Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
01:02:08 · Sarah Kocianski, Keri Gohman, David M. Brear
[01:02:08] S0: These do. [01:02:09] S13: These are like very official. I wrote them down on everything. So we've had 3,000, over 3,000 attendees which is incredible. [01:02:18] S10: That's impressive. [01:02:19] S13: It is and by the way this is a worldwide conference. Worldwide we've had close to 10,000 accountants, fintech providers, banks come together all across the world who are the most forward thinking folks in their in their field. We also have about 44% of those folks that are women. Whoo. I hear you. Everybody that is good. [01:02:38] S0: For somebody who attends a lot of finance conferences, that's an amazing stat. [01:02:41] S13: An amazing stat. Yeah. We have served something like... We're going to serve something like 12,000 meals, 10,000 cups of amazing coffee provided by one of our small business owners, two grassy knolls and 30 hedges. I'll let your listeners try to figure that out. The state is as big as seven double decker buses and then finally my favorite a 164 miles of lighting which would essentially cover the distance between London and the Leeds of Yorkshire which I understand as an American I'm pronouncing entirely incorrectly. [01:03:11] S10: You were close. Close enough, right? [01:03:12] S0: Close. Thanks guys. Well, thank you so much for agreeing to join us this evening ladies. But now, let's get on with the show.
01:03:12 · Sarah Kocianski, David M. Brear
[01:03:12] S0: Close. Thanks guys. Well, thank you so much for agreeing to join us this evening ladies. But now, let's get on with the show. [01:03:20] S10: Sounds good. Okay. For this first segment, we want to talk about something that a lot of people in this conference seem to think is really, really important, which is kind of an interesting one, isn't it? And this is bank feeds. I think that's been one of the things that have been sort of on the tip of many people's tongue. And whether... Well, really who better to join us to come and get involved in this conversation than two resident experts in banking, open banking, and everything or APIs. So please welcome to the stage now a friend of the show, Megan Caywood, is the Chief Platform Officer at Starling Bank. Hello. Hello. Welcome. And we also have Oliver Prill who is the new CEO at Tides. Come on, [01:04:04] S0: so today at Zerocon, Zerra made a number of announcements around bank feeds. So they've released their own bank feed API. Apparently, and I've got a stat here. Kerry can correct me if it's wrong. That seven out of 10 customers say bank feeds are Zerra's most important feature. So I'm gonna let Carrie start answering this whilst they're doing drinks. But from a Xero perspective, what is a bank feed and and why is it so important? Why are customers so keen to have it?
01:04:04 · Sarah Kocianski, Keri Gohman
[01:04:04] S0: so today at Zerocon, Zerra made a number of announcements around bank feeds. So they've released their own bank feed API. Apparently, and I've got a stat here. Kerry can correct me if it's wrong. That seven out of 10 customers say bank feeds are Zerra's most important feature. So I'm gonna let Carrie start answering this whilst they're doing drinks. But from a Xero perspective, what is a bank feed and and why is it so important? Why are customers so keen to have it? [01:04:30] S13: Yeah. So your stat is dead on. And the reason it's so important is because bank feeds are really the foundation of cloud based accounting. It provides a way to get data inside of the system and we like to call it, I know this is sort of high integrity accounting. This idea that you know exactly where the data came from. It's real time and the most important part of bank feeds is account rec... Bank reconciliation. Making sure that in the system it's connecting into the right spot in the chart of accounts and that the data is accurate and flowing in the way that it should And we love the fact that we can provide business owners with an easy way to get their financial picture and easy way to do account reconciliation. And we're able to do things now with artificial intelligence like predict 90% of the time how how a a bank feed coming in will reconcile into the chart of accounts. That saves accountants incredible amounts of time but it's the very basic, the most important part of accounting working well.
01:04:30 · Keri Gohman, Sarah Kocianski
[01:04:30] S13: Yeah. So your stat is dead on. And the reason it's so important is because bank feeds are really the foundation of cloud based accounting. It provides a way to get data inside of the system and we like to call it, I know this is sort of high integrity accounting. This idea that you know exactly where the data came from. It's real time and the most important part of bank feeds is account rec... Bank reconciliation. Making sure that in the system it's connecting into the right spot in the chart of accounts and that the data is accurate and flowing in the way that it should And we love the fact that we can provide business owners with an easy way to get their financial picture and easy way to do account reconciliation. And we're able to do things now with artificial intelligence like predict 90% of the time how how a a bank feed coming in will reconcile into the chart of accounts. That saves accountants incredible amounts of time but it's the very basic, the most important part of accounting working well. [01:05:29] S0: So, Becca, do you want to add to that? I mean, you you work with these small businesses on a regular basis and you know you're sitting on the other side that taking in the feed I suppose. You know, what are your thoughts on it?
01:05:29 · Sarah Kocianski, Becca McClure
[01:05:29] S0: So, Becca, do you want to add to that? I mean, you you work with these small businesses on a regular basis and you know you're sitting on the other side that taking in the feed I suppose. You know, what are your thoughts on it? [01:05:40] S14: I think it's key really for the well, from a two points of view. From the small business that it allows us as accountants to be able to provide them far more real time advice because the data is going straight in. We can reconcile things. We're not waiting till the bank statement comes out to then upload it and reconcile it. It's all live there and that means they've got real time information that they can make decisions on. The other part of it that's really important is it allows the accountants, it saves loads of admin. So, it allows us to actually concentrate on what small businesses want us to do which is provide business advice. So, I mean, [01:06:19] S0: but bank feeds have existed for a while but, you're now sort of taking advantage of open banking and the open API route. Is that correct? And you know, what is that does that make more sense for you to do it that way?
01:06:19 · Sarah Kocianski, Keri Gohman
[01:06:19] S0: but bank feeds have existed for a while but, you're now sort of taking advantage of open banking and the open API route. Is that correct? And you know, what is that does that make more sense for you to do it that way? [01:06:32] S13: Yeah. Listen. We're excited about open banking and bank feeds for a number of different reasons. I know a lot today as we've talked about open banking. We've talked about the idea that consumers now have ownership of their data which is awesome and it'll empower innovation across the ecosystem. We are definitely going to take advantage of open banking because it allows us to standardize the way we work. So it simplifies our life at zero but the reality is the mandate so far has been for the top tier banks. So we'll definitely take advantage there But in many cases where we have direct relationships, we're able to pull more data than just open banking which is really powerful. And of course because it'll take time to reach the whole ecosystem, it's important that we keep those bank feeds going, continue to make sure we have nice coverage and over time it'll really open up the market. I'd also add that coming from America, it's worth noting that The UK is taking the lead on this thinking globally and we're learn learn a ton about the innovation that unlocks and how it really changes the game for small business owners in the future and we can already see other countries beginning to adopt like Australia but we're quite excited about it.