FinTech is not a mere buzzword anymore. It has evolved, elevated in many ways and has turned to be a major disruption with the unstoppable advancements of technology.
NewBanking was established in 2015 with the aim of providing a user identity platform that will allow end-users to verify their identity easily and securely while having control and ownership of data and identity online. The service solves the regulatory challenges faced by the financial institutions, especially the 4th and now 5th European Anti-Money Laundering (AML) directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The Charismatic Leader
Christian Visti Larsen, the charismatic CEO of NewBanking, has more than 15 years of experience in Banking, Financial Legislation, Fintech and Payment Solutions sector. He was the dynamic CFO and head of strategy in Coinify, the biggest European Blockchain payment gateway prior to NewBanking. He held management positions in Danske Bank, KPMG and was one of the first to obtain an e-money license from the Danish Financial Services Authority.
Graduated as a financial auditor and with several years of working as an internal auditor within the large financial institution, Christian has crafted his strategies with tinges of innovativeness, with the sheer understanding of the regulatory framework.
“Dealing with financial regulation, consumer data protection and large “old” financial entities requires a significant talent for multiple stakeholder management”, Christian reflects.
“Finally”, he adds, “keep looking at the financial services and engagement as it could be, not being blindfolded on what the sector think it should look like.”
Exceptional Ways of Service
According to Christian, letting customers to have full transparency on the data stored by them, can definitely play a game-changer. Just for the fact that transparency is the key unique service for this industry in particular, the whole KYC embedded audit trail has been proved to be valuable.
Surpassing Challenges along the Way
The financial industry is facing compliance challenges throughout the years. Increased regulatory requirements are costly and don’t provide a competitive advantage. Being fast and flexible is the first and foremost requirement in any business; the industry has been left behind because of its slower internal process. As the financial institutions are specially exposed to regulatory burdens, maintaining the innovative atmosphere becomes very hard.
“The more complex the regulation, the more services like ours are needed. Increasing complex regulation is also driven by the increase of digitalization – so if you on the forefront of digitalization it can create business opportunities both on the short and long term”, Christian reflects on the strategy behind coping up with the challenges.
Digitizing Financial Scenario with Blockchain
NewBanking uses Blockchain (private blockchain) as an audit trail databases and security. As a part of the international ISO standardized workforce, the company definitely knows where the pitfalls with the Blockchain lies. Information stored on a blockchain still needs to comply with other regulation (both national and international) like GDPR.
Solutions and Services
The core of the NewBanking Identity solution lies in the regulatory space and NewBanking is in close dialog with the regulators and involved directly in the European PSMEG (Payment Systems Market Expert Group) and the Blockchain standardization work (ISO TC 307 on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies).
NewBanking Identity is a full modular API onboarding flow – that allows banks and financial entities to offer an online onboarding process while at the same time giving the customer the transparency and ownership of personal data. The platform supports the online data management from when the first contact is made until the right to be forgotten is executed.
Benefits derived
- Compliant with current and future KYC and AML legislation: The customer identity is verified to current KYC standards and customer data is kept on NewBanking’s platform for the duration that is necessary for the 4th European AML directive.
- Fully automated process for getting customer data: Newbanking uses an automated system to request, collect and verify personal data documents, instead of manual processing.
- Re-use identity verifications on an industry level: By allowing end-users to re-use their identity verification, Newbanking is eliminating redundant time and effort for the whole sector.
- Increased regulatory compliance: This feature allows greater and more accurate compliance through an automated blockchain audit-trail.
- Efficient and user-friendly platform for back-end identity management: User-friendly platform for the people and Compliance Officers in charge of customers’ identity management for Financial Institutions.
- Compliant with GDPR/ “Right to be Forgotten”: Transparent and clearly stated user consent and a high focus on data privacy and security in accordance with the GDPR, which becomes legally binding 25th May 2018.
- Platform designed with the highest level of security: The security architecture follows a tiered approach, with increasingly advanced encryption ensuring the highest level of security possible.
Message from the Desk of CEO
“New technology requires a new way of thinking and requires a great deal of changes – both in the way consumers are approached, but also on how the technology is integrated. My best advice – If you’re not able to integrate the new service/technology within the existing system setup with 80-100% don’t do it! Let the newcomer handle as much as possible on their side – this will in the end provide the best result”—is the message from Christian, the CEO.
