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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Artificial intelligence and automation have been at the forefront of the financial services industry. This rapid digital acceleration driven by the pandemic has forced lenders to modernize their lending ecosystem to stay relevant in the new normal.
Today you know that the success of your business depends vastly on your ability to use technologies to harness the power of data and provide hyper-personalized products and services to your customers. However, only 40% of lenders believe they have the required digital capabilities to undertake such a transformation.
Watch for this intriguing discussion as top experts from Quantiphi discuss how AI-first digital engineering can re-imagine traditional lending processes to help you enhance customer lifetime value and reduce operating costs in this highly competitive business environment.
Featuring:
Sanjeev Sethi, Head – Banking & Financial Services, Quantiphi
Vijay Mannur, Practice Head – Marketing Analytics, Quantiphi
Milind Wasaikar, Client Service Executive, Quantiphi
Day One of FinovateEurope is in the books. The demos are done and, now that the votes of our attendees have been counted, we are happy to introduce the winners of Best of Show for FinovateEurope 2022.
Dreams for its engagement banking platform, rooted in cognitive and behavioral science, that offers a unique way to engage your customers. Demo.
Finshape for its technology that helps banks win the race for digital customers through ready-made digital products and custom delivery services. Demo.
mmob for its technology that makes embedded finance easy and empowers consumer-facing fintechs to supercharge their growth through embedded finance partnerships. Demo.
SESAMm for its technology that leverages big data and artificial intelligence to provide investment signals to investors. Demo.
Trulioo for its global identity verification technology that helps organizations mitigate risk, reduce fraud, and scale compliance programs globally. Demo.
Thanks to all of our demoing companies, our speakers and presenters, our sponsors and partners, and our outstanding audience of both in-person and digital attendees. Be sure to stay connected to the Finovate blog and social media @Finovate to keep up with the latest from our FinovateEurope companies and presenters.
Notes on methodology:
1. Only audience members NOT associated with demoing companies were eligible to vote. Finovate employees did not vote.
2. Attendees were encouraged to note their favorites during each day. At the end of the last demo, they chose their three favorites.
3. The exact written instructions given to attendees: “Please rate (the companies) on the basis of demo quality and potential impact of the innovation demoed.”
4. The five companies appearing on the highest percentage of submitted ballots were named “Best of Show.”
5. Go here for a list of previous Best of Show winners through 2014. Best of Show winners from our 2015 through 2021 conferences are below:
Glia recently raised a $45 million Series D investment round.
The round values the company at over $1 billion, making it a fintech unicorn.
Glia said the funds “will be heavily allocated toward research and development.”
Digital customer service tools provider Glia is now valued at over $1 billion, making it fintech’s newest unicorn. The company announced earlier this week it closed a $45 million Series D investment, bringing its total funding to $152 million.
Insight Partners led the round, which saw contributions from existing investor Wildcat Capital Management and new investor RingCentral Ventures. Glia will “heavily allocate” the funds into research and development, investing in advanced AI, analytics, messaging, voice, and video capabilities. The company, which has offices in New York and Estonia, also plans to boost international expansion.
“The future of customer service is digital, and those that have yet to take steps to modernize their support and engagement strategies are already behind,” said Glia Co-Founder and CEO Dan Michaeli. “We’re thrilled by our investors’ confidence reflected in the round’s valuation, recognizing that we’ve only scratched the surface of what Glia can accomplish. Our rapid growth and successful relationships with financial services companies of all types demonstrates the urgent need for Digital Customer Service. As we build upon a decade of innovation, this capital will further extend our reach and help even more businesses across the globe reimagine how they connect with customers digitally.”
Glia was founded in 2012 as SaleMove. The company seeks to reinvent how businesses support their customers in a digital world– an imperative tool in today’s digital-first economy. Specifically, Glia offers digital communication choices, on-screen collaboration, and AI-enabled assistance tools. The company has 250 clients across the globe, including banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and other financial institutions.
