CEE FinTech founder Zsombor Imre made an interview with Samee Zafar Director of Edgar, Dunn & Company Management Consultants. The broad range of topics concerned are about FinTech happenings in big hubs like London and also in the CEE region, Zsombor asked his opinion about the relations of AI and fintechs, banks and disruptors and the importance of the data in this sector.
(0:35) He says banks in the UK have a lot to worry about but not in the very close future.
(2:23) Fintechs are attacking all those areas where banks have overlooked or have not been so interested because of the risk implications. Speaking of which Mr Zafar views on the ongoing debate about fintech companies threatening financial institutions could be summed up with these thoughts: He does not think this is an immediate threat, consumers are also slow to change their habbits and change their financial services providers, however there are certain nieches were the fintechs are doing so much better already, where banks do not want to set foot because it would be too risky. A good example is the US market in the aspect of student loans which is a massive problem there. Fintechs credit-checking models are different from the banks’ models, therefore students get the chance to get loans. Fintechs’ scoring models are rather focusing on your social activities, networks, communication patterns so basically they score the students’ trustworthiness not their creditworthiness.
(4:54) AI is a great promise but we are still in the dark ages there, we are talking about it in the last 30 years. We have so much data now and we only use properly only 1% of it and using the other 99% will be a big challenge. We can ask now so what does the future hold in a few years time? Maybe we could think of analyzing people’s financial services needs, in a self-service manner.
(6:49) Data protection is a hot topic right now because of the forthcoming regulation. Listen to Mr Zafar views on data protection and the future of the data market.
(10:30) CEE can be an appealing spot to Western players, since CEE has an examptional talent, especially in software design. But also the younger population is very internet and social media savvy.
“Polish young people are far more familiar with their own digital footprint than perhaps young people in the area of Western Europe or in the US are.”
Mr Zafar believes that in the future CEE will not only be a great source of programmers but the region as a whole would be a very attractive market.
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Lead partner for Advanced Payments Consulting practice at Edgar, Dunn & Company, one of the most respected management consulting firms in the financial services sector with a focus on payments and new technologies. Areas covered: e commerce, online payments, mobile commerce, mobile payments, credit cards, debit cards, prepaid cards, ACH, international remittances, smartcards, NFC, profitability modelling, risk management, security and risk, competitive strategy, operations management, cost optimisation, technology strategy, business case review, due diligence advice |
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Zsombor is a management consulting professional with e-business, fintech and payments specialization. He is founder, executive or board member of a number of companies. He benefits from previous work experience gained at Citibank, KPMG and Wizz Air. Zsombor holds MSc degrees in Finance and TTC, attended the CEMS Master in International Management programme and PhD studies in Finance. He has international project experience from 15 countries, gained numerous professional awards; he is a sought-after speaker. Zsombor served as the chairman of EPCA, the European Payments Consulting Association in 2014 |
