, Artificial Intelligence and an Omnichannel strategy.

Toronto business district, Canada

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Cloud Migration “What is digital transformation?” asks Boyland. “We have our own philosophy at CPQi where we look at it in four different ways… It begins with migration to the cloud, which allows us to do three things: increase agility, lower budgetary expenses and move away from the CapEx associated with legacy infrastructure.” Boyland notes cloud is a managed service in its own right, where the need for people to be involved is limited to a certain number – a plus during the pandemic. Scalability is key.

Using onsite equipment to protect sensitive

CPQi

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CPQI: driving banking forward

financial information can be costly. This is especially true when business and demand scale up. With the cloud, your platform scales automatically and can handle heavy workloads as and when required, enabling remote work environments and greater efficiency.

DevOps “The second path towards digital transformation for CPQi is the way in which we deliver new technologies,” explains Boyland. “The methods have changed; gone are the days of the waterfall when things were designed by business analysts, signed off in blood, went through coding – change controls were huge. They went through testing, and by the time you got to the end of a three-year program, some of the things you were delivering were no longer relevant.

Today, with the agile methods underpinning approaches like DevOps, these methods are more important where we're looking at what we can get out of the squad within a 70

August 2021

given time through user stories. And that's where our geographical spread comes into play because squads need to be awake at the same time to be highly effective. The second pillar is the introduction of Agile methods and, and the cultural change around the delivery of DevOps.” DevOps prioritises the speed of delivery without sacrificing quality. It’s a method requiring continuous development and

“ As business models evolve in this fastchanging world, we know that the ability to be agile is essential to success” TERRY BOYLAND CEO, CPQI

CPQi

TERRY BOYLAND

2007

TITLE: FOUNDER & CEO INDUSTRY: COMPUTER SOFTWARE

Year founded

LOCATION: CANADA

250+

Employees trained in both banking and technology

Terry is board level professional and one of the leading names in the Americas for the investment banking, Digital Transformation and technology industries. With over twenty five years of senior experience he is currently Chief Executive of the CPQi Group, the leading IBTech services provider for the Americas and was a co-founder of Cubelogic (bought by Openlink) as well as MDX Technology. A regular speaker and writer he has appeared in conference for The Economist, Financial Times, AITEC and the DTI. He has had articles published in The Banker and The FT along with other journals.

30+

Clients in over 11 countries across the Americas

Predictive Technologies “People talk about AI,” reasons Boyland.

“And when you think about what they're trying to do with it, a lot of organisations we've worked with are employing teams of data scientists simply to be able to find out what their data looks like. But we look at it differently. We say that predictive technologies, that's all they offer, predictions. If you look at your existing workflows and you find predictions in those workflows, you can change that prediction, whether it's done in Excel, for example, and replace it with an AI model and get a better-quality prediction that's far more reliable; then you are able to simply plug that into your existing workflow without re-engineering your entire business process and achieve some immediate benefit.”

The benefits AI can deliver include the automation of customer identification and authorisation tasks, the creation of

EXECUTIVE BIO

testing which offers many benefits for banking: continuously updated software deliveries; automation of many technical aspects and maintenance tasks that boost productivity; increased collaboration, and the creation of more time and opportunities for innovation.

Treasury & Capital Markets

Financial institutions of all sizes are tasked with powering local economies and providing best-in-class services for treasury and capital markets. This is no easy task as the complexities of the current economic climate have created more variables and uncertainty than ever before.

ENABLING ECONOMIES: Banks can further drive social inclusion by making finance available to more people. The funds allow economic agents – people – to invest in their ventures.

They help businesses launch, grow and diversify, strengthening local economies, and facilitating investment and opportunity in developing economies, thus enabling economic mobility. This is fundamental for robust and sustainable growth.

DRIVERS OF GROWTH: Banks clearly have the power to fuel growth and development. In fact, it has been argued that the smooth running of a country’s economic activities depends on an efficient banking system1, while others cite banks’ abilities to foster economic growth through funding productive projects as a prerequisite for economic growth.

LOCAL TO GLOBAL IMPACT: The impact of banking organizations can be seen as well on a larger scale as multilateral development banks (MDBs) – such as the World Bank or a regional bank such as the EBRD, or African Development Bank – have a hugely positive impact on public health, peace, security, climate change and digitization.

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THE FUTURE OF FINANCE IS OPEN

CPQi

“ CPQi has the privilege of partnering with Finastra – one of the top three Fintechs in the world today. We also partner with the other major platform delivery companies for trading risks” TERRY BOYLAND CEO, CPQI

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responsive conversational interfaces (chatbots) for front office banking, and enhanced fraud and risk management delivered with AI’s more efficient analytics capabilities.

Omnichannel Strategy As the financial services industry increases its digital presence, accessibility has become a priority. “You must be able to execute on any channel that a client wants to deploy,” affirms Boyland. “Channels have enabled us to electronically rebuild the communities we've lost during the lockdown. Well-constructed channels allow us to bring on board new customers and clients who are looking for a connected experience.”

Mobile accessibility is crucial – online, in-person, or over-the-phone business must be utilised to deliver an omnichannel experience. “Channel strategies are key to our development,” says Boyland. “CPQi works across all of these from north to south in the Americas to deliver meaningful change.”