Glia has won 10 Best of Show Awards– an impressive feat. Check out the company’s latest award-winning demo from spring of last year.
Investing app Acorns now enables users to invest in bitcoin.
Users can invest up to 5% of their Acorns portfolio in the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF.
Acorns plans to add other cryptocurrencies in the future.
Millennials have been crowding around crypto investing, and micro investment platform Acorns has taken notice. The California-based company launched an option this week that will enable its 4.6 million subscribers to add bitcoin to their investment portfolios.
“We’ve always been open-minded and flexible to the idea that as other asset classes mature and become something that we can deliver to customers, we would love to include that in the appropriate way,” said Acorns Chief Investment Officer Seth Wunder in an interview with CoinDesk. “Cryptocurrency, specifically bitcoin, in our opinion has gotten to that place where it’s an acceptable piece of people’s portfolios.”
Acorns was founded in 2012 to offer an approachable way for young investors to start investing. The company’s platform automatically invests users’ spare change and allows them to deposits as low as $5 into its five ETF diversified portfolios. Starting today, users can opt to invest up to 5% of their Acorns portfolio in the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, a futures fund that debuted on the New York Stock Exchange last year.
This move comes four years after Acorn competitor Robinhood launched Bitcoin and Ethereum trading on its platform. Robinhood, a stock brokerage startup that was founded in 2013, enables its users to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Dogecoin. Acorns plans to add other cryptocurrencies in the future, but there is no word on exact timing.
Earlier this month, Acorns closed a $300 million funding round led by private equity firm TPG. The investment valued Acorns at close to $2 billion. Noah Kerner is CEO.
This is a sponsored blog post by Nick Kerigan, Head of Innovation, Swift.
Working with Clearstream, Northern Trust, SETL and others, SWIFT plans experiments in 2022 to explore how it can support interoperability in the development of the tokenized asset market.
Relative to cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, the current market capitalization of tokenized assets is small, but momentum for these digital assets is expected to accelerate rapidly in the coming years. By some estimates, volumes could reach some 24 trillion USD by 2027.
Tokenization can be applied to stocks and bonds, but also to illiquid assets, including commodities, property or even art. For example, a share or bond with a high value per unit (say over $500) can be divided into digital pieces that each have ownership and value. This increases the liquidity of the overall asset, and accessibility, by enabling a wider demographic of people to invest in assets that may historically have been unavailable to them.
Banks and securities firms are responding to tokenization by developing services − including fractionalization, a process whereby assets are broken into smaller value digital tokens − amongst other digital asset servicing capabilities, such as private key safekeeping. Financial market infrastructures also are embracing tokenization by supporting the full lifecycle of digital securities.
As interest increases, SWIFT is exploring how it can enable and improve interoperability between participants and systems during the transactional lifecycle of tokenized assets. To this end, SWIFT plans a series of experiments throughout 2022 leveraging its trusted role as a central platform to explore the issuance, delivery versus payment (DVP), and redemption processes, to support a frictionless and seamless tokenized asset market. These experiments will use both established forms of payment and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
Asset tokenization − a trend and challenge for securities markets
Over the coming decade, tokenized and traditional assets will likely co-exist, and this poses potential challenges. One major risk is that a variety of technologies, platforms and regulatory environments will create a thicket of connections for securities market participants. This could result in inefficiencies and fragmentation, as well as rising costs and risks across the industry.
SWIFT is uniquely placed to help solve this challenge. As a neutral, global cooperative with a strong focus on ensuring interoperability and setting standards for the industry, we are able to interconnect market participants and simplify operations by completing activities centrally that otherwise would be performed bilaterally between institutions. This role relies on SWIFT’s strong identity and security frameworks, alongside our unparalleled reach and record of reliability.
With this in mind, we are looking at how we can support both traditional and tokenized assets flows, with a focus on regulated assets only. We would not become a crypto-custodian nor perform direct settlement of tokenized assets as a financial market infrastructure would. Rather, we see our role as helping to connect all entities as efficiently as possible and enabling our customers to provide better services to their end-users.
