The 10 Most Influential Voices in Banking

www.insightssuccess.com October 2018

$ INFLUENTIAL VOICES IN

Industry Insight An Insight on the Opportunities in the Big Data Industry

Digi-Payments The Age of Disruptive Banking through Digital Payment Solutions

Brett King Executive Chairman & Founder

Simplifying Banking with a Distinctive Digital Solution

Editor’s Note

The Better Option

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magine an aged person from last century who has kept his entire lifetime's earnings in his house.

There is no one to look after him, and that holding is the only source to spend a wealthy life ahead. For some reasons, one day he went out of the town, and there took place a robbery or wildfire. How would he survive? Either he has to rigorously work in his old age or have to borrow some money disowning his pride just because he does not have any other option. He may not have a better option but we have; The Bank.

In the belligerent period of 21st century everyone is not blessed with a rich friend who can help through the bad financial times. But there are banks to do the talking. From its inception the banking sector has been the hidden, vividly unrecognized facilitator behind the revolution of many industries.

We may not admire bank loans because of their burdening interest rates but it is undeniable fact that it is almost impossible to fulfill business needs without significant amount of finance that bank provides. The sector has truly embraced an incalculable amount of change in society.

Banking is not just about lending or borrowing the money but more specifically it is about managing, securing and multiplying your money. Its financial assistance has breathed a sense of control in the money matters. Who would have thought the money can be multiplied by keeping it in a locker or can be exchanged, credited or debited from any part of the world without keeping it in a pocket? The sector has boomed infinite possibilities. It allows millions of us to pay for goods, services and transfer

money whenever and wherever we want. Providing livelihoods for hundreds of thousands families across the country. In addition to this banks contribute billions of pounds a year to our public services, paying the salaries of nurses, teachers and other vital workers.

Above are the few unquestionable, unparalleled benefits of banking. However, we have to accept that banks did not receive deserving admiration from the society for their contribution to the livelihood. If we are ungenerous towards the contribution of the system, what about its facilitators? Analyzing the inefficiency in financial matters many banking enthusiasts came up with unique noteworthy solutions. Their influence has simplified several processes of banking.

Instigating various technological, logistical advancements they have taken the future of banking to another level.

Considering their innovation zenith and dedicated efforts towards empowering the banking sector Insights Success has come up with a distinctive issue “The 10 Most Influential Voices in Banking” which recognizes the incalculable contribution of banking enthusiasts who has revolutionized banking processes with their inventive excellence.

Our Cover Feature admires the inspiring efforts of Brett King, an International Bestselling author, and Executive Chairman and Founder of Moven. A mobile finances tracking app that updates in real time and on the go. It also functions as a mobile bank that allows you to conduct instant transactions around the world using your phone.

The magazine also features worth a read contribution of nine other voices in banking whose stories and expertise will also overwhelm you. In addition we have also included articles from our very own in-house editorial team and industry experts. Don't forget to flip through that as well.

Let's start reading, shall we?

Kedar Kulkarni

ARTICLE 26 Digi-Payments The Age of Disruptive Banking through Digital Payment Solutions

34 Industry Insight An Insight on the Opportunities in the Big Data Industry

42 Unboxing banking Multiplying, Managing and Securing your Money

Benchmarking Future What a tech CEO can teach your business about digital

Leader’s Desk Being conďŹ dent about your future when your organization is designed for control

Cover Story

Brett King Simplifying Banking with a Distinctive Digital Solution

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22

Alain Falys

A Passionate Leader Empowering Banking Technic

Chris Skinner Demystifying the Financial World for You

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24

Joe Seunghyun Cho An Innovator in Banking Industry

Matthias Krรถner

A Trendsetter Connecting Customers with Humanity and Transparency

38

MessageSolution Technologies Compliance Transformation

Nektarios Liolios

40

Advocating a Global Fintech Revolution

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Sankalp Shangari A Global Advisor for the Digitally Decentralized Financial Ecosystem

Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Executive Editor Assistant Editors Contributing Editors Visualiser Art & Design Director Associate Designer Co-designer

Pooja M. Bansal Anish Miller Abhishaj Sajeev Jenny Fernandes Kedar Kulkarni Hitesh Dhamani Shubham Khampariya David King Amol Kamble Kushagra Gupta Vanshika

Art & Picture Editors Paul Belin Jayant Khanna Senior Sales Manager Passi D. Business Development Manager John Mathew Marketing Manager Ken Jones Business Development Executives Steve, Ben, Alan, Pranay Sales Executives David, Kevin, Mark, Ajinkya Technical Head Jacob Smile Technical Specialists Amar, Aditya Digital Marketing Manager Marry D’Souza Online Marketing Strategists Alina Sege, Shubham, Vaibhav K SME-SMO Executives Prashant Chevale, Uma Dhenge, Gemson, Irfan Research Analyst Chidiebere Moses Circulation Managers Robert, Tanaji Database Management Stella Andrew Technology Consultant David Stokes sales@insightssuccess.com

October, 2018 Corporate Ofces: Insights Success Media Tech LLC 555 Metro Place North, Suite 100, Dublin, OH 43017, United States Phone - (614)-602-1754 Email: info@insightssuccess.com For Subscription: www.insightssuccess.com

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Brett King Executive Chairman and Founder Moven

Cover Story

Brett King Simplifying Banking with a Distinctive Digital Solution

You can be a bank without branches and without advisors today, but you cannot be a bank without technology.

One of the chief differences between Moven and the innumerable banking apps currently available is its focus on effecting real change in every user’s nancial habits.

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here are very few people who could honestly claim that they are in complete control of their finances. While the majority of us have used budgeting programs or applications, we often discover that getting insights from the data is not as simple as we are led to believe.

Until now, one man is on a mission to make your money talk to you, wherever you are and whatever you may be doing. His name is Brett King.

King of Financial Innovation Brett King is the Executive Chairman and Founder of Moven, a mobile banking and financial management app that works in real time, even for signing up. For many customers Moven functions as their day-to-day mobile bank, one that allows you to conduct instant transactions around the world using your phone.

The idea for Moven came to Brett, who is an International Bestselling author, when he was promoting his first book in 2010. The book titled Bank 2.0, dealt with the evolution of the bank account, banking in general and the direction they were headed. While on his Bank 2.0 book tour, a skeptical senior bank executive told Brett that it was likely no banks had the capacity or will to deliver the types of services on which the book touched anytime soon.

This was where Brett found his window of opportunity. He also recognized that a mobile platform might allow him to strongly

differentiate a new smart bank account around behavior, financial health, digital onboarding, and customer acquisition. Never one to procrastinate, Brett registered the domain, MoveNBank.com (Move and Bank) that very day and commenced work on the first app prototype.

Moven was established the following year and the first seed round in 2012 generated $2.5m. They went live in 2013 with Brett as the CEO, a position he recently relinquished to move into the role of Executive Chairman. Today, he continues to chart the strategic direction of the company and maintains his intimate involvement in the product design process.

The company has now bought in over $50m in strategic and venture funding, created a direct banking service in the USA and an enterprise software business that is licensing its technology to banks across the globe, from Canada to New Zealand. They are currently finalizing the process of acquiring a full national bank charter in the U.S. Unparalleled Insight One of the chief differences between Moven and the innumerable banking apps currently available is its focus on effecting real change in every user’s financial habits.

That is not just a throwaway marketing line or a pipe dream –statistics reveal that Moven customers save an average of 4-8% month on month from their peers after migrating from a standard debit card issued by a mainstream bank.

Rather counter intuitively, this is not achieved through interest rates and promotions, the two most common tools used by banks. Instead, Moven focuses on understanding the individual and then intelligently injecting behavioral prompts and gamification elements in the app to guide them in saving proactively on a daily basis.

It is not a static process; the app learns as it interacts and is able to predict the time of day and day of the week when a user is most likely to respond positively to a prompt to save better. In this way, Moven is creating smart savers who become progressively healthier financially the more they use the platform.

The enterprise component of Moven takes two forms. Firstly, financial institutions can use it as the basis on which to create a new standalone app or mobile bank account offering to help their customers in their quest for financial wellbeing.

Otherwise, they can take advantage of Moven’s proprietary app components, conveniently created as discrete modules, by

On average Moven customers who migrate to our app, save about 4-8% month on month versus a typical debit card from a mainstream bank.

branches still exist. We will just expect banking to be embedded in the world around us through technology, available when and where we need it.”

Key pillars of the future banking really revolve around understanding when and where your customer needs your platform and advice as a bank.

Brett alludes to this in his latest book, Bank 4.0: Banking Everywhere, Never at a Bank, his 6th book and the third in the series based on that first book that led to the founding of Moven.