The greatest change in the delivery of financial services in a generation Boyland believes we are in the midst of the biggest change in the history of banking…

“Three major themes are beginning to emerge now within the financial markets,” he says. “Open banking may be far more prevalent in Europe than it is here in the Americas, but the philosophy behind it is huge… simply stating that I own my financial data and that I can direct that financial data to wherever I want without constraints from a bank or insurance company. That basically gives me the right to build my own financial experience.

“And with that, I can construct my own Neobank, which is the second element we're seeing today. Fintech institutions that don't have a banking licence can borrow one from a bank. By using modern technology, all of the delivery methods are available to attack particular markets.

There are Neobanks focusing on the gaming community, others on the 18-25-year-old

DID YOU KNOW...

FINASTRA Finastra builds and deploys innovative, next-generation technology on its open Fusion software architecture and cloud ecosystem. Its scale and geographical reach enable it to serve customers effectively, regardless of their size or location – from global financial institutions to community banks and credit unions. “We’ve worked with Finastra since the early days when its Kondor system was part of Thomson Reuters,” remembers CPQi’s CEO Terry Boyland. “Kondor has been merged into

and built on via a suite of financial services applications from Finastra deployed under the Fusion banner. We believe the Fusion fabric is a tremendous product enabling organisations to use modern development methods through the cloud to access some of their legacy platforms and their existing engines underneath. We’ve worked with Finastra on a number of applications, both in Latin America and in North America.

They're great to work with and deservedly viewed as one of the top three financial technology firms in the world.”

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“ Many organisations use the expression DevSecOps; for us, that’s already a key feature of our approach to DevOps – it’s fully included in the services we offer” TERRY BOYLAND CEO, CPQI

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CPQi

Digital Transformation in Financial Markets

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SECURITY During the pandemic, and with the growing shift to remote working, the work from home/work from anywhere dynamic has seen cybersecurity tested by phishing, scamming and intrusion. “It’s a hot topic, that’s getting hotter,” agrees CPQi’s CEO Terry Boyland. “Many organisations use the expression DevSecOps; for us, that’s already a key feature of our approach to DevOps – it’s fully included in the services we offer. Organisations must have policies to protect themselves, to begin with. You need access to control policies, IT security policies, and your virus software must absolutely be up to date; your controls on access to remote systems from home, they've got to be tested on a regular basis, and penetration testing must be done regularly across your platforms…”

More recently, CPQi has found a particularly annoying strand of spoof emails from senior execs, asking people to take some time out and go and buy some Amazon or Apple gift cards. “You’d be surprised how often they cause problems,” notes Boyland.

“When you consider building your IT applications going forward, security

DID YOU KNOW...

must be the core element across the

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financial markets. One breach can be huge – it's not just the data breaches; it’s the breach of the financial markets and the systemic risk that’s involved. We just encourage all organisations, as we do, to retain the services of a CISO. That CISO must be fully involved in the life cycle of development and part of your methodology for project delivery.”

August 2021

market. These innovations don't come with a huge elephant-sized legacy of systems and processes, and they don't need a banking licence to proceed; they just need a bank to sponsor them.”

The change in open banking has ushered in the third biggest change – the rise of cryptocurrencies. “Crypto’s are becoming more mainstream,” highlights Boyland. “The American government is talking about a parallel electronic currency to the dollar, and Japan is considering the same. This should provide an element of stability, but what's more interesting is crypto 2.0 – tokenisation and the ability to represent one of, or any single asset as an electronic token, and to trade that asset on a blockchain-type system, as if it were a cryptocurrency.”

Partnering for success “CPQi has the privilege of partnering with Finastra – one of the top three Fintechs in the world today. We also partner with the other major platform delivery companies for trading risks. Murex and Calypso with Openlink are now part of the biome,”

CPQi

reveals Boyland. “One of our key partners is Moody's Analytics, which is more on the risk for a loan side. And then, with the move towards digital transformation, we've got established partnerships with Salesforce and with ServiceNow. All of those elements bring together a package enabling us to deliver both on the traditional training and risk systems and the move towards digital transformation.”

Boyland notes that many of the company’s partners have been undergoing their own transformations and migrations to the cloud – providing the opportunity to support and learn from each other. “It's not just about being able to get a major platform on the cloud; it's about the way in which the delivery of technology is done afterwards – typically using microservices and continuous integration, continuous deployment and automated testing in the cloud. And when you've got a platform that wasn't built for that, it can be quite challenging…

We’ve worked with many of our partners to

“ Channels have enabled us to electronically rebuild the communities we've lost during the lockdown. Wellconstructed channels allow us to bring on board new customers and clients who are looking for a connected experience” TERRY BOYLAND CEO, CPQI

understand how the functionality can be built out using the data that's sitting in those platforms without cannibalising their existing organisation – migration both on the grid and then onto the pure cloud for our partners.

For them, it's a different challenge because they have their legacy platforms out there.

For us, it's an opportunity, in addition to our partner work, to work also more lightly and exclusively on specific microservice-based cloud developments which are native to the cloud from the beginning.”

Expansion Boyland believes the future is very bright for CPQi. “There’s no let-up to demand right now. We work across all of the major economies in the Americas and successfully navigate their tremendous cultural differences.

