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Paybefore: It’s increasingly clear that ntechs and banks need each other, but it’s also clear they don’t speak the same language or share the same culture. Agree?
Glen Fossella: Absolutely,
it’s a real challenge for ntechs to understand banks and vice versa. Most ntechs don’t get bank culture, bank metrics and what drives banks’ acquisition decisions. On the other side, banks—espe- cially smaller ones—lack time and resources to understand tech, particularly distinguishing what’s real and what’s smoke. A lack of overlapping domain knowledge creates the disconnect, which is
a barrier to banks and ntechs engaging at a time when they need each other.
John de Lavis: You hit it right regarding the absence of common understanding. Going further, I’d say there’s a degree of antipathy based on cultural di erences—
the 45-year-old process-oriented, risk-averse banker vs. the 25-year- old Stanford graduate in Silicon Valley. Because the 25-year-old hasn’t experienced the challenges of the complex, regulated, hierar- chical banking environment, the banker views him or her as un- seasoned, lacking credibility and, possibly, cocky. And the “kid” views the banker as hopelessly out of touch and resistant to change. There’s probably some truth in each one’s view of the other, but the point is, the buyer (the bank) and the seller (the ntech) think and view the world di erently.
I’m not sure there’s actually a cultural tribe called “bankers,”
but it’s important for ntechs
to understand the world bankers inhabit, because—unless ntechs happen upon the rare banker who recognizes the brilliance of their solutions without discussion— ntechs have to be able to talk banker talk.
Paybefore: Is the disconnect as basic as not having a mutual understanding of the business case for a ntech solution?
GF: Again, yes. In any market,
the rst few clients buy technology with a leap of faith—seeing poten- tial value that the provider doesn’t even recognize. A young ntech may not understand how its rst few clients perceive the business case for its products, so it’s essen- tial for them to stay close to these initial clients. This is the ntech’s opportunity to understand the business case and the math, so
it can evolve to the next stage—
a real economic case that applies to the broader market.
volume 9 • fall 2016
John de Lavis is managing partner for advisory services at Greenings International, a global pay- ments and nancial services advisory and executive placement rm. His resume includes 30+ years in global payments and banking, with executive roles at Meta Payment Systems, NetSpend, Mastercard and earlier at U.K.-based Midland Bank and HSBC. He is a director of Urban FT and Greenings International; an adviser to Cashpath, Intenda/ fraXses, Payfont and Tibado; and a partner in Artemis Consulting.
Glen Fossella is executive vice president of enterprise growth at New York City-based Urban FT, a white-label digital banking platform provider. He has more than 25 years’ experience building early- and mid-stage tech companies, including
12 years in branch automation, payments and mobile banking. He has sold everything from
dress shoes to nano lm technology.
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