Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:36:19 · Sarah Kocianski, David Barton-Grimley
So I think the two things are, my perspective, is that the customer at the end of the day owns their data. It is their data. They have created it. Ergo, it is theirs. And secondly, transparency is hugely important, whether you're serving an individual, whether you're serving a freelancer, or whether you're serving a large organization. The point being that the larger the organization, the more likely they are to have the resources to take you to task if they find out you've been treating them unfairly, which makes financial services companies often more willing to sort of think carefully before they do anything untoward. But the third, the other point we make there is often the untoward decisions aren't deliberate, like act without think, because you're not thinking about what you're doing with the data, where it's come from and how you're using it. You're making decisions that are gonna come back and really bite you later on. So, it's a minefield. If I could solve it, would... I wouldn't be here doing this. I would have sold the solution and be, you know, living on an island somewhere in the in the Pacific. [00:37:22] S0: That's super interesting, Sarah. And I guess it gets even more complicated when you think about things like generative AI and maybe some of the impact that that's going to be making on, you know, decisioning, passing through lots of unstructured data. Lots of benefits there, but also lots of pitfalls and and issues with with regulation as well. Val, I'm gonna come to you.
00:37:40 · Valentina Kristensen
[00:37:40] S4: Yeah. I mean, actually, just just on that, in generative generative AI. So I'm sure some of you might have seen the, you know, the the post on Twitter or on X, sorry, earlier this week from the Spotify CEO and founder about the fact that they've now got the ability, when you're doing a podcast like the one we're doing right now, then there's the ability to switch the language to French, Italian, Spanish, German, whichever language, but with my voice. So suddenly you're hearing me, and then suddenly I'm speaking Spanish. Suddenly I'm speaking French. Suddenly I'm speaking Italian. Think about how that's going to impact translation businesses, right? Businesses that make, and these are businesses that might make their money by translating audio files, documents, they might be translating customer conversations for training purposes, a whole host of things that they might be doing. And suddenly, there's AI that can do what they do. So what does the future hold for these kinds of businesses? How do they have to pivot? What's going to be the impact on their cash flow and on their business? And that's why, you know, being able to keep abreast of these changes, you know, these macro trends, some of the things that the new technologies that might be coming to market and how those are going to impact your customers in the future, you know, Doing that scenario analysis and being able to see, okay, if this happens, then what happens to the business? And that's so crucial because so many of these changes are happening so quickly, and they might be driven by the consumer, right? I mean, you think about I don't know, how would... As consumers kind of become more conscious about the environment, how's that going to impact like a steakhouse chain, right? Or farming of cattle becomes more expensive and you get all these additional levies and taxes. How is that going impact a business like that? How's it you know, I know that there's been obviously some recent changes to the green agenda from the prime minister.
00:39:36 · Valentina Kristensen
But again, how might, you know, the move to electric cars impact MOTs, you know, MOT shops where you have obviously a petrol car has a lot more parts to it, several thousand more parts than an electric car, requires much more servicing, whereas with an electric car, you can get updates as we see with Tesla remotely, you know, and you can have things checking your car remotely, which which, again, will have a huge impact on the, you know, the hundreds of MOT businesses across The UK and and the, you know, hundreds of thousands across across the world.
00:40:09 · David Barton-Grimley
[00:40:09] S0: It's just profound, isn't it? And this is definitely a rabbit hole that we could we could talk about forever. But I I just wanted to move on to the immediacy of data, which is actually related to AI and generative AI in some ways, we can so we can keep talking about it. One of the threads that goes through this conversation is real time data and how amazing it is both for your business and for your for your banking partners and and how by using this real time data, you're gonna be able to change your business. But I suppose the the critical lie to that is how able our organizations to actually utilize the real time data that comes through to a decision that that they can make, and then how able, therefore, is an incumbent bank to be able to to utilize, some of this real time data. So to to bring this to life through an example, we heard recently about a real time underwriting solution such as Perfius. So the Indian fintech recently raised $229,000,000 investments, so a huge amount of money as they look to expand their services into US and Europe. They wanna shake up the mortgage industry with their AI powered underwriting platform, which collects data in real time and calculates offers instantly. Right? So that is a classic example of fintech automation. We're using AI models. We're gonna come up with, you know, fairer, better decisions for customers, and we can integrate, you know, bang. We come up with an answer straight away. So with this in mind, how important actually is immediacy, in banking? And Pranav, I'm gonna come to you on on this one. You know, how how able do you think would the bank, for example, be able to actually utilize some of the insights that come out of systems like this? Do do the customers that that you speak to really want to see everything to be done right here, right now?
00:41:51 · Pranav Sood
[00:41:51] S2: So I think speed is becoming more and more important, and it's a big guiding principle when it comes to the way that we're building our infrastructure. So we offer the ability for customers to pay out instantly in, I think, 60 countries around the world, which is something that people really value because, of course, when they make a payment, they want to know that it's gonna be able to move around the world, you know, as quickly as it possibly can. I don't necessarily see banks yet at the point where they can act on information as quickly as as you as you can suggested. I don't necessarily see them being able to patch together the various different rails that exist around the world and the processes that accompany those rails in a way that allows their customers to be able to act with real immediacy. I do think though that it's always worth sounding a slight note of caution, is immediacy is very important, but actually I think predictability is almost as important. And so of course, commercial, you know, banking customers want things to happen instantly, but equally if you say to them, look, I'm sorry, this isn't gonna happen instantly, but it will happen within this period of time, then that is often also fine. And I think where traditional banking institutions have suffered is because they've struggled to both provide... Well, provide either immediacy or predictability. And in that that that situation, as Sarah mentioned earlier, you've got a bunch of business owners who are trying to run businesses. And if they can't do it quickly and they don't know how how long it's gonna take, it becomes extremely difficult for them to do that. And so that's where I see the opportunity for us as as disruptors and challengers to to come in and help and either do it really fast or say, look. It's gonna take us this long, and we'll stick to that.
00:43:23 · David Barton-Grimley
[00:43:23] S0: And, Sarah, I'd love to get get your perspective on real time from a from a broader, retail point of view. This this immediacy of of data that you see in mortgages. If you if you just take the customer point of view on the mortgage as opposed to the commercial banking point of view in the mortgage, yes. Absolutely. I want this done now. I want my agreement ready. I want the documentation done. Want no one to have to speak to to, you know, lawyers and multiple banks and estate agents. I just I just want it want it done. Where where would you say is the main... The the major kind of upcoming innovation in in real time? Alright. Just any thoughts on it.