If we look at Brazil with its spirit of adventure and incredible optimism, there’s a high level of sophistication in their banking systems which, in some ways, are far more advanced than North America. The offshore centre that we have in the North-Eastern city of Fortaleza still serves that community there. And what we're beginning to see is that as demand continues to increase dramatically, organisations that previously wanted their work done in major centres like Rio de Janeiro or in Sao Paulo are now

CPQi

willing to accept that these things can be done remotely. And that's going to be great economically for the North East of Brazil, both in Fortaleza and other areas we're thinking about.”

“Here in the US, there’s also a tremendous pioneering spirit as well,” adds Boyland. “They led much of the early offshoring to Virginia, and we've been delighted to divert some of that down to Latin America. And as we talk about the delivery of agile methods and the need for squads to be awake, there's a very clear understanding that same time zone delivering is important for our clients.”

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“In Canada, it’s a little more risk-averse,” observes Boyland. “In order to support that, we recently set up a centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We've gone from zero to 20 staff in the space of six weeks. And we're looking to expand that to around a hundred staff by the end of the year. It’s been driven by the high level of demand and the available pool of resourcing now that the acceptance of remote working is on the rise.”

Leading the future of banking innovation across the Americas Boyland is full of praise for a “phenomenal team” leading the implementation of the

CPQi

systems making innovation waves in the Latin American banking industry. “CPQi developed the first training systems that were done for certain types of derivative instruments in Chile and, when Brazil moved to a new system of retail trading derivatives, CPQi was proud to work with the stock exchange in implementing the platform that would register those types of trades (the post-trade registration of derivatives). We've implemented platforms in Argentina, which, following a period of stagnation, are the first major change in the Argentinian banking sector for many years. Meanwhile, up here in North America, we're pleased to work with

organisations like Manulife in helping them change the way in which they're using their training risk systems – particularly with the Bank of Montreal. We're also excited to work with Moody's Analytics, Cargill and MetLife in helping them improve the quality of their delivery to their internal customer base.”

Both in terms of the technology and the banking changes, CPQi’s teams have been able to lead. Boyland is proud to see his team maintaining the agility to consistently break new ground for the delivery of financial services.

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THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL ECOSYSTEMS IN THE FINTECH SPACE 82

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PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

Outsourcing technical processes has helped the fintech industry scale fast. But what is the future for digital partnerships once the industry matures?

F WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND

intech is growing at an incredible rate, with the pandemic having accelerated industry growth.

According to data collected by the market research company Toptal Finance, the global fintech market was worth $127.66bn in 2018, with a predicted annual growth rate of 25% until 2022, to $309.98 bn.

However, the Bank of England released a report recently that revealed some fintech sectors had grown by 40% over the duration of 2020 and a recent survey by Whitelane Research and PA consulting showed that a staggering 33% of UK businesses surveyed in their report plan to increase their outsourcing over the next 12 months.

Digital partnerships and fintech The sheer rate of fintech company growth is the primary driver behind the partnership ecosystem, says Michael Donald, founder and chairman of the board at Image N Pay. He explains, “I believe that virtual partners have become such a big fixture in fintech because the industry moves so fast, and a partner that was right for you last year might not be right for you the following year. To adapt, change and scale at pace, a virtual partner actually becomes something that is there at the right place and right time, but potentially is not there for forever.”

The flexibility digital partnerships provide means fintechs can outsource an array fintechmagazine.com

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of technical and process-related services.

These can be anything from cybersecurity and payment solution providers to marketing and website development as well as cloudification and IT. Donald points out that because businesses are no longer fixed within the confines of their buildings and access to online solutions is so good; contracting has

become an essential part of business management.

“It becomes a flexible way of working, whereby tasks can start in South America in the afternoon, and finish in Australia the next day, and you can have a 24/7 follow the sun type approach, while still being a small startup.”

It creates customer centricity An essential part of any successful fintech, customer-centricity requires the latest technology and innovation so that companies can remain competitive. Frank Uittenbogaard, Regional VP, Europe, Backbase, explains, “For most financial institutions, their focus has to remain on the core of their business: their customers.”

He says that in order to maintain this focus while simultaneously keeping up with the competition in digitalisation and innovation, fintechmagazine.com

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PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

“ VIRTUAL PARTNERS IN DIFFERENT PLACES AROUND THE WORLD HELP SCALABILITY, NOT ONLY IN THE EARLY STAGES BUT AS AN ORGANISATION MATURES” MICHAEL DONALD CEO AND FOUNDER, IMAGE N PAY

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digital partners are key. “Managed, hosted platform offerings such as Backbaseas-a-service are undoubtedly the way forward,” he says.

“They mean that financial institutions don’t need to do everything themselves, allowing them to focus on their customers, while still ensuring the critical speed of innovation required in today’s landscape.”

As platforms are all about orchestrating value and centring experiences around the customer, there has been a fundamental shift in the way users interact with their service providers, says Uittenbogaard, who believes the shift has changed things for the long term.

Three reasons why fintechs need digital partnerships 1. Cost-effective Outsourcing to a specialised technology service provider means not having to retrain staff or recruit experts to run it and increased budget control and transparency.

“There is no turning back – and that includes banking providers. Financial institutions will only survive if they adopt this strategy. And if they need speed, the only route forward is to partner with a digital provider to adopt this platformbased approach.”