“Central to the future is the fact that banking is no longer predominantly about being great at banking itself but rather about excelling at banking technology.”

He adds, “As we move towards embedded, ubiquitous banking, we are redesigning banking based on technologyled experiences and not the products we used to have at a branch. For example, we don’t need plastic in the Bank 4.0 world. You can pay with your phone, so why get a customer to apply for a plastic credit card?”

“Instead we’ll just provide credit access when and where you need it, instantly.”

inserting them into their existing apps. This gives their customers the same remarkable insights into their financial behavior enjoyed by Moven users.

Predicting the Future Brett is absolutely categorical in his belief that every business, particularly in the finance sector, must adopt technology to stay relevant and competitive.

“You can be a bank without branches and without advisors today, but you cannot be a bank without technology,” he says, “Banks which rely on branch traffic for revenue will be an endangered species by 2025.”

To demonstrate that the march towards a technology-centric financial ecosystem is inevitable, Brett cites trends from the past four decades.

“We introduced the ATM machine back in the ‘80s, internet in the ‘90s, and mobile banking in the 2000s. That is a steady shift towards digital distribution and engagement at the core of the banking business, and one where we’ve sought to eliminate friction from day-to-day money situations.”

“We’re moving to a world dominated by digital with a focus on real-time, low-latency, frictionless delivery. By 2025, more people will interact with a bank’s technology layer daily than they do with branches annually - if

However, Brett is quick to caution that it is not technology for technology’s sake, it’s a fundamental transformation of the banking model.

“The key pillars of the future really revolve around understanding when and where your customer needs your platform and advice as a bank. This will require tons of data, artificial intelligence, and technology delivery capability.”

“Much of what we have considered ‘core’ to banking – asset allocation and portfolio management, risk profiling, identity, fraud detection, smart contracts for trade finance, etc. – will be built into algorithms in the medium term.”

The obvious consequence will be that the banker of the future will be distinctly different, too. “The skills you need to be a successful banker will be really focused on being good at the technology of banking. The key roles that will differentiate banking tomorrow are things like machine learning, data science, behavioral psychology, experience design and so forth,” explains Brett.

Persistence and Vision While so much of what Brett has predicted over the course of the past few years may seem obvious in hindsight, his perspective and approach certainly weren’t as readily embraced when he introduced them.

He reveals that his pitches did not immediately receive the positive response it has now been proven that they deserved. The fact that the nascent Fintech sector was so new did not help.

“As a startup, there were a number of challenges, the first of which was raising financing. I’d never done this before so it was a super-steep learning curve.”

“Secondly, finding the right team dynamic was a challenge. We had issues with team members who wanted to change the strategic direction of the company. That threatened to dilute our central differentiation; they were trying to skate where the puck was today, not tomorrow.”

“Lastly, we’re in a regulatory environment in the U.S. that has really done nothing to help FinTech players, so we’ve had to break new ground repeatedly along the way. I guess that is at the very core of being an innovator!”

Now that the first series of speedbumps have been overcome, Brett and Moven focused firmly on growth and expansion.

“We have pursued both a challenger bank model and an enterprise licensing model with one singular objective, to get our app and experiences on as many devices for as many customers as possible. By the end of 2018, we’ll have more than 5 million users across half a dozen countries. By 2019 we’ll more than double that again.”

He adds some advice for aspiring bankers, “Experiential design will dramatically influence the everyday use of embedded financial services and banking in the next 10 years. You can be certain that banks will not be competing against other banks in this world; they will be competing against technology players.”

Read my book Bank 4.0: Banking Everywhere, Never at a Bank.

It lays out a roadmap of key developments in the banking space over the next 10 years and how experiential design will dramatically inuence day to day use of embedded nancial services and banking.

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Management

Brief

Fidor Bank fidorbank.uk

Matthias Kröner CEO

Fidor comprises of Fidor Bank, a European challenger bank with a community concept – Fidor Solutions, a technology partner that helps build and run banks from the ground up – Fidor Factory, an in-house customer engagement agency.

Lala World lalaworld.io

Sankalp Shangari Founder & CEO

LALA World aims at building a Global Digital Decentralized Financial Ecosystem to support the inclusion of the Unbanked, Undocumented, Micro-entrepreneurs, Students and everyone else.

LATTICE80 lattice80.com

Joe Seunghyun Cho Co-founder

LATTICE80 is the World’s Largest Fintech Hub.

Gavin meetgavin.com

Matthijs Nelemans Co-founder

Gavin is the first risk-sharing service in the world. Its technologically advanced platform ensures that customers won’t pay any up-front premiums, and claims are settled right away.

MessageSolutions Technologies Inc messagesolution.com

Josh Liang President

MessageSolution is an industry technology leader in compliance archiving and eDiscovery solutions for on-premise, Cloud, and MSP/ISP-hosted multi-tenant environments.

Movencorp moven.com

Brett King Founder

Moven is a mobile finances tracking app that updates in real time and on the go. It also functions as a mobile bank that allows to conduct instant transactions around the world using phone.

Startupbootcamp startupbootcamp.org

Nektarios Liolios CEO & Co-founder

Startupbootcamp elevates startups to a global level by giving them direct access to an international network of the most relevant partners, investors, and mentors in their sector.

Finanser Ltd thefinanser.com

Chris Skinner CEO

The Finanser is the portal to the knowledge base of the Financial Services Club.

International Private Banking Systems www.ipbs.com

Bruce G. Raine Owner

International Private Banking Systems, Ltd. provides private banking and wealth management software for the private banking sector.

Company Name

Yoyo Wallet yoyowallet.com

Alain Falys Co-founder & Chairman

Yoyo Wallet is a fastest growing payment gateway with emerging banking technic.

About the Author Pam Bateson is an expert coach and mentor in business, training others to Masters level qualiďŹ cations and supervising coaches. She has worked within the healthcare, retail, hotels, construction, media, agencies, education and public sector. She specialises in Coaching, Mentoring, Employee Engagement, Change Management, Learning and Development and Organisational Design. She has worked with all levels in organisations from graduates to the CEO. She has designed change programmes that connect projects, outcomes, training and coaching. The performance outcomes have been outstanding. She is CEO and Co-Founder at Thrive Partners.

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Benchmarking Future

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am Bateson set up Thrive Partners, an on-demand coaching company, three years ago. In this article, she shares her point of view on how important humans are in a more digital world, what she’s learned as a tech CEO, and what this means when you’re looking to use tech in a way that’s both disruptive and works for customers.

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In October 2015, I gave up a successful career as a management consultant and coach to set up Thrive Partners. Lots of people thought I was crazy. I was approaching 50, with two children still at home. But for the decade running up to that decision, I’d been thinking about a better way to deliver coaching – supported by digital, to share more widely the coaching tools I’d used to help clients for many years.

This was the business I set out to build three years ago. Today, we’re working with 25 clients on five continents – delivering our own brand of ondemand coaching, backed with insights for the whole business. The learning curve has been steep – particularly for someone who, by their own confession, didn’t have a lot of experience in learning technology. So here, I wanted to share some of the things we’ve learned – and what it might mean for your business.

Dream big I didn’t really set out to build a business that would be considered disruptive, but my background as a lean engineer and coach did mean that we ripped up the rulebook when it came to the coaching industry. We scrapped the idea that you needed to meet face to face, and that sessions had to last an hour, or even two hours. And we made it a lot easier for people to access a coach to answer the questions they had there and then – increasing access so people could chat to an expert within an hour.

Working with my co-founder, we then rebuilt the industry by asking the biggest questions we could imaging.

What if we could make coaching available to whole organisations? What if we could get listening as valued as speaking? And what if we could help organisations learn as quickly as individuals?

I found these questions irresistible: I wanted to do for coaching what Uber had done for getting a taxi, Netflix had done for home entertainment, and

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Tinder had done for dating. It’s these big dreams that have galvanised our success in the last few years – and which has set us in the right direction for the future.

The whole-system insights we produced has helped to make sales processes smoother, improved communications and created more opportunities for people to learn.

Build for modern users Despite big dreams, we’ve also made our fair share of mistakes! A lot of them mistakes happened when we took our attention away from our end customers. It sounds obvious to see it there on the page. But it can be easy to lose sight of the customers that matter most, especially when, as a tech CEO, sometime we get preoccupied with a shiny piece of new technology.

Keep it human With suicide being the biggest killer of men under 45, loneliness sweeping through developed economies in epidemic proportions and a third of all young people suffering from anxiety, I strongly believe that we have a duty to keep talking to each other as a society.

