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FinTech Interview with Mireille Adebiyi, Chief Marketing Officer at Regnology

FTB News Desk — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 13:30:19 +0000

Insights from Mireille Adebiyi, CMO of Regnology, on navigating fintech marketing, branding challenges, and the impact of AI.

Mireille Adebiyi,Chief Marketing Officer at Regnology

Mireille, please tell our readers a bit about your journey and what led you to your current role as CMO of Regnology.

Over the past two decades, my career as a marketing professional has been deeply rooted in supporting enterprise financial software companies. Early in my career, I had a brief stint with a niche vendor specializing in connectivity for listed derivatives. I then spent nearly 12 years at Murex, where I grew into a marketing leader within a global organization. This period was a remarkable chapter in my career, during which I honed my skills in all areas of marketing and communications. I also gained valuable insights into the challenges of financial and capital markets, thanks to the expertise of the subject matter experts I worked with. This experience enabled me to develop agile methods for building a scalable marketing organization capable of keeping up with Murex’s rapid growth, as the company tripled in size, revenue, and geographical footprint, becoming one of the most recognized global leading providers of front-to-back-to-risk trading platforms. I reconnected with electronic trading and connectivity during my tenure at Ullink, applying the foundational skills I had developed early in my career to support the company’s growth ambitions and its subsequent merger with Itiviti. After a detour with an AI start-up specializing in NLG reporting solutions, I rejoined Itiviti in 2020 to work with Rob Mackay, who had been appointed CEO in 2019. Following the acquisition by Broadridge, I supported the company’s transformation into Broadridge Trading and Connectivity Solutions and spearheaded the branding strategy. My move to Regnology was largely motivated by the opportunity to work again with Rob, Linda Middleditch (Chief Product Officer) and other colleagues who had played a key role in Itiviti’s success story.

Given your extensive experience in the software industry, what are some of the most significant changes you’ve observed in marketing over the past two decades?

My passion for marketing stems from its role as a core business function, bridging the gap between supporting a strategic vision, crafting a value proposition, engaging target audiences, and delivering business impact. In the early days, marketing was often considered primarily for its creative aspects, sometimes relegated to a support function disconnected from the core business, particularly in the B2B realm. The go-to tactic for lead generation would be in-person events or tradeshows with a heavy reliance of print collateral and goodies. Today, this perception persists in some cases, reducing marketing’s role to tactical execution of short-term sales activities. However, the rise of digital, evolving buyer behaviors, and the growth of the martech landscape have highlighted the strong correlation between effective marketing and business success, proving its capacity to accelerate growth and scalability.
Key changes include:
● Marketing activities are now quantifiable, offering data-driven insights into the effectiveness of channels and content in engaging audiences and showing their impact on revenue.
● Digital channels have become essential elements of a company’s growth strategy. Websites and social media must be both attractive and seamlessly integrated with CRM systems and marketing automation.
● Content has taken center stage, and as we move towards a cookie-less world, the quality of content and its alignment with the target audience’s pain points will become even more critical.
This comes with an imperative to adopt a holistic approach building on a keen understanding of the market and its dynamics, investing in digital marketing and consistently executing multi-channel campaigns by leveraging automation and the capability to deliver personalized messages.

Regnology focuses on regulatory reporting. How do you approach marketing in such a niche and specialized industry? / You’ve led marketing efforts at companies like Murex and Itiviti. How does marketing in the fintech industry differ from other sectors you’ve worked in?

Regulatory reporting is inherently complex, demanding organizations to adhere to detailed and varying standards across jurisdictions while accurately capturing, processing, and reporting large volumes of data. As a marketer, I apply the same principles here as in any other field I’ve worked in. Success in marketing hinges on engaging with subject matter experts and leveraging their insights to inform the marketing strategy. Understanding how our technology helps regulators and the regulated solve the regulatory data conundrum, streamline the reporting and data collection processes and offer augmented infrastructures leveraging cloud and AI is crucial for crafting relevant messages. Equally important is aligning with the sales team to ensure we create deliverables and execute activities that achieve the necessary scale to reach both current and potential customers. Content marketing is a fundamental driver, though the channels for regulatory reporting are probably scarcer compared to the trading space for instance. Although Regnology is a young brand with just three years of existence, we have the significant advantage of leveraging over 25 years of expertise and recognition, supporting thousands of financial institutions in their reporting processes and covering over 70 financial authorities across the world. We also host the RegTech Convention, one of the largest conferences dedicated to financial regulation, now in its 31st year, providing a unique forum for regulators and the regulated to discuss current regulatory and technology topics.

M&A preparation and strategy are critical areas in your expertise. How do you align marketing strategies with broader business objectives during mergers and acquisitions?

