Barclays’ Fintech ‘takeover’

Four Barclays experts have staged a ‘takeover’ of Fintech podcast Fintech Insider, discussing the challenges and opportunities of new technologies in banking.

Fintech Insider is a long-running podcast produced by 11:FS, a major developer of, and investor in, digital banking projects.

For the latest episode, co-founders David Brear and Simon Taylor joined the senior Barclays quartet at the bank’s Canary Wharf HQ for a broadcast helmed by UK CEO Ashok Vaswani and featuring Catherine McGrath (MD, Transaction Products and Payments), Ruchir Rodrigues (MD, Digital and Open Banking) and Frankie Woodhead (Head of Commercial and Channels, Business Lending).

The contributors covered topics as diverse as open data, the balance between security and convenience, notions of ‘legacy’ systems, customer-facing transparency, and the challenges of recruiting in the new fintech landscape.

“The world is evolving so quickly,” says Rodrigues during the special programme. “For us, it’s about looking at developments and thinking what we can do for our customers, learning from each other. In this world, new fintechs can work with large fintechs like Barclays and get back to millions of customers.”

The opportunity for those working in Barclays, according to Rodrigues, is “to transform an industry and in doing so transform people’s lives”.

Vaswani adds: “The speed of change is so rapid that to think everyone is going to get everything right is foolhardy, but we have the capital and the resources to make these mistakes. It makes a lot of sense for a person who wants to make an impact in fintech to join a company like ours, because we have a lot of resources to get things done.”

Speaking about the potential impact of PSD2 (Revised Payment Service Directive), McGrath says: “I’m hugely excited about it. I think, as a customer, it’s going to present me with completely different opportunities about how to manage my finances, and, as Barclays, we are right in at the heart of that, and helping that happen.”