So, what to consider first when it comes to users? The main thing to bear in mind is that they expect experiences that are easy and fast to access – a shift brought about by what we call the ‘Amazon Prime Mindset.’ In this era, clunky user experiences reduce the chances of uptake of services. In short, if your technology can’t match or exceed the quality of digital experience people get in their everyday lives, then you’ll need to go back to the drawing board.

Create wins for the many So, if users come first – who else can we harness the power of technology for?

Our answer? Everyone else in the system.

Early on in the development of our MyThrive platform, we realised that delivering digitally would enable us to do more than just scale and facilitate coaching in global organisations; it would also mean we could spot trends and patterns within communities of users, in organisations or society at large. Just as carefully listening has a powerful and transformative role in one-to-one coaching conversations, carefully listening to and analysing anonymised version of the conversations we host has a powerful and transformative role within whole organisations.

We believe that keeping the art of conversation alive in this digital age is essential; only humans can master creativity, empathy, humour and imagination in a way that’s compelling.

Information is everywhere, so we’re using technology differently – to offer real human experiences at scale, at any time of the day, whenever our clients need a conversation, for everything you can’t Google.

And what of the future? Curiously, even the structures of artificial intelligence and machine learning look set to mimic human patterns. It’s still early days, but leaders in this space talk of ‘deep learning’ with AI – by layering up different tools that connect in the same way as our brain’s neural networks.

And so, the next three years?

My recent experiences have led us to ask even bigger questions than we did to begin with – which I suspect will lead to our next irresistible set of adventures! What if we could transform learning management systems into learning ecosystems?

What if any community of learners could connect with any community of teachers? And what if a better understanding of outcomes from learning could help both individuals, organisations and society to thrive?

I for one believe there are exciting times ahead.

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Alain Falys: A Passionate Leader Empowering Banking Technic

Alain Falys Co-founder & Chairman Yoyo Wallet

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oday technology enthusiasts are emphasizing, with their knowledge and dedicated mindset, the technological revolution approaching the digital world. Alain Falys is one such European entrepreneur with these cohesive personality traits. He is the Co-founder and Chairman at Yoyo Wallet. He is a geek at heart, a technologist, a business executive, and an investor with a deep understanding of financial services and e-commerce.

Alain is also a Partner at Firestart.co and a founding LP at blockchain fund Fabric.vc. He is a member of RBS’ Technology Advisory Board and a Director at Fintech companies Pelican.ai and OneLinq.nl.

He previously co-founded the OB10 global e-invoicing network, which floated in London as Tungsten Corporation Plc. He was Senior Vice President at Visa International and co-founded Omnis Mundi, an e-commerce incubator with operations in Frankfurt, Berlin and Zurich, with successful startups such as BuyVip sold to Amazon in 2010.

Alain holds the Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures Européennes de Management from the NEOMA Business School and a BA Honours degree in European Business Administration from the Middlesex University, London.

Delivering Seamless Payment Experience Yoyo Wallet provides a combined and seamless payments and retailer loyalty experience, delivering personalised benefits to consumers at the point-of-sale. Initially delivering payment, as well as retailer-specific loyalty collection and voucher redemption to its users through a branded app experience, recent partnerships with Starling Bank and Visa has now seen the company embedding these functionalities into individual banking apps to create the levels of engagement that those in the financial services industry have been striving for.

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Digitalizing Banking Technics

Renovating Journey through Knowledge During the early days of the internet, Alain created one of the first SaaS platforms that completely digitized supplier invoices by capturing the right data to optimize accounting functionality for corporate businesses. Dealing with the sheer volume and richness of the data that came out of such a platform re-enforced his view towards its power.

Extracting data and being able to quickly identify what is essential is key to maximizing the customer experience.

This was something Alain had already identified in the early days of his career when he ran the commercial card division at Visa Europe. His time there helped shape his understanding about the power of payment data and the payment rails behind that payment data.

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Fastest growing payment gateway with emerging banking technics.

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In the current digital world, bankers need to reconnect with what their customers now want, requiring them to constantly remain up-to-date with the ongoing technical revolution. The vast majority of consumers are now ‘digitally native’, and not only want a personalised instant banking experience, but also the ability to access the benefits that touch their daily consumer journey. At the same time, bankers are now having to consider what the expectations of the next generation of customers will be the ability to adapt a platform quickly is only going to become more and more important.

its functionality into more traditional banking apps focusing attention on the personalisation of the payments experience to create retailer loyalty, regardless of payment method.

Continuously Evolving Banker’s Role Bankers and banks have begun to recognise that in this day and age, even with the best in-house tech teams, they will not be able to win new consumers with higher demands on their own. There’s now an obvious need for partnerships between established banking and fintech innovation. Hence why banks are beginning to incorporate external functionality from the likes of Yoyo Wallet, either through the new Open Banking framework or individual banking initiatives. The company believes its partnership with Starling Bank will be seen as a pioneering moment for retail banking.

There are very few moments in any industry sector where visible transformations take place. In banking, these moments usually come about when you see a combination of tech evolution, enhanced consumer expectations, and regulatory change. And it’s a moment when creativity can blossom. The banking sector is now going through one of these rare moments.

"And it’s not about replacing "traditional" with "emerging" - it’s about transforming what’s already there to create a banking experience that adds real value for the customer in a digital age," adds Alain.

Employing Emerging Banking Enthusiasts for Better Future Every bank is now setting goals to keep up with this growing market. Yoyo Wallet has already partnered with Starling Bank and Visa, and the company aims to integrate October 2018|

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Chris Skinner:

Demystifying the Financial World for You Chris Skinner

Author & Commentator

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t was around 2000 B.C. when the first ‘banks’ came into existence, making loans to farmers and merchants who carried goods between cities. Over the course of four millennia, mankind has come a very long way in terms of what it expects from the finance industry.

Today, financial technology allows us to easily and securely send and receive money and commodities to and from any part of the world while sitting at our desks. With this convenience also comes complexity and the average person hardly understands the mechanisms behind even simple, everyday transactions.

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What will banking look like ten years from now, how will it work and who will make it happen?

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One person with an intimate understanding of the financial arena has been sharing his knowledge and insight with the world through his books and blogs.

His name is Chris Skinner.

Varied Experiences Make Good Writers An independent commentator on the financial markets and on Fintech, Chris holds a degree in Management Science and a post- grad degree in Insurance, along with a diploma in Industrial Studies.

Starting his career as a Sales Manager, he has held several positions in several prestigious companies. Chris has been October 2018|

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writing blogs for over a decade and still writes every single day. He has also written several books on topics ranging from European banking regulations to the credit crisis and even on the future of banking.

Chris started writing when he realized that he had the ability to take very complex ideas and articulate them in a conversational way. People like his books because they tackle complicated subjects like blockchain, cryptocurrencies and machine learning which are increasingly relevant to the Fintech industry and explain them in a way that people of all ages can understand.

His last three books have been particularly popular. Digital Bank, which came out in 2014 describes the challenges of creating a truly digital bank and the methods to overcome them. His second book, ValueWeb showed how Fintech firms are building the internet of value for IoT using the latest technologies of apps, APIs and analytics.

Chris’s latest book, Digital Human shows how technology can become the basis of inclusion for everyone on the planet. This book is exceptional because it also summarizes his experiences of travelling the world over the last thirty years and some of the unique discoveries into the origins of humankind that Chris has made.

all bankers talked about were regulations and risks; now, they talk about technology and speed.

Fast cycle change combined with completely trustworthy risk management is a very different role to just doing risk management and that’s the big change.

Sage Advice Chris advises aspiring financial experts to not accept ‘no’ for an answer and to challenge everything. He believes that ‘there are no dumb questions, just stupid answers.’

He emphasizes that to make it big in the finance industry, bankers must learn how to code as coding, or gain an understanding of it because it has become as important today as being able to speak English. This will help them focus on customer experience through digital relationships.

Enthusiasts should have a passion for the things finance represents – economic success, wealth, power – and how technology is democratizing, decentralizing, and redistributing assets. Money and Technology are at odds with each other, and today’s banker needs to understand that divide and bridge it.

Looking to the Future

Lessons that Shaped his Journey Many of Chris Skinner’s books were not planned but instead triggered by particular interactions and incidents.

Digital Bank, the first book that he wrote seriously, was conceived upon a request from a client. At that point, he had been blogging for a decade and decided to take his posts and edit them into chapters.

From a personal perspective, Chris recently became a father for the first time and his main goal has shifted to giving his sons the best childhood anyone can have.

From a business perspective, he says that his aim is to leave a lasting mark on the financial services industry in its road to digitalization, something that can be argued he has already done.

Since then Chris has launched a futures lab in NCR, the ATM Company in the 1990s, a network called the Global Future Forum in Unisys in the 2000s, and a large network called Shaping Tomorrow when he became independent in the 2000s.