Collaborative innovation in action
SWIFT, Clearstream, Northern Trust, SETL and other industry participants are exploring the feasibility and benefits of SWIFT as an interconnector, linking up multiple tokenization platforms and various cash-leg payment types. This will build on SWIFT’s successes in achieving interoperability for CBDCs outlined in our whitepaper published last year.
In the experiments, Clearstream and Northern Trust, alongside other industry players, will represent key parts of the tokenized − and traditional − asset ecosystem, including securities market infrastructures, as well a local and global custodians. SETL and Northern Trust will support SWIFT and the participants in the integration between the various DLT environments and with transaction orchestrations using their respective capabilities. Results of the experiments will be shared with the financial community afterwards.
“As a neutral cooperative with a reach across 11,500 institutions in more than 200 countries, and oversight by central banks globally, SWIFT is uniquely placed to engage closely in the future of securities,” says Thomas Zschach, Chief Innovation Officer, SWIFT. “We look forward to this set of new experiments and innovating collaboratively with market participants on the emerging trend of tokenized assets.”
“Our vision for instant and frictionless transactions not only applies to traditional securities instruments but also to new asset classes as well,” adds Vikesh Patel, Head of Securities Strategy, SWIFT. “The insights from this exercise with leading capital markets participants will help us define and prioritize the concrete steps required to enable seamless processes for tokenized assets.”
Anthony Culligan, Chief Engineer at SETL, stated: “We are very pleased to be contributing to this important initiative. We see significant innovation in securities tokenization at the moment and these experiments have the potential to create broader accessibility and interoperability between the emerging networks.”
Keep an eye out for the results of our experiments – we’ll be publishing them later in 2022. In the meantime, to find out how your firm could collaborate with us, get in touch at innovate@swift.com. We can’t wait to hear from you.
In September, we celebrated Finovate’s triumphant return to live events with FinovateFall in New York. Six months later, it’s time to cheer once again as Finovate returns to London for our first live event in Europe since 2020.
FinovateEurope 2022 begins today, March 22, in London, and continues through March 23. This week’s conference will feature two days of live demonstrations, inspiring keynotes, and rousing discussions and debates on the latest innovations in financial technology.
Day One also will feature our European Women Payments Network (EWPN) event from 2:00pm to 5:00pm. This special afternoon session will feature a panel of experts discussing the role of ESG in fintech and financial services, followed by a dynamic hackathon, and a networking opportunity for attendees.
Here is what we have in store for today on Day One of FinovateEurope 2022. All times GMT.
8:15am – 9:00am | Registration & Networking
9:00am – 9:05am | Welcome from Finovate
9:05am – 9:20am | Keynote Address: The Biggest Trends in Fintech and How They Will Drive Transformation in Financial Services
Earned wage access (EWA) has seen rising popularity in the past couple of years. These tools, which help businesses send their employees wages as they earn them, instead of on a bi-weekly basis, benefit both businesses and their employees.
In today’s era of the Great Resignation, businesses across all sectors are struggling with employee retention. Offering a tool that provides employees their cash faster can serve as a competitive advantage. And for workers, especially those with uneven cashflow or who are living paycheck-to-paycheck, receiving a few hundred dollars even a few days early can make a difference and help them avoid predatory payday lenders.
While some of the earliest versions of this technology came out in 2013, multiple players across the globe have launched in the past few years. While many of the EWA companies we found are in the U.S., new startups have been cropping up across the globe. Additionally, existing players are starting to broaden their international reach.
As far as business model goes, the majority of the EWA companies market to employers. Two companies, PayActiv and EarnedCard, offer direct-to-consumer products, while Fincluziv takes a different route by marketing its white-label EWA tool to banks.
Here is a world tour of both established and new players in the EWA sector.
France
Fincluziv offers banks a software-as-a-service tool that automates EWA and small dollar loans to employees of select employers.
India
Refyne‘s technology integrates with employers’ payroll to offer both full-time and contracted employees with real-time access to pay they earned.
