IBS Intelligence Podcasts

Arjan Verbeek, CEO & Co-Founder, PerennaThe UK’s newest bank, Perenna, has been awarded a UK banking licence ‘with restrictions’ by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority. This is the penultimate step before a full banking licence is granted. When that happens, which the bank expects in Q1 2023, it will begin offering long-term fixed rate mortgages (30-year, 95% LTV) in the UK housing market. These are new products in the UK and with housing affordability a constant issue, are likely to prove popular. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence speaks to Perenna CEO and Co-Founder Arjan Verbeek about the bank’s plans and proposed products.

Mahmood Shamsher Ali, Pakistan Country Representative, Alif BankAlif is a Central Asian FinTech operating as a full-fledged bank in Tajikistan and as an e-commerce and FinTech company in Uzbekistan. The company, originally established in 2014, has a full banking licence in Tajikistan and a payments licence in Uzbekistan. It has also applied for a digital banking licence in Pakistan – one of 20 applicants for 5 licences on offer. Alif now has more than 1 million users and, for example, a market share of more than 50% of all Visa payments in Tajikistan. The group’s ambition is to become a global Islamic FinTech unicorn. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence discusses Alif’s ambitions with the bank’s Pakistan Country Representative, Mahmood Shamsher Ali.

Serge Tohme, Managing Director EMEA, Finastra, & Gary McDermott, Treasurer, The Co-operative BankThe Co-operative Bank selected Finastra Kondor in the cloud, available via Microsoft Azure, to upgrade its treasury infrastructure and automate manual reporting and processes. Finastra’s focus on ESG concerns fits with The Co-operative Bank’s stance on ethical banking. Moving from an on-premises model to a cloud-based managed service is a key part of the bank’s operational strategy for treasury activity. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence discusses the attractions of a cloud-based solution with Serge Tohme, Managing Director EMEA, Finastra, and Gary McDermott, Treasurer, The Co-operative Bank (pictured).

Ellison Anne Williams, CEO & Founder, Enveil Privacy-enhancing technologies for secure data search protect data while it's being used or processed. The development of privacy-enhancing technologies is a hot topic for financial services. The UN estimates that up to $2 trillion of cross-border money laundering occurs each year. Greater information sharing and collaborative analytics among financial organisations could transform the detection of this activity in a secure manner without compromising jurisdictional requirements. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence speaks to Ellison Anne Williams, CEO and Founder of Enveil about the potential for secure data usage.

Jacob Rider, Head of Payments, ProjectiveNovember 2022 marks the point of migration for some of the top global payment infrastructures to ISO 20022, an international standard for exchanging electronic messages between financial institutions, covering cards, payments, securities, FX and trade. Most banks, corporates and payments companies use SWIFT MT financial messaging for transactions, which will migrate over to the new system and eventually come to an end in 2025. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence discusses the coming of ISO 20022 with Jacob Rider, Co-Head of Projective’s Payments Practice.

Samantha Bamert, Founder & CEO of Ask Inclusive FinanceAccording to The Rose Review, access to and awareness of funding was highlighted as the number one issue for female entrepreneurs. Women launch businesses with 53% less capital on average than men, are less aware of funding options and less likely to take on debt. In honor of Women’s Equality Day celebrated on Aug 26th, Samantha Bamers, the Founder and CEO of micro-lending firm Ask Inclusive Finance (AskIf), discusses how far the financial services industry still needs to go to ensure equality and inclusion in lending.

Chris Blackhurst, Author, Too Big to Jail‘Too Big to Jail’, subtitled ‘Inside HSBC, the Mexican drug cartels and the greatest banking scandal of the century’ tells the story behind the record fine of $1.9 billion handed out to HSBC in 2012 by US authorities along with a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice (there were no prosecutions). The fine related to money laundering activities between 2003 and 2010 on behalf of the Sinaloa drugs cartel in Mexico. Would modern compliance solutions using AI/ML be able to stop such activities? Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence discusses the story with author Chris Blackhurst, award-winning business writer and former national newspaper editor.

Liam Chennells, CEO & Founder, DetectedDetected fills the KYB gap in the payments’ technology stack with a ‘Find Company’ algorithm that aims to find any registered company globally. The startup’s Connected Compliance API can search and locate business credit, corporate and director information from around the globe in seconds. Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence speaks to Liam Chennells, Founder and CEO of Detected.

Timo Lehes, Co-founder, Swarm Digitising financial products opens new opportunities for investment. Regulated multi-asset DeFi platform, Swarm, is helping its customer base diversify their portfolios with tokens representing asset classes from both crypto and traditional financial markets. IBSi’ Reporter Gaia Lamperti interviewed Swarm’s Co-founder Timo Lehes about the company’s approach to tokenisation and upcoming plans. 

Eduardo Chazan, CEO, CollegiaMeet your customers where they want to be, and the place they are likely to want to be in the future is in the metaverse. FinTechs and established financial services groups need to be considering their future communications strategy now. Eduardo Chazan, CEO of pensions FinTech Collegia, speaks to Robin Amlôt of IBS Intelligence. Collegia is the first pension provider in the UK to be authorised by the FCA to offer a pension that is both a personal and Auto Enrolment pension scheme.