He spends a considerable part of his time looking at the future of finance because he says that it is ‘the only thing nobody knows, but everybody is going there’. This forward-looking approach began many years ago after he gave a presentation at a conference and one of the feedback forms said, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Chris’s current focus on the future also centers on teaching others how to make money from it.

Witnessing the Change Chris acknowledges that the role of a banker has changed over the years, especially in the recent past. Ten years ago, October 2018|

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T

he way people make payments are changing faster due to the improved integration of digital technology. This has beneďŹ ted the industry with increased competition and consumer demands.

The changes can be witnessed in Travel, E-commerce, Household Bill payments etc. The recent integration of technology in payment solutions makes transactions fast and seamless and can be done at the comfort of your homes.

Although we are witnessing a considerable change in the payment solution industry, there is still a consistent use of the cash and cards, which solely depends on the geographical setting. In some places, people prefer cash and cards, while in other places, they encourage the more use of digital solutions; for example: The United States and Canada. Analysis has shown that

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Digi-Payments

in these areas, they are likely to switch completely to technology enabled payment solutions.

The payment solution processes will become more innovative because of the following disruptive trends;

the result will lead to easy merging of both the traditional medium of resource management concepts with the recent and digitalized concepts. Various financial organizations that may not be able to handle the process of migrating from the traditional format to the digitalized platform finds ease in doing so by partnering with technology companies.

· Digital Banking and Remote Payment Approval As the younger aged masses are turning up to technology more than the traditional mediums, there is a notion that most payment solutions will be done through digitalenabled mediums rather than cash or cheque. This will result in more engagement of mobile phones and digital software applications.

Various business outlets are accepting more of mobile payment which is helping them to improve customer experience. The addition of instant alerts, appreciation notifications and instant payment delivery is making this innovation more interesting. · Customer-Focused Strategy as a Priority One retained customer is one attained success. ~ Chidiebere Moses Ogbodo Customer experience post business encounter is what makes a difference in the industry. Digital banking solutions are improving the way customers feel after making their payments. In the past years, one need to stand in a queue in the bank before they can make even the smallest transaction, but the integration of technology innovation has reduced the stress to the lowest level. We can witness improved services and instant expense management which is helping everyone that is using this medium to stay above the crowd · Improved Customer Satisfaction through Rewards A customer tends to check back on the sales-person who gave them a tip or discount after purchase. This is also applicable in payment solution. After people makes a purchase online or even via cards and the seller offers them a certain percentage of discount, they will always want to come back. The good news is that most business enterprises are supporting this idea in collaboration with the finance institutions. · FinTech Collaboration and Expansion of Networks The innovation in payment solution is incorporating feasibility of resource management between the financial and non-financial organizations. Through this development, October 2018|

Organizational growth is measured both in market value, infrastructure and the extent of their networks. The integration of digital technology advances in payment provisions helps especially the finance-oriented establishments to easily expand their reach, even to the most hidden places in the world. This helps to touch the lives of people no matter the class and status and it repays with tremendous customer growth. · Improved Security and Payment by Codes Security is huge concern when money is involved. People are so conscious and very inquisitive about how their money will travel from the sender to the receiver. In so many cases, they will even think that such platforms as digitalized mediums are not trustworthy as a single wrong number can direct their money to unknown destination.

The transaction as of the old was true cheques. But today, there will be a limited need for those methods, rather, payment will simply be done by inputting a certain username and password and your dashboard will be opened.

Through this page, you can easily make every payment. The age of digitalization is turning the whole process into codebased and this raises the question of how to stay safe. It is also believed that for security purposes, the instant notification of transaction, linking of secured email and encryption to individual data and disaster-recovery provisions will lead the innovation to better direction. This concern has a big deal with blockchain, augmented reality, IoT and biometrics.

You may be asking how the future will look like with techenabled payment solutions. As the world is growing and globalization is gaining a good ground, people blends in to what they see that is working well. So, as digital payment solution is making even the life of the lay man on street easy, more people in the near future will completely adopt this innovation. It will not harm the financial institutions, but it will be great if they can migrate or better integrate some form of technology strategies in their financial solutions. This change may be slow, but it will be consistent as the technology changes are not giving room for procrastination.

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Joe Seunghyun Cho: An Innovator in Banking Industry

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new ideas of how innovation can be incorporated to optimize resources in traditional businesses over time, and the importance of having a team with a similar long term vision to make it come true.

Joe’s role in LATTICE80 is to open operations in more cities and build a global network.

This led him to his third experiment of building a next generation financial group, Marvelstone Group. With LATTICE80, Joe, being the group’s innovation arm, brings the existing ecosystems and stakeholders together up to a new level which brings new waves of new solutions and extends the company’s financial reach to more markets and untapped segments. It is important to collaborate and grow together so that Joe and his team can make a difference.

oe Seunghyun Cho is the Co-founder and Founding CEO of LATTICE80 and Co-founder and Chairman of Marvelstone Group which owns 100% of LATTICE80. Joe is an entrepreneur and hedge fund manager who has built a couple of asset management companies and worked on financial institution M&A deals directly.

Joe diversifies his banking solutions in two angles among which first one is his close work with Fintechs via LATTICE80 platform. By working with creative entrepreneurs, Joe and his company always have access to new ideas and innovations. Second angle is their focus on social angles. Joe and his team are specialized and focused in emerging market solutions and services with social impact.

Journey towards Innovative Future As an entrepreneur, Joe’s journey has always been based on his way of contribution to social impact. As a student, he dreamed of working with the United Nations. He has been volunteered in Nepal as a part of his Korean national service for over 2 years. In early 20s, he found himself drawn towards the financial world and wondered how he can direct his skills to bring positive changes.

Joe’s first experience in building an asset management company and quant hedge fund from scratch gave him many valuable lessons, and he considered it as an achievement to an extent. It was both enjoyable and challenging for him to be able to create a new business as an entrepreneur and an investor.

Joe recently finished his 60th travel spending 2 weeks in Europe and 2 weeks in Asia which has been quite challenging. But Joe will continue his journey as it is with meeting Fintech Startups and other stakeholders who are building the future of banking and making the world a better place, as he finds it better for the innovative future of banking sector.

Challenges that Every Entrepreneur Experience As per Joe’s point of view, it is expected that every entrepreneur faces challenges everyday where expected work challenges can be managed, but few usual things that are not directly work related can be more challenging.

People management or developing a progressive work culture is crucial for any growing startup. While one can count on his/her trust worthy people to be the supporters, it can be observed that there may be distractors and even have to deal with new challenges like fake news and Internet trolling these days. But Joe is fortunate to have both his partners as his strong pillars of support.

Evolvement of Bankers

Joe’s second venture of developing a financial group with partners to acquire a $2B dollar asset management company was another stepping stone. The experience exposed him to

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According to Joe, with ascend in the number of pivotal and ground-breaking financial technology, the role of banker is October 2018|

“Build the world’s largest network and grow via partnerships rather than competing.”

continually evolving and has to be changed as per the requirements. As a new generation of customers (millenials) gearing up and changing the demands, bankers will need to evolve to fit into a new culture of creating the right customer experience, alongside a greater understanding on application of technologies to support that. Joe states that, “I am lucky to be in the position to meet many Fintech companies all over the world. While Core banking is very much still the same, we see that technology is making banking more efficient and smarter.” With this, Joe mentioned Challenger Banks as an example for the relative concern.

Future Aspire It is still a young project focusing on innovation and experimentation. Joe’s job in the second year is to enter more cities and build partnerships globally. His near future goal is to open in 10 cities and initiate more products to bring more services to startups, investors and corporates alike, and as a Fintech startup and platform, the company’s future goal is to get listed eventually.

Formidable Advice Joe describes the attributes that every banker should possess the willingness to learn new things and should be adaptable to change. He further explains that banks face continuous pressure from an ever-changing global environment even though nobody has seen significant developments yet. Just by being open to change and new solutions, bankers will be able to stand out among their peers.

Joe’s advice is to listen to the customers and take advantage over the existing banks with legacy systems for the emerging banking enthusiasts.

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Matthias Kröner: A Trendsetter Connecting Customers with Humanity and Transparency

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ndividuals with entrepreneurial mindsets are often drawn to opportunities, innovation, and new value creation. Entrepreneurial characteristics include the ability to take calculated risks and accept the realities of change and uncertainty.

One personality with such a marvelous mindset is Matthias Kröner, a leader in digital banking.

