STEVE ROUND
EXECUTIVE INSIGHT
Q . CAN YOU TALK TO US ABOUT THE FOUNDERSHIP PATH OF SAASCADA ? Steve Round : I ’ ve known Nelson since 2001-2002 , working on different projects and businesses . We secured some funding to launch the Change Account , which was to be the first cloud-based core banking platform for people on low incomes , and was delivered through several charities . We designed more than a hundred different screens for how it should look and Nelson and his IT team built it . This was pre-Monzo and pre- Revolut and we launched in April 2015 through those charities .
Around 2016 , Nelson and I began discussing the possibility of whitelabelling our product , as we ’ d received a few inquiries . SaaScada really started taking shape in 2017-2018 .
We wanted to create a core banking platform that was truly inclusive and capable of serving people from very lowincome to ultra-high net worth – all on the same platform . That ’ s what we ’ ve
STEVE ROUND
TITLE : CO-FOUNDER & PRESIDENT COMPANY : SAASCADA INDUSTRY : FINTECH LOCATION : UK
Steve Round is an entrepreneur who believes financial services should be used to create an inclusive , accessible and fairer society . He has worked at a range of major financial institutions and startups . stuck to and that ’ s where we are now . In essence , we started SaaScada in a very different way from many tech startups . Instead of just setting out to build a banking platform , we built something that we believed could change the world of banking .
Q . HOW HAS SAASCADA GROWN SINCE THEN ? Nelson Wootton : We came to market around 2020 , which was challenging for obvious reasons . But we did secure a couple of key deals in that period , followed by an implementation phase . Then we started raising money and marketing .
Since then , which was around a year to a year-and-a-half ago , it has been an absolute rocket ship . We ’ re typically closing a deal a month now , which is phenomenal .
We ’ re now beginning to think about new territories to grow into , as different parts of the world are reaching out to SaaScada saying , ‘ Hey , you guys are doing something genuinely different .
Come and talk to us about why you do it differently , how you are doing it , and let ’ s see if there ’ s an opportunity to work together .’ So , it ’ s super exciting for us at this moment in time .
Core banking is a super interesting space to work in .
The deal cycle is very long – typically a year or more . After signing a contract , there ’ s usually a period of three to nine months , sometimes longer , for onboarding and preparing to launch products . fintechmagazine . com 19