FINTECH
“ We ’ ve actually seen a huge rise in companies going digital and looking at new ways of making savings and improving efficiency ”
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— James Butland , VP of Global Banking , Airwallex
Such breadth of experience has provided Butland with valuable insight across the financial services value chain . “ As you ’ d expect , the working environment at incumbents and fintechs is very different ,” he explains . “ On the one hand you have a very structured and quite formal environment that has been in place for 10 or 15 years , whereas at a fintech you ’ re often starting from the very early stages , running on a continuous cycle of product development and innovation . When I joined TransferWise it was still a relatively young fintech , and the same goes for Airwallex , which I joined around three years ago with the aim of building out the global banking network and infrastructure and growing the European footprint . The exciting prospect about being a part of a fintech in that sense is that you ’ re really building a brand from the ground up – your mission is to really find those customers or organisations that are still using incumbents and say to them ‘ what do you want and
AUGUST 2020