Starting his career in the hotel industry, Matthias gained a deep knowledge of customer service. With his entrepreneurial mindset, he founded Germany’s direct bank DAB in his thirties. He then ventured out when the company was sold, ultimately cofounding Fidor Bank in 2009. Fidor fulfilled the need for an open bank that valued transparency and gave voice to customers. Fidor was started with a unique community concept that enabled customers to increase their financial knowledge, share their skills, ask questions, review products, and make suggestions. Today, it is proud to count over 750,000 active community members, and has expanded its activities to create banks together with partners.

Matthias Kröner CEO Fidor

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As CEO of both Fidor Bank and Fidor Solutions, Matthias drives all strategic decisions towards scaling and expanding the group internationally.

Under his leadership, Fidor is continuing to flourish and has doubled its size year-on-year.

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Focused Aim with Planned Journey Matthias’s journey has always been centered around learning: what he can learn from his customers, what he can learn from his mistakes, and what he can do to keep his goals front of mind.

Consequently, Fidor has adopted an agile culture whereby it’s always innovating.

When he established the bank, it needed to reach customers without the help of huge funds or marketing budgets. Therefore, the bank built a social media and digital marketing strategy around its community to build its own brand and reach customers in the most effective way.

With Fidor Solutions, the need was to develop in a way that promoted innovation. The bank selected its B2B partners carefully to focus on success.

It now works with big names - whether they are corporations looking for solutions or partners complementing Fidor’s offering, from fintechs to largesystem integrators.

Forthright Business Approach The bank gives customers the freedom to create. With this attitude, Matthias wants customers to manage their money through being able to do more, not less. He wants to give freedom and control back to the consumer, to create their own future, whatever that looks like to them.

This approach goes for businesses too.

B2B customers should be able to create their own banks and not feel held hostage by their IT capabilities.

According to Matthias, tech has grown so much over the past few years and is not showing any signs of slowing, hence, bankers must be able to better service their customers and focus on being an equal partner, rather than dictating terms.

Connecting Customers on a Personal Level Matthias strongly believes in having a connection with customers. For that reason, Fidor aims to design solutions October 2018|

and offerings that are directly relevant to its community. The bank looks after such an approach and always welcomes feedback.

Talking about the vital attributes that every banker must possess, Matthias says, “A technologically-based mindset is essential. The reality is that, today, people don’t go to banks. They turn to their phones or tablets to bank online.

So the question, and the challenge, is then how do we make this process frictionless and add value?” He further adds, “Whilst banking managers have been focused on numbers over the years, there is now a need to change.

Leadership must now focus on creating the right culture to succeed. An agile structure that adapts to customers’ changing behaviors is a must”.

Customized Services for the Customers Fidor creates technology that addresses the needs of its customers through its three robust pillars: - Bank / customer co-creation: The bank works together with the customers, using its community as a platform. Customers share invaluable information and recommendations that drive the bank’s roadmap and design solutions that make an impact. Fidor is currently working on new features together, with its customers, in response to PSD2.

- Co-entrepreneurial spirit: The bank collaborates with other organizations to create new banking concepts, and with fintechs to drive innovation. This coentrepreneurial spirit fast tracks the delivery of innovative solutions to customers.

The reality is that people turn to their smart device everyday - why should banking be different?

other industries means that consumers can more easily bank with purpose.

Solutions for the Future Belonging to Europe as a home market, Fidor is growing and bringing solutions to its bank and non-bank partners, leveraging its EU banking licence. Outside of the EU, the bank focuses purely on technology and adapting itself to the respective needs of different markets. For example, the bank’s digital banking platform, fidorOS, is sharia compliant in the Middle East, where it is a mandatory requirement for one of its partners, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank.

Consumer demands are evolving rapidly. As Fidor’s business model continues to evolve to meet these needs, the bank is focused on making consumers’ experiences better through its marketplace. This marketplace store gives consumers the opportunity to discover fintech and banking offerings they can trust, and help them build their wealth while enabling banks to innovate and diversify their offerings.

- Cross-industry approach: Fidor doesn’t just work with banks, but also with retailers and telecom organizations to create business models focused on use cases and customer value for respective verticals. Its knowledge about the customers and their lifestyles is broad, and the convergence between banking and

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An Insight on the Opportunities

BIG DATA INDUSTRY

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n this era of changing technologies, the Big Data domain has evolved in a very short period of time. It plays the most pivotal role across all industries. The ability of Big Data to mine critical data has radically altered the dynamics of the way businesses function, drive sales, and attract customers. It has become an essential component of business strategy nowadays. A business tastes success by uncovering insights locked inside data. The overlaying trends will examine the evolving ways enterprises can realize better business value with Big Data and how improving business intelligence can help transform organizational processes and the customer experience. There is a demand for better data management from most of the business executives for compliance and increased confidence to steer the business. It will help them in more rapid adoption of Big Data and innovative and transformative data analytic technologies.

analytics which will become a major area of investment and will grow swiftly. It is necessary for the enterprises and the government agencies to upgrade their security systems to next-generation software which can address ultra-modern security threats.

Insight-driven Organizations In this present year, businesses will move beyond just data handling to leveraging the insights that Big Data uncovers.

As understanding, managing, and manipulating Big Data has now become fairly ubiquitous, most of the companies have the ability to deal with it. Mining data will be the center of attraction and it will help effectively to meet organizational requirements and for precise targeting of products and services. An insight-driven approach will facilitate an evolved customer experience, competitiveness, advanced security and operational efficiency.

Bridging the talent gap If the demand expands further, the talent gap in data analytics will soar. It is expected that organizations and academic institutions will collaborate closely to generate skills and talent to meet the demand for data engineers. The functions of all corporate employees will be expected to understand, appreciate and work with analytics since it emerges as one of the key instruments in every organization. The academic institutions are also looking forward to put together degree programs in data science.

Cyber security Applications Today, everyone is dependent on the digital technology and our dependence has reached an unprecedented level. Cyberattacks have also become much more prevalent. An increased occurrence of ransomware has been registered across the globe and cyber criminals are now targeting personal data and devices. Concerning the prime industry, cyber security can only be possible through big data

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Analytics across the enterprise It can be said that the analytics will not remain isolated to a few departments like marketing and risk management. On the other hand it will infuse the entire enterprise. To understand the dynamics of business operations, data analytics will be utilized and will also reveal ways and means to increase efficiency. Hence to derive overall business strategy, insights from multiple departments will be integrated and redundant processes will be eliminated. It will also help the departments to increase efficiency, growth, and productivity.

IoT and People There will be a transition from Internet of Things (IoT) to Internet of People (IoP). Interactions, predictive analytics around human behavior, and other subjective areas will grow and start to filter all industry verticals. For example, hospitals will increasingly deploy machine learning techniques to predict the likelihood of the relapse of a disease. This will enable them to work out a patient’s readmission precisely at the time of the initial discharge.

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Industry Insight

Business-science collaboration Businesses will have to learn and deploy traditional, scientific techniques of pattern-matching and artificial intelligence for analytics use cases. For example, techniques to analyze gene sequences in DNA are being used in text-matching algorithms to process bulk emails. It is expected to see very close collaboration between data scientists and the scientific community. For example, image processing is widely used in ‘tagging’ in social media, while voice recognition is used in apps.

Technology There will be brisk moving in the organizations from on-premise platforms to cloud and hybrid environments. Around 44 percent of applications used by Fortune 500 organizations are already on the cloud, and more than 50 percent of IT applications will move to the cloud by the end of the year. There will be a rise in demand for analytics tools that are simple, flexible, and capable of handling a variety of data sources. Hadoop enables to store an extremely large volume of data at a significantly lower price point and hence it will continue to become increasingly popular. The share of unstructured data in the data warehouse will continue to increase, which will further cause for Hadoop. Hadoop, now, is past the business relevance and scalability assessment phase and its adoption is expected to accelerate strongly.

We are advancing towards a completely new era in the domain of analytics. Big data is disruptive and it has paved the way for pioneering ideas and innovative techniques across industry verticals. It is now driving the stream of disruption and expanding the scope of opportunities for previously untouched market segments. Organizations need to leverage Big Data analytics to its full capacity so as to thrive in this competitive world.

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Message Solution

Technologies Inc. Compliance Transformation

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essageSolution Technologies Inc. has historically been recognized as a technology innovator, creating value from unstructured data.

As such, MessageSolution has become one of the most influential voices in IT industry as well as the banking sector.

Based in the Silicon Valley, MessageSolution focuses on world-class compliance archiving, eDiscovery, backup and data security solutions. MessageSolution management team is comprised of dedicated professionals from IBM veterans to Stanford graduates, that provide enterprise software solutions in various industries around the globe.

