The latest webinar from “The Fintech Times Presents…” series is all about partnerships, specifically examining B2B partnerships between fintech verticals.
Developing products and solving problems not only takes time for fintechs, but often great partnerships too. Whether that’s adopting a payment provider that can service a new audience, or ensuring safety through remote working, a good partner is one of the key ingredients in making a Fintech successful.
In this webinar, we want to highlight some of the most revolutionary partnerships in Fintech and how they have contributed to the perception that fintechs not only move fast, but are compliant and scalable in a predominantly high-growth industry.
Host Greg Watts, Chief Executive Officer at Findr, was joined by: Derren Powell, UKI Head of Fintech Business Development, Mastercard; Shana Schneider, Global Marketing Director, Silent Eight; and Louis Demetroulakos, Strategic Partnerships Manager, tomato pay
The webinar kicked off with what Greg referred to as “the existential question”: what exactly is a partnership?
Derren said: “It’s something that sounds so obvious, but in its most basic form it is the engagement of like-minded entities who are keen to engage and to have a conversation to understand what the art of the possible may be.
“From my perspective, to expand that a little further, I would argue that its about understanding what are those shared values. Having extremely open lines of communication and being completely transparent so there’s no hidden agenda. Otherwise how on earth are you going to put together a partnership when you don’t have full visibility straight off the bat?”
The conversation moved on to discuss some of the high profile partnerships happening in the industry at the moment, with Shana sharing with the audience Silent Eights partnership with HSBC this year.
In response to this, Louis said: “One of the common challenges we see in fintech is whether to partner or try and compete. That’s the big question, what do you actually do and what strategy do you take? I think a lot of the major high profile partnerships that we’ve seen over the last 12 months, particularly in open banking, are actually collaboration driven with the incumbent financial solution and the potentially disruptive fintech. Whether that’s a move to stave off competition or to embrace it to provide better products and services to end customers I think it’s a great trend that is going to continue to head in that direction.”
