Technology Record - Issue 22: Autumn 2021

125 F I NANC I A L S E R V I C E S “Recently we’re seeing banks demand more from their ecosystem partners to help them pivot quickly; working alongside them to retain and expand market share as well as address challenges such as risk and compliance issues as it relates to payments. With the many competing priorities and the speed of change we are all experiencing, banks can’t do it all themselves. They need to be able to leverage the expertise that sits outside their own four walls, and we believe that banks will see the greatest benefits including speed to market, and driving value for their customers. The key to the success of these partnerships lies in a platform approach to financial services. Integrating traditionally with the back-end systems of a bank was fraught with complications. Using a contained platform environment, both the bank and fintech are integrated. Exposure of application programming interfaces is straightforward, and compliance and security risks are mitigated.” Robert Mancini Head of Payments for Americas at Finastra “ITSCREDIT is enhancing digital lending capabilities and models, launching new versions in 2021 for brokers and merchants and expanding the ‘Buy Now Pay Later ’ segment. Our Pay With Credit software allows online payments with Instant Credit, using services and widgets to allow online merchants to use different payment methods. The credit functionalities are open to partners through application programming interfaces that they can integrate within their own systems that support their business model. This solution provides modules to give institutions and partners simple ways to grant instant credit to customers. We simplify the entire credit process, allowing documents to be uploaded online, accepted and confirmed with a simple click. The signing of the respective credit contracts is also done digitally and then confirmed with a second level code to authorise the operation, after which the money is disbursed.” Paulo Pinto Lead Architect at ITSCREDIT “Modernising their payments environments will enable banks to simplify payments for their customers, make them easy to use at low cost for merchants, lower the transaction costs and increase their competitive advantage compared with banks that are lagging behind. Covid-19 showed that there is an increased need to move away from cash, so instant payments and ‘peer-to-peer ’ payments are becoming a huge customer satisfier. Only a modern payments environment that seamlessly supports all these different types of payment will decide if your bank is with the winners or the losers.” Hans Tesselaar Executive Director at Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN)