Sumant Shringari, CEO of Pontus, and Sandeep Sood, CEO of Kunai, share their expertise on automating back-office operations for large enterprises. They discuss the complexities banks face in automating regulated workflows and breaking down data silos. Hear how Pontus offers solutions like Automated Account Reconciliation and Predictive Budget Forecasting, aimed at reducing reliance on large teams. The conversation highlights the productivity paradox and advocates for pragmatic, agile approaches to automation that focus on real-world problems, enhancing efficiency and driving business value.
44:39
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
menu_book Books
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
question_answer ANECDOTE
Manual Work in Large Banks
Large banks suffer manual work pain in finance and operations.
One manual process example is teams aggregating invoices into massive spreadsheets and sharing by Slack manually.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Pontus' Pivot to Automation
Pontus pivoted from AI privacy to business automation after OpenAI changes.
Sumant found Sandeep via a podcast, starting a key partnership for Pontus.
insights INSIGHT
Communication Over Spreadsheets
Inefficiencies mainly come from communication, not spreadsheets.
Manual data retrieval takes significant hidden time.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Don't Make Me Think is a book that focuses on the principles of human–computer interaction and web usability. It argues that good software programs and websites should allow users to accomplish their tasks as easily and directly as possible. The book highlights the importance of designing for scanning rather than reading, using conventions and visual hierarchies, and conducting usability testing. It also includes updated chapters on mobile usability and practical advice on navigation structure and user-centered design. The book is known for its brevity, wit, and use of real-life examples to illustrate good and bad design practices[1][2][4].
Welcome back to our weekly fintech podcast!
This week, I had the chance to sit down with Sumant Shringari, the CEO and Co-Founder of Pontus, and Sandeep Sood, the Founder and CEO of Kunai.
Pontus was established in 2023 to automate the large, difficult, and often fragmented back-office operations critical to large enterprises – such as the Global 2,000 banks that they count as customers. It was interesting to hear Sumant's perspective from his time working with banks about the difficulty in automating regulated workflows and breaking down data silos. For all the hype around generative AI, the risk is real when it comes to financial services use cases, and it speaks to the necessity for strong partners that can provide dependable implementation.
It's worth taking a look through Pontus' outcomes library as well. Fintech founders will recognize a lot of the solutions here, such as Automated Account Reconciliation, Predictive Budget Forecasting, and Enterprise Risk Assessment. All of these functions today either require massive internal teams or significant vendor integration. Pontus' goal is to replace the need for both.
This Week in Fintech's Podcast 