Indonesia
Wagely helps businesses offer employees to access earned but unpaid wages.
Gaji Gesa offers businesses a way to provide their employees with instant access to their earned wages. The company also offers a range of other payroll services.
Malaysia
Hari Gaji grants businesses the opportunity to allow their employees to advance a portion of their pay ahead of payday.
South Africa
Paymenow integrates with employers’ payroll systems to give employees real-time access to a percentage of their previously-earned wages.
Level Finance offers businesses a way to pay their employees their earned but unpaid income.
Spain
Payflow lets businesses provide their employees with instant access to their earned salary.
U.K.
FlexEarn empowers employers to give their employees access to the money they’ve earned as they earn it.
U.S.
Instant Financial helps businesses give their employees daily access to their earned pay.
Grit Financial allows businesses to offer their employees the option to collect their payment at the end of each shift.
Immediate Financial gives businesses a way to offer their employees access to their earned wages on a daily basis. It is free for the business but charges the employee a small fee for each withdrawal.
EarnedCard is a direct-to-consumer play. The company bypasses the employer and provides users a credit card that offers them early access to funds.
PayActiv has both direct-to-employer and direct-to-consumer offerings. The company offers employers a way to pay their employees early, while offering individual users a Visa debit card that loads their earned wages up to two days early.
The investment was led by private equity advisory firm Apax Digital and brings ClearBank’s total funding to $627 million.
ClearBank will use the funds to expand internationally, first in Europe, then into North America and Asia Pacific.
Clearing and embedded banking technology company ClearBankraised $230 million (£175 million) this week. The investment brings the U.K.-based company’s total funding to $627 million.
Funds advised by private equity advisory firm Apax Digital led the round. Existing investors CFFI UK Ventures and PPF Financial Holdings, also participated. ClearBank plans to use the investment to expand its client base in Europe and eventually into North America and Asia Pacific.
Launched in 2017, ClearBank is a regulated bank that manages transactions from beginning to end, starting with order transmission and including settlement, liquidity management, and clearing activities. The company counts 200 bank and fintech clients– including Tide, Coinbase, Chip, and Oaknorth Bank– that leverage its tools to power faster payments, clearing, and payments activities. In all, ClearBank facilitates 13 million accounts totaling almost $4 billion in assets.
One of the company’s primary offerings is embedded banking tools. ClearBank enables businesses and financial services companies to offer bank accounts with FSCS deposit protection, FX tools, and multi-currency accounts to their own clients. All of the company’s regulated services can be accessed via a single API.
“ClearBank is the first proven and fully regulated cloud-native clearing bank in the U.K. for over 250 years,” said ClearBank CEO Charles McManus. “Over the last five years we have demonstrated the success of our business model and through our work with leading financial service providers, helped to both unlock their potential and bring about positive and meaningful change for U.K. businesses and consumers.”
As for what’s next, McManus points to a more global future for his company. “The next challenge is delivering this innovation globally. To achieve this, we needed a strategic partner with the right cultural fit, sector expertise and geographic experience, something we found in Apax Digital.” Additionally, ClearBank plans to add products and services that will help its clients scale internationally. To do this, the company will add direct API-based access to interbank payment schemes, enhanced multi-currency accounts, and additional FX services.
ClearBank is at the center of the flourishing banking-as-a-service trend that has both fintech and non-fintech companies adding banking services to their existing offerings. The company has experienced burgeoning growth and was recognized by Deloitte as the fastest-growing tech company in its 2021 U.K. Technology Fast 50 awards. In other accolades, ClearBank received the Best Service Award at the 2021 Card & Payments Awards.
It’s no secret that the last few years have been challenging ones, and the simple act of bringing our community together in the same space feels like a major accomplishment. So, while it’s great to be back at FinovateEurope 2022 in person in London, it’s not enough for us to simply be present. The last few years have brought about dramatic changes all over the world, and it’s clear that more changes are coming. The financial world has been searching for a new status quo since early 2020, and while we may be closer now to something more settled and sustainable, we still have some way to go before we get there.