MessageSolution designs the products and services to be scalable, robust, and compatible with all major email and file systems to meet clients’ compliance, eDiscovery and data security needs. MessageSolution caters its platforms and services to banking and financial partners for companies as small as 25 employees up to global enterprises as large as 130,000 users. Ultimately, the company strives to provide solutions that mitigate risk, reduce costs and increase ROI for its partners and global enterprise customers. MessageSolution operates globally with products deployed in 50 countries of providing exceptional services that garner continual growth worldwide.

Best of Breed Compliance and Governance Solution MessageSolution has undertaken the task of building unified archiving and eDiscovery solutions. Microsoft Office, Exchange On-premise, IBM Domino, and all enterprise file environments such as SharePoint and Office 365 OneDrive are all supported by MessageSolution platforms.

The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act added a layer of accountability and more costs of doing business in banking sector, which also spurred merger acquisition activity. MessageSolution addresses the new development and the needs with the software solutions that enable compliance, reduce litigation

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costs, and provides instant accountability of digital assets for large and small businesses.

Furthermore, MessageSolution implemented enterpriseclass functions and features for global banking entities for community banks to large financial institutions to meet global compliance requirements including FRCP, Frank Dodd, FINRA for the U.S. financial organizations, and GDPR for European markets and associated North American markets.

Delivering Hybrid Services to SME’s & Global Enterprise Clients MessageSolution’s unique PII Protection Framework (Personal Identifiable Information) and innovative architecture in enterprise information archiving and eDiscovery are designed to support a large volume of unstructured data for retention management and data search in all languages. Scalability and virtual capability are the company’s biggest strength.

MessageSolution Advanced eDiscovery Platform makes it easy to track and map legacy PII from email and file servers while a secured email gateway blocks and redacts Outlook emails subject to PII policies. The MessageSolution Platform also enables compliance officers to protect PII and privacy and provides permissions for audit export and search analytics.

It is field proven the MessageSolution Platform can concurrently support over 25,000 active users per VM/server, which would normally require 5 to 6 servers to do the job by the ’leading vendors’ in the compliance archiving eDiscovery market. In a clustered environment, MessageSolution saves enterprises and ISPs (Internet Service Providers) dozens of hardware server configurations in a datacenter operation or a cloud environment.

Also, independent of a third-party database, the MessageSolution Platform is a virtual appliance that is installed over the Internet. MessageSolution is the first in the market that has delivered global system installation and configuration with a complete online deployment process, including the multi-geographic installations across the world.

As a Microsoft ISV and cloud archiving eDiscovery vendor, MessageSolution provides unified policies for retention and shared access to email, file servers, and SharePoint. This ensures that enterprises and organizations have the agility to search and account for all email communication and related files on demand.

Redefining Benchmarks Initially, global conglomerates only collaborated with October 2018|

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MessageSolution is the global technology leader in enterprise compliance archiving, eDiscovery, and data security—delivering in cloud, on premise, and service provider hosted platforms.

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known providers such as IBM or Microsoft. In order to attract global projects and implementation, MessageSolution designed its products to be bold, advanced, and capable of supporting ultra large enterprise environments. The product development team innovated more administrator-friendly functions and feature-rich solutions to penetrate the global enterprise markets. This process required additional development resources and commitment to the marketplace. Thanks to an initial architectural design that focuses on supporting large environments, MessageSolution’s leading-edge technologies have been implemented by large enterprises, international banks, and the financial institutions around the world today.

Being Client Centric and a Trusted Partner Recognized by the industry survey for excellent technical support and services, MessageSolution has been the first choice of the global companies of all sizes. Even after some enterprise clients made multiple changes in email and file environments (for example from IBM Domino or GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange, then to Exchange Online and OneDrive in Microsoft Office 365), they continued using the MessageSolution Platform because of its commitment in providing advanced technologies in compliance archiving and eDiscovery solutions.

MessageSolution effectively helps enterprise customers stay in compliance by providing the most cost-effective solution in the marketplace. The company demonstrates its commitment to customers, and values its long-term relationship with global clients.

Envisioning Excellence MessageSolution emphasizes on building trust and aintaining strong relationship with its global partners and clients. Its goal is to expand in the banking industry and embark on more channel partnerships, managed service October 2018|

Josh Liang

providers, and system integrators in all market sectors. To achieve them, MessageSolution will continue to improve, build, and enhance their products and services to provide excellence in what it does best.

What’s Next?

MessageSolution has been working with banks and financial institutions to ensure privacy protection for their clients. As of May of 2018, GDPR became effective. Thus, MessageSolution provided its European partners and North American businesses that have customers from Europe with compliance archiving eDiscovery services to protect and staying compliant at the same time. In June 2018, the California Consumer Privacy Act (AB 375) was passed, which gives consumers the right to own, control, and ensure that their personal data is protected and secured in financial companies’ storage database. To be sure, MessageSolution is preparing their partners and clients with the advent of AB375.

Customer Satisfaction and Testimonials “MessageSolution has one of the best archiving solutions I have seen and I would like to continue on all browsers, it’s competitive and easy to use.” - Philip Austin, Shiroki North America, Inc “The design of MessageSolution Enterprise Email Archive, particularly its remote support capability that reduces installation requirements and eliminates costs associated with on-site installation, can reduce IT-related support costs.” - Michael Osterman, Osterman Research “MessageSolution’s archiving products are easy to use and customer support is excellent. Customer support has high satisfaction.” - Gartner Magic Quadrant 2014

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Nektarios Liolios Advocating a Global Fintech Revolution

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aking into consideration the drive to transform the fintech ecosystem, devising contemporary acceleration strategies, democratic entrepreneurship qualities, and a knack for innovation, Nektarios Liolios has been recognized as an influential voice in banking.

Nektarios is the Co-founder and CEO of Startupbootcamp FinTech, the organization behind the global industry-focused innovation programs.

Working to address the relationship between corporates and startups, Nektarios works closely with industry partners and investors around the world in key FinTech hubs including London, New York, Mexico City, Mumbai and Singapore.

Driven by entrepreneurship, collaboration and the desire to change the industry, Nektarios is a global nomad, travel geek, and sneaker freaker.

“Since I stepped into the world of FinTech innovation almost a decade ago, on the surface it appears that we have come a long way, in reality, despite all the noise and #fintecheverywhere, I see so little of real change,” states Nektarios. He hopes that this will change over the next 10 years as corporates understand startups better and realize that these problems can be tackled.

Nektarios Liolios Co-founder and CEO Startupbootcamp FinTech

Nektarios also comprehends that by listening to advice from outside the organization, based on experience and data, corporates can start to understand the importance of their role and how best to approach innovation.

Addressing the misinterpreted quality that startups deliver, Nektarios expresses, “We regularly hear banks complaining about how FinTech startups aren’t offering the right solutions that they can plug directly into their businesses.

Many big financial services companies join an accelerator/incubator/lab as part of their quest to find these mythical problem-solving startups, but when one starts

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digging a little deeper it becomes very clear, very quickly that there is little understanding of the value that startups can actually provide.”

“Corporates need to understand that startups will not solve all of their problems. It is very rare to find anyone who has put in serious time and effort in trying to be strategic about innovation before getting started,” he adds.

According to Nektarios, what he’s missing most is the recognition that the large organizations need to work on themselves to be startup-ready, in the same way they expect the startups to be enterprise-ready. He expresses that when asked how organizations measure the success of their initiatives or what success looks like, the responses are generally a lot of corporate waffle.

He also asserts that most of these organizations don’t incentivize innovation across the ranks. “Saying that, we should give some credit to those banks that have created a meaningful innovation strategy and are embracing innovation better than others, but no one has really cracked it yet,” he adds.

Corporates need to define what they want to change internally and acknowledge that this won’t happen without investing in changing the company culture is what Nektarios suggests. Embracing an R&D mentality which means trying multiple things at the same time, looking at failing as an important part of the process, and to find the one thing that will actually work is the key to bring about a change, according to him. Moreover, building a portfolio of different innovation initiatives, looking at the different innovation horizons, but also, being patient does the rest of the work, he says.

Nektarios asserts that most startups are not addressing the issues that are central to a bank’s P&L. Banks should focus on what they’re good at – be clear in what their core assets are and let others solve the problems they can’t focus on.

“Stop trying to do everything. It goes back to setting a clearer path - figure out what the end goal is and create a roadmap that will help get you there. If banks had a better idea as to what they were actually trying to achieve, they might be more patient and be prepared to experiment,” he advises.

Outside of financial services, some industries have started to get their heads around this. “Should we be looking outside of our own industry to learn how to address some of our pain points?” asks Nektarios. “Success and the real evolution of financial services will come from recognizing that startups can’t solve every problem. Some existing challenges can only be addressed by the incumbents. They have to ‘build it’ themselves but it has to happen, ’startupOctober 2018|

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With Startupbootcamp, you gain access to the most relevant connections in your industry. style’, whilst continuing to engage with startups for all the other things,” he asserts.