COVID-19 and digital partners Another driver of the digital partnership ecosystem is the pandemic, which forced the accelerated digitisation of companies and shifted the business mindset on its axis. Working with and outsourcing to a company that operates in another time

2. Flexibility Outsourcing to experts reduces the chances of making a bad hire and blowing the budget on new in-house technology. Furthermore, companies try a number of options until they get the right fit rather than making an expensive mistake that they have to live with.

3. Faster market delivery If one company can offer a faster service, this is often enough to differentiate them from the competition. The better the tech, the faster the service

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PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

zone might, at the beginning of 2020, have been an emergency measure. But now, that mindset has changed the way companies are operating and growing.

“Virtual partners in different places around the world help scalability, not only in the early stages but as an organisation matures,” points out Donald, using Image N Pay’s experience with contracted outsourcing as an example.

“We use a legal company as a virtual partner. As one of the top Q.C.s in the country, he will always be part of our business model. We use different 88

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organisations such as EPAM, which are global and a $24bn company, although all their employees are working virtually, and I have never met them in the two years that I've been working with them.”

Incumbents and virtual partnerships As technology and digital transformation changes the way all businesses operate, larger companies have more to gain than ever before from outsourcing tasks to specialist companies.

This is particularly true for those that rely on legacy systems that are rapidly being

PAYMENT SOLUTIONS

“ THE ONLY ROUTE FORWARD IS TO PARTNER WITH A DIGITAL PROVIDER TO ADOPT THIS PLATFORM-BASED APPROACH” FRANK UITTENBOGAARD REGIONAL VP, EUROPE, BACKBASE

left behind in terms of cybersecurity, data analytics and aggregation and real-time solutions. Donald believes these companies need innovative technology partners more than ever because they need to protect their data, must offer customer-centric services and operate with the speed of smaller, agile startups.

“I would absolutely advocate virtual partners for established companies.

Incumbents do not move at the pace of fintechs. Therefore, if they go with the old school approach to bring in big companies to work with big companies, that will actually slow down the pace of change,” he says.

Uittenbogaard says that with traditional financial institutions experiencing average abandonment rates of between 70% and 90%, leveraging a digital partner that can not only provide a platform that is managed and hosted for them but can engineer a forwardthinking solution with the customer front of mind can be the difference between “sinking or swimming.”

Meanwhile, other experts point to a reimagining of the whole business ecosystem and the customer experience.

Paul Crerand, Field CTO EMEA, MuleSoft, says rather than interacting with each stakeholder individually, customers will come to expect a unified experience, “where products from multiple organisations are delivered as part of a single digital journey.

In this model, each organisation ceases to ‘own’ the customer, in favour of becoming part of a wider digital value chain.”

Crerand believes the most effective way to make this a reality is for fintechs to re-define their offerings as a platform underpinned by APIs because it enables them to unbundle and re-package all of their customer data and digital assets as a set of capabilities that are exposed for other organisations, such as retailers and insurers, to pick up and re-use.

He adds, “By taking this approach, every digital capability becomes a product that can be exposed to third parties via APIs, enabling other companies to incorporate fintech services into their own offerings.

“The more open fintechs become, the more opportunities they have to expand their ecosystem and improve the customer experience, taking advantage of new revenue streams in the process.”

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ČSOB

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CUSTOMER SERVICE POWERED

BY DATA MEETS ČSOB WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND

PRODUCED BY: JOE PALLISER

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ČSOB

ČSOB

ČSOB is revolutionising its services through the latest, cutting-edge technology. We caught up with its tech leaders to find out how they are doing it

A

ČSOB Campus

s one of the largest banks in the Czech Republic, ČSOB offers a full range of banking services to individuals and companies.

The bank is owned by Belgium-based KBC Bank and the whole group has taken enormous steps in the digital transformation of its business in recent years.

Now it is shifting up a gear by introducing the personal and fully digital assistant, Kate, which is powered by data, Artificial Intelligence technology and straight-through processing.

The technology enables clients to be served in a personal way, taking into account their situation and needs.

Ludek Slegr, ČSOB’s IT Executive Director (CIO), joined the bank eight years ago following several years in the German business industry, working for companies such as Deutsche Post DHL. His return to the Czech Republic was an intentional one, yet he was mindful that he still wanted to work in an international environment. ČSOB has given him that opportunity, as well as the chance to innovate through technology.

He explains, "My whole career has been spent working for international companies, starting with a German digital document management company, then working in the transportation sector for Deutsche Post DHL. But at some point, I felt like going home and I wanted to experience how Czech-based companies work. fintechmagazine.com

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ČSOB

"At the same time, I didn't want to completely lose touch with my international background, therefore I chose ČSOB. It's not just a Czech company, with KBC as its mother, it's a Belgium-owned bank insurance group. This presented for me the opportunity to check out the financial services industry."

Developments in financial services The past decade has been one of immense change for ČSOB impacting equally business and IT, driving them much closer together than ever before. The business needs have driven the technology side of things but 94

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also the transformation of the organisation in terms of business IT fusion for sake of efficiency and flexibility. ČSOB is now an entity that operates with agility, from its internal processes to its delivery of services to customers. “It cannot be overstressed how many changes we've gone through including those under the surface,” Slegr says, but swiftly focuses on future changes that are still pending for the bank as it is clear he feels as though there is still much to be done.