The good news is that creativity in fintech abounds. The innovators and dreamers among us have given us new tools, technologies, and ideas to help us meet these challenging times, and steer our financial system towards a brighter future.
Download the FinovateEurope 2022 eMagazine, to discover why now is a crucial moment for the fintech industry, and what leading fintech, banks and industry players are doing to create the kind of inclusive, resilient, streamlined financial ecosystem that fintech has been building towards for years.
Featuring:
The FinovateEurope 2022 Fintech Trends Power Panel recording
On-demand Digital Demos, and the Best of Show winners (*when announced!)
Going Green – more information on Finovate’s new Sustainability Scholarship for fintechs
Women’s History Month interview with Meghan Lapides
Exclusive interviews from back-stage at FinovateEurope
And more!
Change is upon us; the question now is whether or not we use it to something meaningful.
PayPal is boosting its humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
The payments company is expanding upon its P2P money transfer services, waiving fees, and facilitating funds transfers to payments cards.
These efforts are being made in addition to the company’s Cash Pick-Up and Mobile Phone Reload tools.
Citizens across the globe have donated millions of dollars in aid to the people living in Ukraine since the Russia invasion last month. And financial services provider PayPal is paying attention. The San Francisco-based company announced three new moves yesterday that will help people living in the region access humanitarian funds.
Peer-to-peer payments expansion
PayPal is expanding upon its existing money transfer services. The company is enabling Ukrainian PayPal accountholders to send and receive peer-to-peer (P2P) payments in four currencies– USD, CAD, GBP, and EUR.
Waiving fees
PayPal is waiving its own fees until June 30 for customers sending funds to Ukrainian PayPal accounts or receiving funds into Ukrainian PayPal accounts. Additionally, PayPal’s international remittance service, Xoom, is waiving transaction fees sent to recipients in Ukraine.
Funds transfers
PayPal will allow Ukrainian accountholders to transfer funds from their Ukrainian PayPal Wallet to an eligible Mastercard or Visa debit or credit card. Once the transfer has taken place, the money will be available in the currency associated with the payment card.
In addition to these new efforts, PayPal also offers Cash Pick-Up, a feature that enables digital money transfers to be sent to be picked up at physical locations throughout Ukraine such as Oschadbank, Privatbank, and Ukrgasbank; and Mobile Phone Reload, a tool to reload mobile phone airtime at five telco carriers.
PayPal is among many other fintechs making technological efforts to stem the violence in Ukraine and bring aid the country’s citizens. And as Russia’s war crimes continue and the situation worsens, we expect to see more fintechs rise to the occasion.
As more and more fintechs add their support to the people of Ukraine and create new pathways for individuals and organizations to contribute financially, the Ukrainian government has had to adapt in order to make some of these contributions not just possible, but legal.
This week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, signed month-old legislation to provide a legal framework for the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies in the country. Per the new legislation, cryptocurrency exchanges and other companies dealing in digital assets will be able to register with the Ukrainian government in order to operate in the country. Additionally, the new law will allow banks to open accounts for cryptocurrency companies.
Going forward, Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission will set the country’s policies on cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, issue licenses, and serve as a regulatory watchdog over the fledgling industry. The law is the second bite of the apple for Ukraine’s cryptocurrency advocates; the Ukrainian parliament voted to legalize cryptocurrencies last fall, but the legislation was vetoed by Zelenskyy, who cited the cost of creating a new regulatory entity to govern cryptocurrencies.
Ukrainian interest in cryptocurrencies certainly predates the Russian invasion of the country; a New York Times feature in November 2021 ran the headline “The Crypto Capital of the World” with the subhead “It has to be somewhere. Why not Ukraine?” But that interest has spiked since then as the country reportedly has received “tens of millions of dollars” in cryptocurrency donations to help Ukrainians cope with the devastation of their country at the hands of the Russian military.