“For this to happen, a serious change internally within banks is required, and until then, we will continue to be frustrated that we’re not evolving as an industry and keeping up with the needs of the customer,” adds Nektarios.

A Radically Disruptive Organization Startupbootcamp is continuously growing and expanding its global footprint. In FinTech alone, it has plans to continue to expand into new markets where the potential to be part of a FinTech hub is in foresight. The company is also continually looking at new ways to engage with customers by listening to the challenges and pain points and building new innovation program models to help address their key concerns.

Startupbootcamp focuses on finding synergies between emerging and established companies. It fine tunes each innovation program to enable corporate/startup collaboration. This allows its partners to find new lines of revenue, provide solutions for their customers, gain innovation insights, improve internal processes, and leapfrog competition by innovating faster.

Each program the organization conducts is supported by corporate partners who are offered the opportunity to gain access to a global pool of early and late stage technology startups. The company takes the guesswork, out of which startup would be the best fit for each business. Partners also benefit directly from its programs through innovation initiatives aimed at assisting with their own innovation pain points.

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Multiplying, Managing and Securing your Money A

bank is a financial institution licensed to receive deposits and make loans. Banks may also provide financial services, such as wealth management, currency exchange, and safe deposits. There are two types of banks: commercial/retail banks and investment banks. In most countries, banks are regulated by the national government or central bank. Banks act as payment agents by conducting checking or current accounts for customers, paying cheques drawn by customers in the bank, and collecting cheques deposited to customers' current accounts. Banks also enable customer payments via other payment methods such as Automated Clearing House (ACH), Wire transfers or telegraphic transfer, EFTPOS, and automated teller machines (ATMs).

Breaking down the different kind of 'Banks’ Commercial banks are typically concerned with managing withdrawals and receiving deposits as well as supplying short-term loans to individuals and small businesses.

Consumers primarily use these banks for basic checking and saving accounts, certificates of deposits (CDs) and home mortgages. Examples of commercial banks include JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp.

Investment banks focus on providing corporate clients with services such as underwriting and assisting with merger and acquisition (M&A) activity. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are examples of U.S. investment banks.

Central banks are chiefly responsible for currency stability, controlling inflation and monetary policy and overseeing money supply. Some of the world's major central banks include the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank and the People's Bank of China.

While many banks have both a brick-and-mortar and online presence, some banks have only an online presence.

Online-only banks often offer consumers higher interest rates and lower fees. Convenience, interest rates and fees are the driving factors in consumers' decisions of which bank to do business with. As an alternative to banks, consumers can opt to use a credit union Revenue Generation A bank can generate revenue in a variety of different ways including interest, transaction fees, and financial advice.

Traditionally, the most significant method is via charging interest on the capital it lends out to customers. The bank profits from the level of interest it pays for deposits and other sources of funds, and the level of interest it charges in its lending

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Unboxing banking

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activities. This difference is referred to as the spread between the cost of funds and the loan interest rate.

Historically, profitability from lending activities has been cyclical and dependent on the needs and strengths of loan customers and the stage of the economic cycle. Fees and financial advice constitute a more stable revenue stream and banks have therefore placed more emphasis on these revenue lines to smooth their financial performance. In the past 20 years, American banks have taken many measures to ensure that they remain profitable while responding to increasingly changing market conditions.

Liquidity Creation and Financial Fragility: A Theory of Banking Loans are illiquid when a lender needs relationship-specific skills to collect them. Consequently, if the relationship lender needs funds before the loan matures, an individual may demand to liquidate early or require a return premium.

Borrowers also risk losing funding. The costs of illiquidity are avoided if the relationship lender is a bank with a fragile capital structure, subject to runs. Fragility commits banks to create liquidity, enabling depositors to withdraw when needed, while buffering borrowers from depositors' liquidity needs. Stabilization policies, such as capital requirements, narrow banking, and suspension of convertibility, may reduce liquidity creation.

Battalion of Security If you live paycheck to paycheck, the most you're ever at risk of losing or having stolen is the amount of your last paycheck – a sum you clearly can't afford to lose if money is tight. Keeping your money secure is paramount. And once you have more than a few hundred dollars to your name, you'll want to protect your savings.

The most secure place to put your money is a bank account.

As long as you choose a legitimate bank that has Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance (or a credit union that has National Credit Union Association insurance), any money you put in the bank (up to FDIC insurance limits) is protected. To date, the guarantee provided by the FDIC has proved to be completely reliable, even during times of financial crisis like the 2008 recession or the savings-and-loan crisis of the early 1990s.

Era of Investments Once you are earning more money than you need to get by each month, you'll want to go beyond a checking account and start saving and investing your money to give yourself more financial security. With money in savings, you can handle irregular expenses like car repairs even if they don't fit into your monthly budget. A large enough emergency fund can tide you over during a period of unemployment.

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And once you have several months' worth of emergency savings, you'll want to transfer your extra savings into a retirement account. You simply can't take advantage of the opportunity to earn money in the stock market or earn interest on deposits if you're only willing to keep your money under your mattress or on a prepaid debit card.

Risk Management As a general policy, banks hold on to customer deposits to protect themselves from fraud. When you look up your bank account balance at the ATM or online after making a deposit, you may see a difference between your account balance and your available balance. This lets you know that a deposit you've made hasn't cleared yet. It's extremely important to be aware of how your bank's deposit holds policy works so that you aren't penalized for trying to make a payment with money you don't yet have access to. The bank's hold policy will always apply to business days, not calendar days. A business day is any day that is not a Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday.

Automatic Saving Plans Many banks offer automatic savings plans, and these can be a great way to develop a regular habit of saving money. At some banks, establishing such a plan is also a way to obtain lower banking fees. An automatic savings plan is something you need to set up. It simply involves choosing a specific sum of an amount that you're willing to have automatically transferred from your checking account to your savings account, usually once a month and on the same day every month (except when that day falls on a weekend or holiday). Although some people are nervous about the idea of committing to save a certain amount automatically each month, most of the investment leaders say that paying yourself first is a key component of building wealth. The other major benefit of establishing an automatic savings plan is that you don't have to remember to set aside money for savings each month – your bank will do it for you.

The Bottom Line Banks provide security and convenience for managing your money and sometimes allow you to make money by earning interest. Convenience and fees are two of the most important things to consider when choosing a bank, whether you are opening a checking, savings or money market account or putting funds into a certificate of deposit.

Be sure to develop methods to stay on top of your account balances in order to avoid fees, declined transactions and bounced payments. To protect your money from electronic theft, identity theft and other forms of fraud, it's important to implement basic precautions such as having complex passwords, safeguarding your PIN and only conducting online and mobile banking through secure internet connections.

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Sankalp Shangari: A Global Advisor for the Digitally Decentralized Financial Ecosystem

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ack in the day, banking was indisputable and was a uniform business, where clientele was reliant on what the banks offered; whereas in the present scenario, digitalization has led to a complete modernization in the banking structure. Disrupting the traditional banking system is a digital banker named Sankalp Shangari, the CEO and Founder of LALA World, playing reformative roles in this digital era. Sankalp avidly confronts new competition, regulations, technology, customer expectations, challenges, and opportunities in order to meet the customer’s requirements and expectations.

About the Digital Banker At an early stage, Sankalp recognized the world of modern banking through his formal education and his professional experiences. During his career, he pursued Master’s Degree in Finance from the CASS Business School which polished his entrepreneurship skill and continued to understand about the international finances. Prior to LALA World, he gained his leadership experience at Macquarie Deutsche Bank and with JP Morgan Chase in London and Singapore.

This experience aided him to imbibe the characteristics of recognizing talents and employing them to achieve the best results.

Sankalp incorporated this with his passion for Blockchain technology which led to the establishment of LALA World that seeks to use technology to make a social difference. As the CEO of LALA World, his role is to seek out new ways in which technology can be utilized for alleviating poverty and also to develop new models for social business that can help the society at a large scale.

The Power of Compassion and Empathy

Sankalp Shangari CEO and Founder

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During his initial days, each of his family members had resided in different countries and had witnessed the problems faced by dis-advantaged and unbanked people in October 2018|

those countries. Sankalp’s mother was especially empathetic towards these problems faced by migrant workers, which compassed him to move her thoughts and ideas towards a world of possibilities where all these could be solved. He pushed himself to work towards realizing her dream which eventually became his own dream.

In the year 2013, Sankalp got acquainted with Blockchain Technology as a tool and developed a new set of ideas which became his life-changing moment. Finally, he comprehended the roadmap of bringing his mission to life which was non-existent before.

