Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Mike Ward, Chief Revenue Officer at World First (Part 4)

Mike Ward: The ability to land one client at a time is not necessarily as scalable. You have so many people trying to do it. It doesn’t create a unique acquisition channel out there. That one to many is a unique opportunity. There are people out there with API’s who are landing one to many and partnering with someone who already has a group of clients or potential clients. I don’t think as many people are thinking about that as a true game changer.

The other thing, especially in financial services, is all of us have gone with this mono-line focus and pick apart a single product or service from large financial institutions. We have the belief that no consumer corporations out there will say, “I want multiple relationships. I want eight apps to manage.” The power of us integrating this into one is where the industry is going to go.

I think there’s two options. There’s partnerships and acquisitions. Larger financial institutions are competing by actually bringing more of us in-house. For an international payments example, a great example for that would be Virgin Money. We have others that we deal with around the world. We can turn on a product for them or already take a product that they may have and step-change their technology and processes, and they no longer have to worry about HR and the headcount. In a lot of cases, it makes their margins better.

That’s a good way for large FI’s to maintain clients in their ecosystem, i.e. partner or potentially acquire companies like us that are picking it apart one product at a time. The other avenue is through the dashboard. A great company there is Personal Capital. That brings in your investment platforms into one location. The power of those dashboards where you might still have multiple relationships underneath and putting that in a single location is a lot more powerful. Those two things are really where people need to think about.

Sramana Mitra: If you were starting a company today, what kind of a company would you start?

Mike Ward: I would take one dashboard. I would build a dashboard where someone could plug-in not just your investment accounts but your financial services products as a whole into one location. That’s just more powerful. That would be something that would still allow for the fin tech companies out there to compete. It allows them to disrupt and change the industry. From a consumer user experience which is the most important thing you got to think of, it simplifies their life.

Sramana Mitra: Great. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Mike Ward, Chief Revenue Officer at World First
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