From a people perspective, the transition has been a great success, and has been achieved through nurturing an agile mindset,

ČSOB

LUDEK SLEGR TITLE: IT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (CIO) COMPANY: ČSOB After graduating at the Czech Technical University, Ludek went all the way from software development and service delivery to management in international environment. He started his career and learned IT business in German document management company. Then he entered deeply international corporation when he moved to Deutsche Post DHL. There he further developed his management, service delivery and project skills.

For 8 years now Ludek is working for ČSOB CZ and more than 3 years as CIO. The essence of his role is to make technology work best for the business.

He has been newly appointed ČSOB SK CIO to support bank´s migration to Temenos core system and integration of OTP bank and to develop IT function according to new needs.

" Technology is developing as we speak, and we need to focus on maximising the benefits of using cloud technologies, data, and AI” LUDEK SLEGR

says Roman Masek, Director, IT Digital Services for ČSOB. He explains, “We achieved our primary goal. Once the people adopted an agile mindset, they discovered its power and beauty and the more technical aspects clicked in place much easier. But the initial phase is far from easy and it is not for everybody. We are using the SAFE methodology framework with success, but the agility in minds of agile teams is the key ingredient to deliver business value faster.

We have proven that project and agile principles work very well together.”

EXECUTIVE BIO

IT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (CIO)

ČSOB

“ It's not just about going digital. We are now carefully selecting the companies we provide finance to”

JIRI HALOUZKA TITLE: DIRECTOR, IT CORE SERVICES COMPANY: ČSOB After graduating at the Czech Technical University, Jiri spent most of his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers. In various roles in audit and consulting Jiri was advising clients in the areas of risk, finance, process optimisation and regulation, among others. For 9 years now Jiri is working in ČSOB. The essence of his role is to provide core services to DevOps units in IT and business with responsibility for over 140 FTEs. Key areas of his responsibility are IT service level management, help desk, testing, release and change management, IT operational risk management, IT finance, IT integration and IT strategy, among others.

JIRI HALOUZKA

EXECUTIVE BIO

DIRECTOR, IT CORE SERVICES

ČSOB

Customer service powered by data meets ČSOB

Technology enabled solutions The digital transformation has been as much about streamlining processes as it has been about reorganising teams and their interactions. Slegr is aware of the pace of technological innovation, and he wants ČSOB to be ahead of the game.

"Technology is developing as we speak," he says, "and we need to focus on leveraging the power of data combined with AI techniques. These are elements that are strongly in our portfolio and we are working intensely to teach us how to use it for the client's benefit."

The pandemic has also been a driving force behind the digital changes of the past 18 months, although many of these developments were already planned and, in the pipeline,, but were “moved up the calendar” when COVID-19 hit.

He says that taking the bank’s staff away from the centralised offices and having them working from home was a surprisingly fintechmagazine.com

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ČSOB

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ČSOB

“ We achieved our primary goal. Once the people adopted an agile mindset, they discovered its power and beauty and the more technical aspects clicked in place much easier”

ROMAN MASEK TITLE: DIRECTOR, IT DIGITAL SERVICES COMPANY: ČSOB After graduating at the Czech Technological University, Roman started his career in T-Mobile as developer, continuing as IT manager responsible for development of internal IT systems and IT architect for whole group T-Mobile in Europe.

After joining in ČSOB 8 years ago, Roman took responsibility for Development and testing department, lately formed in DevOps unit with responsibility over 100 FTEs. Key areas of responsibility are full end-toend support for digital channels and automation deployment. Nowadays, Roman is also responsible for the IT agile transformation within ČSOB.

ROMAN MASEK

EXECUTIVE BIO

DIRECTOR OF IT AND DIGITAL SERVICES

ČSOB

successful endeavour, but at the same time, the sense of isolation has created difficulties in terms of building new teams. The answer has been a roadmap set out by ČSOB which has prioritised certain techniques and technologies that have helped create a more seamless experience for staff as well as customers.

“Our journey has been very much about using whatever technology we can to make

“ Allocating money to projects contributing to sustainability has a huge impact for the good of all of us. It’s future-proofing through finance” LUDEK SLEGR

IT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (CIO)

the experiences of our clients as smooth and simple as possible,” says Slegr.

"We employ many more technologies from the AI realm, which have allowed us to replace a lot of routine tasks carried out by our business colleagues in the past.

They range from image recognition to text understanding. This saves a lot of time.

Not just to us, but also our clients. And our colleagues can use the capacity for more creative work."

Straight through processing ČSOB focuses on Straight Through Processing (“STP”), which is essentially about avoiding any human interaction in sales and service transactions. It improves customer experience in terms of speed, quality and reduces costs at the same time.

Jiří Halouzka, Director, IT Core Services at ČSOB, says the systemic approach to this is of paramount importance for the bank and its employees. In the long run, we will be able to concentrate on better serving customers with more complex 100

August 2021

ČSOB

requirements, than managing the day to day routine transactions.

Halouzka explains, “Straight-through processing is where the transaction from the start to finish is done without human interaction. It is extremely important for ČSOB. Clients expect it. They want simple products and services.”

He says that if underlying processes are complicated and there is often a lot of human interaction in the back office, then a client won't be prepared to wait one week until the product is finally introduced. So, this is the external driver. "We want our staff focused on automation, instead of doing some let's say low-value manual work. This also makes our business more efficient and less costly."

Two key trends in corporate IT We experience two at first glance opposite tendencies, says Slegr. One is the business IT fusion which means that related IT and business teams collaborate and ultimately become one virtually or even in respect to line organisation. "We believe fusion is much more efficient than trying to align two separate," he explains.

Integration is the second trend, where common IT agendas are centralised, which increases efficiency, security and speed while having cost reduction potential.

“These two trends work well together and make the role of central core IT much more important,” says Slegr. “We still need and want to maintain some common standards.

It is advisable to have certain platforms, processes, policies, managed centrally.”

Halouzka points out that in addition to the obvious benefits of integration (like better efficiency), it's become much more difficult for smaller companies with their own small IT departments to maintain the very high-security standards which the bank fintechmagazine.com

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and the group demands. Therefore, ČSOB has created a lot of synergies by managing outside security teams as part of the bank's internal security department.

Strategic partnerships As part of the collaborations, ČSOB has entered into many partnerships. The one with GuideVision for ServiceNow stands out as service management is the backbone of every IT organisation. Slegr says that this partnership has been instrumental in assisting the bank in getting ahead with all its key processes.

"One of the huge benefits of using ServiceNow is that we have been able to standardise many of our processes and get rid of a multitude of tools, which are difficult to manage, and are also quite expensive to run," Slegr says.

The future of banking ČSOB is keen to differentiate itself from the crowd, and it is using innovative technology to provide its customers with 102

August 2021

a unique offering. Called Kate – the transformational solution is an AI-driven service bot that can handle virtually unlimited sets of tasks and has huge potential to expand into a centralised role in terms of providing personalised service to bank-insurance clients.

Slegr explains, "It's based around the idea that our clients will be served by the digital assistant. It resembles Siri or Alexa, but with financial expertise. We start with more basic use cases, but continuously add more elaborate ones.

They include both product sales and customer service. While our clients will interact mostly with Kate, the whole strategy and ecosystem goes much deeper. It starts with data, AI technology as well as straightthrough processing capability.

"The channels for Kate are different too.

The service may be delivered via the chatbot or voice bot, but the underlying information can be used as traditional lead, which is provided to the branch that way, to somebody

ČSOB

1964

Year Founded

5000+ Employees

1.4bn

Revenue (EUR)

who takes care of the client. So it nicely links all aspects together."

Distribution networks The digitisation of the bank has also changed the distribution network for ČSOB. The physical role of staff in branches is no longer the same as the online banking app handles much of the bank's day-to-day transactions.

Instead, Slegr says, those branch workers will gradually adopt a consulting role.

“Basic transactions were carried out manually in the past. But that’s not the case anymore, although there are and will be exceptions in more complicated cases.

But in the future, these colleagues will be taking much more of the role of financial consultants.”

Mixed offerings and sustainability As well as the technological side of things, the team believes banks also need to offer more products to customers, partnering with other industry companies to do so.

Along with this is a commitment to sustainability, with ČSOB deciding only to partner with organisations that support the Paris Climate Agreement and the zeroemissions agenda.

Halouzka says, "Our bank now has a strong focus on corporate social responsibility and sustainability. It's not just about going digital. We are now carefully selecting the companies we provide finance to. For example, we don't provide financing to companies from the military industry or coal mining. So this is an area which very strongly is becoming part of our culture."

Slegr agrees. He adds, “Before joining the banking and financial service industry, I didn’t realise how much power and related responsibility the banks have in this regard.

Allocating money to projects contributing to sustainability has huge impact for the good of all of us. It’s future-proofing through finance.”

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THE

BIG QUESTION:

Is governance blocking fintech’s growth?

IN OUR LATEST VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE, SPEAKERS FROM DELOITTE, ZAFIN, AND SHEARMAN & STERLING WEIGH IN ON THE TOPIC OF GOVERNANCE AND ITS PLACE IN FINTECH

WRITTEN BY: WILL GIRLING

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F

ew would dispute that compliance and regulation are necessary for modern fintech; the long-term well-being of customers, businesses, and, ultimately, society all depend on robust governance.

Yet, as fintech becomes gradually more established and the digital arenas within which it operates become more broadly understood, could factors meant to protect a company actually impede its development?

Fintech is achieving feats previously inconceivable for traditional finance, but this strength has the potential to become a weakness: new technologies and operating models take time to understand. If the sector’s growth continues at its present rate, or even accelerates, will regulators implement complex new legislation or simply introduce ‘blanket’ rules? The latter tangibly fails to accommodate the disruptive (i.e. unprecedented) element of fintech, while the former risks alienating those too cautious to navigate inhibitive webs of regulation.

Helping us to discover what the future of fintech governance might look like, the role of technology in evolving global finance, and how companies can prepare themselves culturally are:

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Meet the commentators

Suchitra Nair (SN) Partner, Deloitte EMEA Centre for Regulatory Strategy

Hali Khan (HK) VP EMEA, Zafin

Q. As finance becomes increasingly digitalised, what regulatory challenges will emerge for fintechs?

SN: We have to think about this over the lifecycle of a tech startup. When they initially mobilise, startups are broadly compliant because they're small, the operations are just coming together, and they don't have many pieces of regulation to comply with.

