Hailing from Sweden , the world ’ s most cashless society , it ' s hardly surprising that Daniel Kjellén has blazed a trail across Europe ’ s open banking scene .
But the entreprenurial former investment banker who launched his first company in 2001 is modest about his achievements , and says that the scale and success of Tink has exceeded his expectations .
Speaking to FinTech Magazine , he told us : “ I think part of being an entrepreneur is to be slightly naive and over optimistic about speed and impact . While we always felt that ‘ it ' s [ Tink ] going to be so much bigger , it ' s going to grow so much more ’, looking back 10 years , it ' s just amazing that we played a part in transforming how people view banking .”
TRANSFORMING THE BANKING SPACE But Tink hasn ’ t just changed the perspective of the marketplace . The fintech has also built a layer of infrastructure that has enabled a new generation of financial services , such as PayPal and others to thrive and gain consumer confidence and adoption . It ’ s been a transformative power within the industry .
Despite this success , being the CEO and co-founder of a world-leading fintech was not at the top of Kjellén ’ s agenda when he first started out .
He launched his very first startup in 2001 . Prodocon AB was a corporate domain name company which he ran for eight years until the company was acquired and absorbed by the NetNames Group .
Describing his time with the startup , one gets the impression that Kjellén is an enthusiatic entreprenuer , who leads with ideas and handles the nuts and bolts later . Speaking about those early years , he says : “ My plan was to go to university when I was just 20-something . By accident , I founded a company that was doing corporate domain in management and started to work there , [ and ] was the CEO for eight years .”
For a while , the dynamism and excitement of running his own company was a heady experience that delayed any plans for further education . But soon , with a workforce of 20 employees , he felt compelled to go to university , selecting finance and business for his degree . “ I just felt that if I should ever have a ‘ proper job ’, I also needed to go to university .
“ I think part of being an entrepreneur is to be slightly naive and over optimistic about speed and impact ”