Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:08:02 · David Barton-Grimley
[00:08:02] S0: It sounds like there's a huge amount of complexity complexity in running a global business. And the more global you are, the more complex your supply chains are. I suppose in some ways, the more complex your your needs are. We've got a really interesting statistic. A 100% of respondents in the EACT treasury survey 2023 cited cash flow forecasting as a priority with tech infrastructure and replacement of IT tools also ranking really, really high. And, actually, I'd like to go into this a little bit. Valentina, what what are you... Are you hearing the technical infrastructure being an issue as well? I mean, it's great for us as a business to use all of these wonderful tools that are available to us, but how can it integrate with the systems and the and the stack that we have?
00:08:45 · Valentina Kristensen
[00:08:45] S4: Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, so often businesses of this size sort of just get presented with a menu of things, you know, a menu of products and services, a menu of tools that they can use, and a lot of them might not be applicable to their business. They might be completely irrelevant for their business. But unfortunately, the banks simply don't have the time, the resource, the willingness or the necessarily the capability to sit down and say, for this business, these are the kinds of things that I think based on their jobs to be done need to be presented to them. And that's something that we really try to do. You know, at OpenOff, we sort of try to understand what is it that the customer needs, and what are their pain points, and then work backwards from there, rather than sort of presenting a menu of options. You also have to think a lot of these businesses, whilst they, you know, I mean, as I say, it's sort of the 1 to 2,000,000 revenue up to 100,000,000 revenue. A business that has $23.04, 5,000,000 revenue probably doesn't have a hugely sophisticated finance team. They might have an accountant they see once a quarter, maybe they have a finance director. Once you got to the higher turnover, then obviously, you might have a CFO and a much bigger finance team. And then of course, the sophistication and the tools you might be using will be much better. And I think that's where trying to work with fintechs that have solutions that are embedded with other fintechs. And I mean, we work with a number of fintechs at Oak North, really to try to create that optimal experience to the customer, not only at the front end, so the products and services they see, but also at the back end, the things they don't see, to try to make that experience as seamless as possible.
00:10:23 · David Barton-Grimley
[00:10:23] S0: It's always interesting to hear just how complex these needs are in commercial banking. And and just on your point, Valentino, about taking a a leaf from the book of retail banking and really understanding how, you know, customers have jobs to be done, and we just need to figure out what those jobs are and create services in order to do that. Sarah, I'm gonna come to you on this. How how do you think the needs of commercial banking differ from other retailers? Are there... What what what are the similarities and differences you would you would say broadly?
00:10:51 · Sarah Kocianski
[00:10:51] S3: I mean, I think that the first thing to mention is that everybody means something different by commercial banking, you know, to Val's point. She's... And also serves the M in the SME, but, you know, what what is an S? What is an M? What is a, you know, a a large scale enterprise? And I think sometimes that can kind of be a little bit stretched. Actually, you're trying to serve these customers, have to have an idea, a definition in your mind of exactly who you're trying to serve. I think on the larger sort of end of things, what we would call enterprise banking, if you like, Some of the needs that are different are the fact it's truly the scale, the size and the scale. You're moving a lot more money. You're often moving it a lot quicker. That comes with more complex compliance requirements, and then that slows things back down again. So you're trying to do more things, you're trying to do them more times a day, and it's more complicated because the legal team needs to be involved in everything. That prevents you from doing a lot of stuff in real time or has historically. As already touched on, the bigger you are, the more complex your IT system is. It's just almost a statement of fact. I think also we shouldn't lose sight of how old some of the ERP systems are that people are using out there, the enterprise resource planning systems. I also did a report on this a couple of years ago, just looking at treasury management. And I was shocked to find out just how many companies that are bringing in tens of millions of dollars, pounds, whatever you want to say, of revenue are actually using a whole lot of spreadsheets as well to try and manage their accounting and their finance functions, which is only mildly terrifying. So if you're going to try and serve them, are you going to access that information? How are you going to digitize that? How are going find their needs? And then as has already been touched on and Pranav will know a lot more about this than me, geography, you know, the bigger you are, the more international you are. You're moving money in different currencies, makes cash flow management really difficult. You have to start thinking about FX management.
00:12:44 · Sarah Kocianski, David Barton-Grimley
And again, moving money across borders, you're going come up against different rules and different regulations, and that's going to add further complexity to any of your kind of financial dealings. The one thing I would say that kind of, again, from kind the work I've done in this area that to be borne in mind though, and again, this touches on Val's point, is everybody has their jobs to be done. Treasurers are people who know what retail banking apps look like. So they almost... Their expectations are are change... Are changing in time with that. They sort of think if I can do this at home, if I can do this with my personal accounts, if I can use Ys to manage my FX, if you like, you know, to take that as a very simple example, why can't I do it at work? And I think that that is... The the bleed over is happening there, that the expectations of the people who are working in these finance departments is changing. [00:13:31] S0: It's so interesting, and I think you're right. It's gonna vary so much based on the size of the company, the sector, the geography, all of this kind of stuff. So, Pranav, I'd love to come to you about this and and and talk a little bit about how digital, are commercial banking customers really? I mean, so what what would you say is a typical type of customer which uses the services that Airwallex provides?
00:13:54 · Pranav Sood
[00:13:54] S2: So I think we go after a very similar type of customer to the ones that Oak North address in the sense that we're not so focused on the S of SME. We're much more interested in businesses who are operating at a slightly bigger scale, who have a global footprint, who are collecting or sending or spending money across borders, and who are exposed to some of the friction in doing so that Sarah mentioned as well and some of the legacy systems and processes that their existing banking providers will have put in place. I think the interesting point is the one that Sarah mentioned as well, which is that business owners are people and consumers as well. And so they feel and they see the advancement that is happening in consumer space, and they understand some of the changes that can happen in terms of ease of use and UX and UI that world and expect it the b to b side as well. But what's always interesting to me is just how little some quite sophisticated, business, CFOs or or treasury directors, how little they actually know about the way in which their money is moving around the world. And that manifests itself in a lot of different ways. So it manifests itself in the idea that, you know, they think we have to absolutely go and travel to America if we want to open a US bank account. Well, actually, you don't anymore. You can work with providers like us who can do that for you. Or guess what? I don't really understand how much my payment provider is charging me for FX because it's all bundled, but that's always how it's been. So that's always how it should be. And so it's a sort of paradox in the sense that people are becoming more and more attuned to the possibilities, particularly when it comes to user experience and and and and and kind of ease of use, but they're not necessarily being as clear about or as well educated on some of the differences in how people can now do things versus how traditional banks have done things in the past.