“ I OFTEN SEE A DISCONNECT BETWEEN [FINTECH’S] INVESTMENT FOCUS ON MARKET GROWTH VERSUS COMPLIANCE” SUCHITRA NAIR

PARTNER, DELOITTE EMEA CENTRE FOR REGULATORY STRATEGY

Barnabas Reynolds (BR) Partner, Shearman & Sterling

Three to five years down the line, when they've started building their market share or their balance sheet, suddenly fintechs enter a broader spectrum of regulation. I often see a disconnect between their investment focus on market growth versus compliance, and so this is where the regulatory challenges begin to emerge.

HK: As more financial institutions continue to see the value of partnering with a fintech, expect to see regulators scrutinise operational resilience, especially given the accelerated consumption of digital services due to COVID-19. In particular, look out for more regulatory requirements for some of the most common services, such as realtime transaction monitoring and customer identification.

Q. How can fintechs remain compliant across separate geographies with their own rules on governance?

BR: The thing about fintech is that it's instantly global. Finance was traditionally about growing businesses gradually by fintechmagazine.com

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serving local customers, but fintech has accelerated that model significantly.

There are many different fintech propositions, and a lot of them require legal debate as to where they're located, where the service is being performed, where the product is, and so on. Essentially, given their methodologies, most countries’ law and regulation can't keep up practically with how people are using these services.

However, it is possible to use English law and UK regulation to sell services and products globally, under the UK’s protective umbrella. This involves using trust law and other structures to ensure the assets all have their legal home in the UK, which allows for the UK’s fair and predictable regime to be applied to the value chain.

The solution is not in seeking to comply with the conflicting rulebooks. Many rulebooks are too detailed. The fact is that it's not possible to write an exhaustive rulebook that covers every single permutation, but some legislators are constantly trying to 108

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get ahead of the market. The EU approach is particularly prescriptive and takes a ‘blanket’ approach to rules, whereas the UK-US method is more observational and supportive of private businesses, so long as they're not problematic.

HK: In my opinion, the EU’s GDPR is now the strongest data protection regime in the world and will set a ‘gold standard’ for other jurisdictions. It requires companies that process EU citizens’ data to abide by the regulations, regardless of location. Similar regulations could soon be replicated in other countries where there is significant cross border activity.

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Q. Is there a ‘war on talent’ for regulation-savvy executives? If so, how can fintechs win it?

BR: I think they're actually going to have to rely upon and leverage the knowledge of the best service providers. This area is fast-moving and requires time to think and analyse. The necessary understanding will not generally reside in one or two executive recruits.

SN: Regulation-savvy executives, especially the more experienced ones, obviously care about reputational risk and are always looking for a culture of accountability. If the CEO has a vision and

“ ESSENTIALLY, LAW AND REGULATION CAN'T KEEP UP PRACTICALLY WITH HOW PEOPLE ARE USING THESE SERVICES” BARNABAS REYNOLDS

PARTNER, SHEARMAN & STERLING

a commitment to investing time, money, and effort into compliance, then that's a key differentiator for attracting the right people.

A lot of traditional executives from regulation firms now want exposure to new business models and tech solutions, so they are certainly willing to try the fintech sector. fintechmagazine.com

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“ THE GROWING REGULATORY ENVIRONMENT HAS CREATED AND WILL CONTINUE TO CREATE RISK MANAGEMENT REQUIREMENTS FOR FINTECHS” HALI KHAN

VP EMEA, ZAFIN

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Q. There is a data governance issue at the heart of innovations like Open Finance. How do you envisage this being counternanced?

SN: Data governance is not unique to Open Finance: data is a unique asset at the moment, from which funds are trying to drive strategic value. Previously, one looked at data governance just around regulatory reporting, but now you also need to consider it in the context of artificial intelligence.

The conversation surrounding how to use data ethically presents a big challenge; let's take it right up to board level, get some strategies in place, establish accountability, and control data in the right way.

HK: PSD2 in the EU has opened up countless possibilities for innovation, including direct payment processing from platforms or applications, data analytics on aggregated bank accounts, split payment technology, and enhanced credit risk modelling. They do come with compliance strings attached, but most fintechs are often mindful of this and have built their data stacks to be far more robust than legacy bank systems.

Q. Moving forward, what’s the best way for fintechs and regulators to approach governance?

HK: The growing regulatory environment has created and will continue to create risk management requirements for fintechs. I believe the ability of fintechs to proactively identify and address these risks through effective risk management programmes will significantly impact their success and competitive edge going forward.

BR: Governance will always be an issue that’s ‘in flux’. Firms need constantly to reconsider their approach, to accommodate market and regulatory developments and to identify opportunities. The regulators should

be subtle and sensitive to business models and only intervene where necessary.

It's intriguing that no one has yet created a ‘global fintech’; I don't see why it couldn’t happen, and companies can use regulatory governance as part of their marketing proposition. There just has to be innovative thinking about how services can be structured in legal and regulatory terms, under a single, coherent, permissive legal regime such as that of the UK. SN: The most successful startups in the regulated space will be those who act like a regulated bank or firm from the start of their business model. Diversity and skill set at board level will also be fundamental; after a fintech has mobilised, its C-suite will need to understand how regulatory requirements impact the company’s technology and shape the solutions it offers. fintechmagazine.com

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FINTECH CEOs OF 2021 FinTech is one of the fastest-growing industries globally. We take a look at the top 10 CEOs who are making this industry so dynamic

F

inTechs straddle a wide range of services, from digital payment solutions to insurance, online banking, property (known as proptech) and more. One of the most popular investment sectors for venture capitalists, the space is expanding at an unprecedented rate.