From a marketing perspective, mergers and acquisitions present the challenge of integrating new elements into the overall offering while keeping the value proposition consistent and enhancing it where necessary. It’s crucial to manage change effectively while ensuring business continuity. The due diligence process is essential for understanding the new entity’s value proposition and identifying how it contributes to the organization. This enables us to anticipate the impact on ongoing marketing programs, whether they strengthen existing offerings, expand geographical reach, or target new audiences. Integration unfolds in phases over time, involving a continuous learning process where people, cultures, and work habits intersect. Although it doesn’t happen overnight and comes with its challenges, M&A ultimately serve as powerful growth accelerators. For Regnology, considering the specificities of regulatory reporting, M&A have accelerated knowledge transfer, added expertise, and efficiently expanded our footprint.

AI is rapidly changing the marketing landscape. How do you see AI influencing marketing strategies and initiatives today and in the future?

I believe AI will deeply integrate into marketing, influencing a wide range of channels and tactics. In the martech space, AI can already help automate processes and fine-tune campaign tactics in SEO and paid advertising for instance, enhancing their precision and effectiveness. It also helps to optimize content for search engines and improve campaign performance by identifying the most successful strategies. Furthermore, AI supports content creation by uncovering innovative business ideas, jumpstarting content production and developing more personalized and tailored messages.
I see AI as a valuable tool for taking over routine, repetitive tasks, allowing marketers to concentrate on strategic efforts. It also has the potential to provide exceptional data intelligence by recognizing patterns, offering fresh insights and provide advanced analytics.
However, as AI usage becomes widespread, there is a risk of uniform content and tactics being disseminated across organizations. I think that in a world where the use of AI is widespread, developing a unique and distinctive voice will be more than even a key differentiator to deliver successful marketing tactics.

What are some challenges you face when rebranding or launching new products, and how do you overcome them?

The marketing challenges with Regnology are diverse and complex. The company brand is young and aiming to gain global recognition, the organization is integrating multiple tech stack into its offering through its active M&A, the product vision is driven by technology innovation and constantly evolving, which adds another layer of complexity.
The decision was taken early on to develop Regnology as a branded house rather than a house of brand. By implementing a company-led brand strategy, we aim to amplify the investment made to introduce Regnology and use it as an umbrella brand that extends to our entire solution offering.
Regnology has a singular focus on regulatory reporting. Our goal is to develop Regnology into a household name synonymous with “Regulatory Reporting” and “Tech” expertise, reflecting the foundation of our company name. This caters for the potential disruptive effects of M&A avoiding confusion and cannibalization across our tech stack. Additionally, we want to prevent the need for repeated overhauls of our brand system when integrating new offerings. We are developing a brand system that permeates from the company level to our platform and all solution lines, while still giving room to assess the brand equity of acquired companies and products and integrate them into the brand system.
From a branding perspective, my goal is to achieve high brand equity by consistently enhancing brand recognition across all touchpoints at the company, platform, and solution levels.

Lastly, what advice would you give to aspiring marketers who want to make a significant impact in the fintech industry?

My advice to an aspiring marketer aiming to make a significant impact in the fintech industry is to cultivate a strong sense of curiosity. You need to be equally passionate about mastering marketing strategies and understanding the intricacies of the financial industry. Treat marketing as a core function and forge strong alliances with product and sales teams, as well as HR (for employer branding for instance), customer success, and partnership divisions. Harness the power and insights provided by AI and digital marketing but remember to blend in the art of marketing to create meaningful connections and memorable experiences for your target audience.

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CSI Launches Expanded Developer Portal

BusinessWire — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 17:00:31 +0000

CSI, a leading provider of end-to-end financial software and technology, announced a new Developer Portal with features that make it easier for community bank partners to integrate applications from third-party developers via open APIs.

In addition to a growing list of integrated fintechs and integrators, CSI community banks and developers now have access to new documentation methods, resources and standardizations that simplify the implementation process and accelerate time to value. As a result, community banks can consider more application programming interfaces (APIs) across account opening, payments, document services and other applications—and quickly onboard solutions to open new lines of revenue, streamline back-office operations and improve engagement with account holders.

“We believe that our community bank partners will benefit greatly from our investments in open banking, and these enhancements will make their onboarding process more seamless than ever,” said Shanda Purcell, senior director of open banking at CSI. “The speed of our integrations equals decreased costs and increased efficiencies for our community bank partners. That’s really what we are after: a plethora of choices and ease of use for our customers as they deploy proven APIs and pursue strategic growth.”

CSI’s Developer Portal includes updated technical and application guides as well as test environments that allow both parties to better understand data communication and associated business rules. CSI visually curated these features to allow non-IT staff within banks—such as deposit, loan and payments officers—to easily digest information, understand the purpose of a developer’s API and stay compliant by highlighting data visibility and access. All APIs available in CSI’s Open Banking Marketplace are also required to have a proven deployment through the Developer Portal with a community bank before listing.

“Community banks competing in today’s market require the right combination of flexibility, speed and efficiency that can meet the needs of their account holders without a significant tech investment,” said David Culbertson, CEO and president of CSI. “Our Developer Portal is designed to meet all three of those needs with the scaffolding community banks need to reduce the burden of adoption. It’s just the latest example of how CSI is pursuing every avenue and opportunity to help our customers more effectively tackle critical areas of their front- and back-office operations.”