Nordigen partners with French fintech Saveengs, U.K. lender Mallard Finance
Latvian open banking platform Nordigen has announced a pair of new partnerships this week. Saveengs, a French startup that specializes in helping people with little or no savings build a strong financial foundation, will work with Nordigen to help users find ways to save better. Nordigen’s technology will enable the Saveengs app to analyze the user’s finances to find opportunities to save in small amount, typically in increments of 20 euros.
“While the amount of money saved seems small at first, it definitely adds up,” Saveengs CEO Mourad Ketir said. “Open banking enables the app to perform financial analysis on our users’ existing funds and transactions quickly and easily, allowing the process of saving to start as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile across the channel, U.K.-based independent lender Mallard Finance has chosen Nordigen as its Account Information Service Provider (AISP). A specialist in providing financing for automobile purchases, Mallard Finance will leverage its new partnership with Nordigen to access financial data directly from borrower bank accounts during the application process. This will give the lender, which serves both individuals and businesses across the credit risk spectrum, a more exacting and accurate view of the applicant’s financial status.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Mallard Finance,” Nordigen CEO and co-founder Rolands Mesters said. He praised both the company’s professional team and its success in serving its customers since 1995. “We are happy to see companies continuing to choose open banking to further enhance their already existing services and internal assessment procedures,” Mesters added.
Nordigen most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope 2019 in London. At the conference, the company demoed its Nordigen Report, which enables banks and lenders to access loan applicant account histories and verify income and other important insights.
Efigence teams up with Polish bank Getin Noble
Getin Noble, a Warsaw, Poland-based banking and financial services company, has partnered with Polish digital banking solutions providerEfigence to help it launch new online banking services. The enhancements, to be introduced modularly, include new functionalities as well as modernization of its online presence.
“Today’s online banking is much more than a financial tool,” Director of Getin Noble Bank’s Electronic Banking Department Marta Dałkiewicz said. “Customers often have contact with it many times a day, so the solutions we propose must be affordable and easy to use.”
Efigence President and CTO Marek Lesiak said that increasing the accessibility of online banking was a major goal for the collaboration. This included design elements for both the web and mobile apps to make banking more convenient for the customer regardless of which channel they used. “Today, finance is connected with almost every sphere of our life,” Lesiak said, “and the use of online banking should be as easy, intuitive and pleasant as if it were part of our DNA.”
A two-time Best of Show winner, earning the honor in both its Finovate debut as well as at our second Dubai-based event in 2019, FinovateMiddle East, Efigence demonstrated the latest improvements to its digital banking platform at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Founded in 2012, SmartAsset is an online hub for consumer-focused financial information and advice. The company reaches approximately 75 million people each month via its educational content, personalized financial calculators, and other tools. SmartAsset also powers SmartAdvisor, a nationwide marketplace that helps connect consumers with financial advisors.
We caught up with Ms. Lapides to discuss her goals as Chief People Officer, the evolution of human resources and talent management in the tech industry, and how a smart “People strategy” can help companies grow.
Why did you decide to take the opportunity to be Chief People Officer for SmartAsset?
Meghan Lapides: SmartAsset’s mission of helping people get better financial advice really spoke to me. Planning for your future is incredibly important and many people start late. Being part of a company that helps people think smartly and early about financial planning is something that aligns with my personal mission of helping people. When I met the leadership team and members of the People team, I knew this was the place for me. Their passion and intelligence combined with our CEO’s vision was the right combination of factors that confirmed my decision to join SmartAsset.
Is SmartAsset your first fintech? Is there anything unique about building a People strategy in fintech compared to other tech companies you have worked for?