Innovation, lean and agile thinking, creative uses of technology and great leadership are all essential elements required to create a successful fintech.

WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND

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10

Tyler Winklevoss

CEO of: Gemini Company valuation: $5bn

Tyler Winklevoss launched Gemini in 2014 with his twin brother Cameron. The company was one of the earliest cryptocurrency exchange platforms. Gemini was initially financed by the brothers, who were early Bitcoin investors, after they sued their Harvard classmate, Mark Zuckerberg, for stealing their idea for Facebook.

09

Kristo Käärmann

CEO of: Wise Company valuation: $5bn

Estonian native Käärmann first launched Wise (formerly known as TransferWise) in 2010. The company, which provides online international money transfers at massively reduced fees, expanded swiftly and grew by 70% in 2020 with a reported 10 million customers. Käärmann reportedly started the company because he was tired of being charged extortionate fees by banks to transfer his funds.

08

Henrique Dubugras CEO of: Brex Company valuation: $7.4bn

Twenty-four-year-old Brazilian entrepreneur Henrique Bubogras is certainly one to watch. Always brilliantly inventive, at 14 he got into legal hot water for hacking a video game and putting it online for free. He built his first fintech - the payment company Pagar. me aged 16 which is now Brazil’s version of Stripe. Today he is co-founder and CEO of Brex, the first of its kind corporate card for startups.

07

Vladimir Tenev

CEO of: Robinhood Company valuation: $11.7bn

Vladimir Tenev, a BulgarianAmerican billionaire entrepreneur, co-founded Robinhood, a USbased financial services company in 2013. An adept mathematician, he gained his B.S from Stanford and his masters from UCLA, before entering the world of finance and launching his first two finance companies prior to Robinhood. He has been recognised on the Forbes 30 under 30, Inc 30 under 30, and Fortune 40 under 40 lists.

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06 Zack Peret

CEO of: Plaid Company valuation: $13.4bn

A former junior consultant at Bain, Zack Perret, 32, has come a long way in the world of fintech.

Prior to entering the world of finance, he earned a BA in science, physics and chemistry from Duke University. In 2012 he founded the payment solutions company Plaid - which doubled its customer base in 2020 to 4,500. Visa also attempted to acquire the fintech but only offered a deal worth $5.3bn and the deal fell through.

05 Chris BrItt

CEO of: Chime Company valuation: $14.5bn

Chime CEO, Chris Britt, was formerly the CPO and SVP, corporate development for Green Dot. He also had roles at Visa and was one of the first executives at ComScore. Britt launched Chime, now the largest quasi-bank in the US, in 2013 as a mobile banking app. But Britt is a philanthropist at heart and is a Board Member of coachart. org, a non-profit that connects chronically ill children with free lessons in the arts and athletics.

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04

Jesse Powell

CEO of: Kraken Company valuation: $20bn

California State University philosophy graduate, Jesse Powell, began dabbling in cryptocurrency in 2001 and then created a company that helped online gamers with in-game currencies. A massive fan of the arts, he also founded the Verge Gallery in Sacramento - the state’s largest modern art gallery.

But his true passion was Bitcoin and he launched Kraken in 2013.

It is now the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US after Coinbase.

03

Sebastian Siemiątkowski CEO of: Klarna Company valuation: $31bn

Swedish native Sebastian Siemiatkowski, launched his revolutionary payment service app, Klarna, back in 2005. A totally new concept at that time, 39-year-old Siemiątkowski’s determination to see his innovative product work, was viewed with suspicion and derision by some members of the financial industry.

But today, he is a leader of his niche - and the ‘buy now pay later’ phenomenon that has literally gone global.

02

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Brian Armstrong

CEO of: Coinbase Company valuation: $81bn

As the co-founder and CEO of the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Brian Armstrong has played a significant role in introducing users to buying, selling and storing major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Etherium.

The former software engineer began his career at Airbnb, where he used his free time to write code to enable the trading of cryptocurrency. His company, Coinbase was founded in 2012 and now boasts a customer base of over 35 million users in 100 countries. A passionate advocate for crypto, he predicts, “Within the coming years, disrupting the Bitcoin network will become increasingly more difficult as Bitcoin wallet software and the protocol become more mature and resilient.”

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“ ONE PHRASE WE USE AT STRIPE IS, 'MOST TECH COMPANIES ARE BUILDING CARS. STRIPE IS BUILDING ROADS”

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Patrick Collison CEO of: Stripe Company valuation: $95bn The 32-year-old Irish billionaire is the co-founder of Stripe, which he launched in 2010 with his younger brother John. Born in Dromineer, Ireland, Collison has always had an enquiring and a highly academic disposition. In 2005, at the age of 16, he won the 41st Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition and was also named BT Young Scientist of the Year. Stripe, which is now listed as the leading global, ecommerce payment solution, was valued in March at a staggering $95bn.

The company isn’t Collison’s first attempt at brilliance either. He was also the brains behind Auctomatic and Croma.

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