A Decentralized Financial Ecosystem Currently LALA World products can be used by anyone who wants to attain financial freedom, since its prime focus has always been the unbanked. The company realizes that the biggest challenge faced by these unbanked people is that of an absence of credible transaction history against which they can avail loans.

So, all of the company’s banking solutions are based on the creation of a unique identifier called LALA ID. This can be used by anybody in the world just by providing the mobile number and email id to avail basic services in the LALA APP. Further, by adding more information and uploading documents in the app, the LALA ID can be built to act as a global identification document. This can also be utilized by its partner service providers to avail different services.

Apart from this, another feature that sets the company in a unique space from other banking solutions is the LALA Score. Thus, by building on LALA Score, any unbanked can avail loans via its lending arm LALA Lends. LALA Score rates each individual based on various parameters, and based on this ratings/score, they can avail loans.

Utilizing emerging technologies as a tool to successfully develop and run multiple social businesses for alleviating poverty. and clocking in several hours of their waking life to realize the shared dream of alleviating poverty.

Due to the collective efforts of LALA family for over two years, he has managed to expand the company at an exponential rate. He also takes pride in launching the first ICO (Initial Coin Offering) that has delivered its working products within 6 months.

Bequeathing the Keys of Success Nowadays, exhibition of a specific set of characteristics is expected from all bankers. There are some skills that could be developed with resilience and practice. Recognizing this Sankalp suggests the emerging bankers to especially polish their comprehension of technology. In addition, he mentions, “If a banker is acquainted with new technologies and can incorporate those to enhance security, decrease costs and streamline banking processes, then that person can go a long way.”

Achieving the Dream

Envisioning the Future

During the initial phase of establishing the company, Sankalp had to face specific issues related to finding the right people for his team who share the same vision and who would work with him passionately. Secondly, finding someone for the role of an exemplary leader and manager who kept his people together, recognized their talent and provided an exemplary growth path to their careers.

The ultimate goal of the company is to support the inclusion of the 2.5 billion unbanked people. This is a humongous task for the organisation and hence Sankalp has divided the journey into sub-goals. They intend to achieve a customer base of one million by 2019, provide loans of around USD Ten million by the end of financial year 2019 and they are working towards achieving the 100 million mark in customer engagement by the end of 2021.

Building a team of hard-working personnel and sharing an equal level of motivation to achieve the goal was the biggest hurdle that he overcame in his journey. Today, the ‘LALA family’ members are standing strong besides him October 2018|

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Being confident about your future when your organization is designed for control About the Author Tames Rietdijk (1966) started his career in 1987 at KPMG as accountant (division financial institutions) and has been working mostly for software companies since 1994 in different positions from Product Manager to CTO. Since 2005 Tames has been certified as Anti Money Laundering Specialist by the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) and he is a tutor at the Radboud Management Academy.

Tames is Chief Operations Officer at BusinessForensics and for the clients in the financial industry (banks and insurance companies) he is a trusted advisor for CFO's, CRO's and Fraud Departments because of his Risk management background combined with a thorough knowledge of software and technology.

In his vision on Risk management Tames calls for Risk based supervision instead of traditional Rule based supervision. Risk based supervision requires trend analyses with a total view instead of a snapshot of a specific event. For Risk management to be effective, more is needed than just detection of risks and that is the reason why the BusinessForensics platform offers a total solution in data mining, big data processing up until case management and sanctioning.

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ue to several incidents within the financial sector related to their integrity, people and society in general have lost their trust in banks and insurance firms. Most of the banks and insurance firms know this better than anybody else. Regulators and supervisors are almost furiously trying to restore this trust by imposing strict rules upon them that focus on preventing the previous incidents from happening again. Even though this might win them some battles, I will definitely not win them the war, as the issues they are struggling with are far more complex: Ÿ

Trying to manage their data: volume, privacy, complexity, security, availability etc. Especially in a context of finance and risk, additional requirements

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apply to the confidentiality, origination and audit trail of data; Ÿ

Reducing their IT expenses: keeping old aged systems up-and-running is difficult and expensive, resources understanding these systems are growing scarce, and such a situation is definitely stalling IT innovations, where they seem to be required to adopt new technology;

Responding to findings from regulators and supervisors, which need to be resolved imminently at the risk of large fines, negative career implications or even license consequences; Ÿ Replacing current solutions being ‘end-of-life cycle’ Ÿ

October 2018|

Leader’s Desk

Tames Rietdijk CEO Business Forensics

for which safeguarding the history as built up in their current system may be a specific issue, in addition to a potential operational risk when solutions cease to function; Ÿ

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Processing too many operational risk issues, imposing a reputational risk for both the bank and its leaders, is troubled by a large number of false positive alerts, taking up valuable time and resources. These is only an example of reasons for a growing back log.

BusinessForensics also aims for banks and insurance companies to rebuild trust. Yet we realize that to win the war, it takes a different approach. We believe that banks and insurance companies need to reorganize themselves in order to improve their operating models and to safeguard the integrity of their employees and clients.

Yes, this involves new rules & regulations. But that is not enough. Sustainability requires banks and insurances firms to embrace their future with confidence. This also involves new technologies and new data, which in turn will bring them new risks. It even involves new competition.

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We believe that truly good-natured banks and insurance firms can be compliant with new rules and regulations.

Embrace new technologies and new data. Timely identify new risks. Face their new competition with confidence. To create an organization that is in control.

By design. Only then will they be able to avoid crime, coincidence and prejudice. And that is where BusinessForensics comes in.

We achieve that level of control for our customers by continuously monitoring their compliance- and integrity risks, from multiple angles. The result: a transparent and truthful view on ‘what is happening, here and now’ in their organization. Our focus on risk allows them to respond Ÿ effectively to emerging challenges, in order to keep the bad guys out (in terms of clients and employees). By learning from our customer’s experience, our system continuously improves their responsiveness and resilience. Improves their level of control. Control brings confidence, and only with confidence can you build a bright future. Ÿ

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About the Company The team at BusinessForensics consists of consultants, architects and developers with offices in The Hague and Singapore, and has been offering software and know-how for monitoring and managing compliance and integrity risks since 1998, amongst which are financial and economic crime risks.

Preferred customers are those banks and insurcance firms that take pride in maintaining or (when necessary) rebuilding the trust of their clients, who do not view compliance as a burden but feel the inherent need to 'do the right thing'. So as partners, we can keep crime, abuse and coincidence away from their clients.

The forensic platform (the HQ products) provides real-time (big) data analysis of network, transactions and signal of evolving risks and threat. These are presented users in an accessible and understandable way, providing context and situational awareness. As a result, companies and institutions can discover these risks early and immediately take measures aimed at limiting possible damage as much as possible and optimizing chances for recovery.

Compliance is also demonstrated by measuring good behavior. Confidence in our system increases by minimizing the number of false positive alerts. In addition, unnecessary (reputational) damage is reduced and corporate agility is greatly improved. Trust improves performance; between man and machine, young and old, customer and supplier. Ÿ

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BusinessForensics aims to be the trusted partner of choice for banks and insurance companies aiming to rebuild trust. To us, partnership means cooperating to reduce all relevant compliance- and integrity risks to levels that are acceptable for banks and insurance firms, for their clients and for society as a whole. Our approach follows 7 standard steps: An experienced team that understands and is passionate about (big) data analysis, machine learning and (cyber) security, bringing sustainable fintech innovation to your company, We structure your data in such a way that you are prepared for every possible outcome, as it is impossible to predict what you will come across during your analyses.

We deliver a fine grained, adaptable configuration because every organization is unique and the system must resemble your specific situation as much as possible.

The results or our joint analysis must result in an increased awareness and understanding of what is happening here and now within your organization, with a focus on (integrity) risk.

This improved insight in the identified risks will allow you to decide how to best respond to them, in order to reduce potential damages as much and as soon as possible.

Our collaborative learning approach allows your organization to continuously improve its resilience and

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pro-actively reduce its risk profile through automated feedback loops, Ÿ As a result, your organization feels as if it is ‘Designed for Control’, having protected both the privacy of individuals and value of your assets. Ÿ

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In this complex financial world, BusinessForensics provides a coherent package of future-proof solutions to the major challenges facing all financial institutions in the coming decades: Implementing new laws and regulations, Becoming more responsive to new emerging risks, The increasing volume, complexity and velocity of (new) data, Embracing new technologies, being able to drive business innovation, Preparing for the new competition: technology platforms, crypto currencies, fintech etc.

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BusinessForensics provides a structured approach to reducing a bank or insurer’s risk profiles while reducing their cost of compliance, and at the same time improving their damage recovery rates.

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Trust accelerates performance. Between banks and their clients, man and machine, old and young.

October 2018|

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