Lapides: Yes, SmartAsset represents my first professional experience in the fintech space! One of the things I love about Human Resources is that when you change companies you get the opportunity to learn an entirely new industry. I love what I do, so I find it exciting to be doing what I love and applying my expertise in a completely new environment. I’ve been lucky to work in multiple different industries, including enterprise SAAS, consumer, and professional services, as well as different fields, such as advertising, public relations, technology, and fashion, so I’ve embraced these opportunities to learn something new. When I was considering my next move, I was interested in companies that were in the fintech space and also mission driven – SmartAsset was both of those things! I also wanted another professional opportunity to be a part of building something great, impactful, and meaningful. I’m thrilled that SmartAsset checked all of those boxes and honored that they selected me to oversee and scale their People department.
How has talent acquisition and management changed over the years that you have been involved in human resources?
Lapides: It’s wild to think about it now, but in my first recruiting coordinator role, we didn’t have an Applicant Tracking System. We used paper files to track candidates and I typed the labels for those files on a typewriter! We went from antiquated processes like that to new intelligent systems that help source great candidates and mitigate bias while offering data collection and analysis to iterate and improve on processes that make the most impact. “Data Fuels Our Decisions” is one of SmartAsset’s core values, and I’m happy that today’s HR systems allow us to make informed decisions in an efficient and timely manner.
When I was thinking of going into HR after studying to be a Marriage & Family Counselor in college, I spoke to a family friend who was the COO of a huge company about whether or not it was the right move. He told me that “Personnel was not for me. I was too creative for that.” We still joke that I have spent the last 20 years proving him wrong.
I’ve been lucky to work for progessive, people-centric organizations, but I’ve seen a huge increase in flexibility and creativity when it comes to managing talent. But more than that, especially post-pandemic, the People team not only has a seat at the table, but also we are key influencers in setting the strategy for the company’s most valuable resource: its people. The intersection of the business and our people is where our team sits and the two can’t be successful without the other. Highly engaged, happy and healthy employees build strong businesses. Businesses that allow people to make an impact internally and externally are the ones that attract the best talent. I am energized by being able to spend my time focusing on building a strong business and a culture that gives our Assets the best chance of success and allows our employees to grow.
What is most important to you in terms of leadership development within a company?
Lapides: Openness and shared vision. We all know how important mission, vision, and values are in building culture – but it’s very important for leadership to have a shared vision on what leadership looks like and how you can support each other to be successful from both the top down and the bottom up. I also think in order for a company to be truly successful – and have a highly engaged workforce – you need to have the openness to create a place where people can come as they are, lead as they are, and celebrate diversity in all forms.
What role can diversity and inclusion policies play to help drive growth and expansion?
Lapides: When you are creating products and services for the world, you need to look like the world you are creating it for. Studies show that the more diverse companies are, typically the more successful they are. But DEI is way more important than financial success. It helps DEI and company expansion to remove barriers to entry, reduce bias, open your recruiting pipeline, and create a safe, open, and equitable culture. When it comes to retaining your best talent, companies must ensure that their workplace allows people to be themselves, engage in real world events and issues, and also create a culture of belonging.
SmartAsset made the decision to remain a remote-first company. This helps our DEI strategy because it removes geographical barriers and helps us to be more accommodating of diverse work styles. Being a remote-first company further allows us to hire talent more quickly to support our rapid expansion given the fact that there are fewer geographic barriers.
What are some of the challenges a People strategy faces as businesses get bigger? How do companies overcome or manage them?
Lapides: Scaling a company is a huge challenge. Processes that worked at 50, 100, or 200 employees don’t always hold up at 500, 1,000, or 2,000. People teams also tend to run lean at a startup, so it’s really important to put talent behind that team – especially as you scale – to ensure the needs of your employees are met and you can get ahead of big projects and initiatives.
Are there any other issues you think might be worth highlighting about your new role?
Lapides: SmartAsset is a remote-first company, which is incredibly exciting because it allows us to hire the best talent wherever they are in the country. However, that comes with challenges as well. We are looking for opportunities to focus on asynchronous workflows to allow people to do their best work in their own time zones, but also have the ability to collaborate across different teams. We are focused on allowing the flexibility for both independent work and cross collaboration, and creating an environment that allows people to build relationships, focus on what is important, further build our culture, and continue to do great work.
