Interview: Simon Paris, Finastra – the future of finance is open
Simon Paris, CEO of Finastra, is responsible for Finastra’s strategic direction and growth. His leadership steers the company as it realises its vision for Open Finance, encouraging industry-wide collaboration to spark innovation and transform financial services. A firm believer in the principle of doing well by doing good, Simon chairs the World Trade Board and is passionate about how technology and open trade can drive financial inclusion and improve people’s lives.
Simon, tell us about Finastra’s vision for Open Finance.
Simon Paris, Finastra: “Let’s harness Open Finance together and deliver on its promise”
Finastra is harnessing the power of Open Finance to pioneer the evolution of financial services, by supporting new markets, economies and customers. Our focus is three-fold: enabling new financial ecosystems, driving sustainable decision-making and supporting positive societal change.
When it’s open, finance can transform societies and help more people access the banking services they need to prosper. It’s also clear from our Financial Services State of the Nation research that banks share this view. Some 87% of respondents to our research in 2023 agreed that Open Finance has the potential to bring about fairer and more equal financial services. This is something we want to help advance.
You touched on three areas of focus, the first of which was enabling new financial ecosystems. What does this involve?
Creating strong financial ecosystems is about integrating innovation and expertise. It’s about solving problems together. Our goal is to help the wider finance industry to collaborate in identifying and combating inefficiencies, via open software, and in utilising data more effectively to fix issues and build new approaches.
In terms of widening the ecosystem, Open Finance gives more opportunities for non-bank entities to provide banking services, helping people access vital banking functions.
We empower businesses with the ability to tap into new streams of revenue, fostering competition and creating more space for financial innovation. With our technology, ecosystem players can enhance efficiency, adapt to changing customer demands, and continually upgrade the customer experience, satisfaction and profitability.
What about sustainable decision-making? Can you give some examples?
Of course. Finance has a vital responsibility to support in driving sustainable investment and facilitating the transition to a low-carbon economy. Finastra uses Open Finance to connect capital with new, impactful initiatives that make a difference to our shared environmental goals.
Building better, more reliable decision models is crucial. With a clearer view of risk and positions, businesses can better allocate capital to prioritise green decisions. Our Open Finance platform provides access to tools for understanding environmental regulations, helping users make more informed decisions about sustainable investments.
Our software also provides new ways to invest for impact, helping investors manage risks, adapt to regulatory changes and make smarter, greener decisions.
We’re also focused on enabling inclusive trade for growth and impact. We promote the power of eco-friendly transactions to help prioritise sustainability, while digitising trade systems for efficiency and allowing more people to access a fairer, greener banking environment.
Tell us about the third area: supporting positive, societal change.
The use of digital tools can make more opportunities accessible to more customers, transcending economic and geographical barriers to build a healthy, democratised financial system.
Our software helps drive inclusion by reducing bias and championing a more progressive, equitable and accessible banking sector – bridging the banking gap and reducing the numbers of unbanked and underbanked in our societies.
Removing obstacles to innovation and new ideas is vital, creating an open, accessible environment where businesses and individuals can co-create innovative financial solutions, to any scale.
Open Finance can empower economic growth, using technology to enhance sales, boost production and increase employment to create a dynamic, evolving ecosystem of growth and prosperity. Ultimately, better finance delivers better futures and better outcomes for all.
You shared some insights from Finastra’s Financial Services State of the Nation research, can you expand on your findings?
Yes – we’ve been conducting this research annually over the last five years, so we have a good view of how attitudes to Open Finance have been evolving. We started by canvassing the opinions of financial services professionals in five countries, including the UK, France, Germany, US, and Singapore, and have since added Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Vietnam, giving us valuable insight into take up across the world.
Starting with open banking, the majority of financial institutions whom we surveyed were actively prioritising or adopting open banking between 2019 and 2020. By 2022, open banking was universally regarded as key part of a bank’s landscape, with positive outcomes cited as improving the customer experience and enabling the delivery of new services.
Over recent years we’ve also seen attitudes to Open Finance maturing. Over the last three years, more than nine in ten respondents globally said that Open Finance is either a “must have” or “important” for their organisation. Furthermore, the vast majority of respondents in 2023 – 85% – agreed that Open Finance is making financial services more collaborative and having a positive impact on the industry.
The overwhelming majority of respondents over the last three years also consistently agreed that banking is about more than just finance, and that there are responsibilities and benefits for financial institutions to support the communities they serve.
For me, the overall message is clear: let’s harness Open Finance together and deliver on its promise.
To find out more about Open Finance visit: Finance is Open | Finastra
Finastra’s 2024 State of the Nation survey and research will be available later this year.
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