CSI worked with fintech partners directly to finesse implementation, user-test the interface and create features that enhance developers’ user experience and ease of integration. Third-party developers have the tools and methodologies they need to develop according to CSI’s APIs—along with samples of code to promote standardization across all APIs.

“As a development team integrating with CSI’s NuPoint® core, the new API documentation portal is a game-changer,” said Mitch Miller, director of engineering at Core10, a financial technology company that provides lending, account opening and middleware products. “Its clear layout, detailed guides, robust code samples and interactive tools streamline our integration process—allowing us to focus on innovation. The CSI technical team’s prompt support and deep knowledge have been invaluable, swiftly answering any questions we have.”

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CSI teams with TruStage™ for online forms

BusinessWire — Fri, 24 May 2024 17:30:41 +0000

CSI, a leading provider of end-to-end financial software and technology, announced it has partnered with TruStage Compliance Solutions (TruStage) to integrate dynamic forms for account opening for CSI’s hundreds of community bank customers. TruStage (formerly Compliance Systems, Inc.) has over 30 years experience in the compliance technology industry. Its warranted documents and compliance technology are used by more than 5,000 financial institutions nationwide.

“Deploying an effortless retail and business account opening experience in the digital channel is crucial to a community bank’s growth strategy,” said Jason Young, head of core banking at CSI. “TruStage is a trusted leader in compliance solutions and brings an advanced offering to our customers alongside decades of implementation experience that will allow our banks to deploy dynamic forms faster.”

The partnership between TruStage and CSI delivers cloud-based embedded technology to document account opening and maintenance transactions with speed, efficiency and maximum flexibility. TruStage’s configuration tool empowers banks to customize disclosures and other account-related content without having to wait for a third-party document provider, eliminating both lead time and repetitive professional services fees. In addition to integrated documentation technology, this partnership brings support for treasury management services and mobile-first, device friendly account opening content for CSI customers.

Before its partnership with CSI, TruStage served as the exclusive document provider for Hawthorn River, an industry-leading loan origination solution in the community banking space, which was acquired by CSI in 2023.

“We admire CSI’s customer commitment and it’s no surprise to us why they have captured a significant amount of market share from other providers over the years,” said Greg Bierl, director for TruStage Compliance Solutions. “This commitment for a dynamic document integration marries key value propositions of both companies and delivers industry-leading products with unparalleled service. We couldn’t be more excited.”

TruStage’s dynamic forms will enter beta testing later this year and will be available in early 2025 for CSI NuPoint® core customers. For more information on CSI, visit csiweb.com.

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FintechOS Is This Year’s Hottest Fintech Startup in Europe

PRNewswire — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 18:34:02 +0000

FintechOS, the global provider of technology for the digital transformation of banks, insurance companies, is this year’s hottest FinTech Startup, according to the Europas Awards – launched in 2009 by Techcrunch’s editor Mike Butcher, to recognize the innovation emerging from Europe’s startup scene. The Awards were announced live on 25th June during an online event.

The deciding panel of judges included a diverse range of European tech founders, investors, and journalists.

According to the judges, FintechOS is the hottest FinTech Startup in Europe for “helping banks and insurers accelerate digital transformation and build end-to-end digital products in weeks rather than months. In 24 months, FintechOS onboarded 40+ Financial Services clients across the world.”

Teodor Blidarus, FintechOS’s CEO, stated: “We are honored that some of the most reputed tech specialists worldwide included FintechOS on a short list of the most innovative fintech startups. We have worked hard in the last year, especially during the pandemic, to tailor our technology and deliver end-to-end hyperpersonalised digital customer journeys for banks and insurers with unparalleled speed. Such recognition makes us feel proud but also humble at the same time. We are committed to increasing even further the added value we bring to our customers, our partners and the financial services ecosystem at large.”

FintechOS consolidated its growth by increasing YoY revenues by 300% in the first quarter in comparison to Q1 2019 and doubled the number of new customers compared to the 6 months before the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is currently involved in more than 20+ projects to deploy digital transformation solutions for banks and insurers in the UK, Central and Eastern Europe, South-East Asia and North America.

In the past few months, during the lockdown, the demand for FintechOS solutions has significantly increased, particularly those designed to support online onboarding, setting up virtual branches, and online assistance via remote video and co-browsing. FintechOS’s cloud-native technology has been engineered to enable the rapid and tailored deployment, massively reducing the time to launch.

“Beyond 2020, every player in financial services, from the leaders to the challengers, should be aiming to offer digital financial services that integrate the entire financial life of more diverse categories of clients. Whether they’re in an advanced or emerging market, the industry may have to act and react fast. It’s FintechOS’s goal to speed up this transformation, helping banks, insurers and other organisations to better serve their customers everytime, everywhere,” explained Sergiu Negut, FintechOS’s Co-Founder.

FintechOS ranks among the most well-funded VC-backed tech companies in Europe, according to a report released by CB Insights. In December, FintechOS secured EUR 12.7 million of Series A investment.

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BlackRock Announces Closing of Municipal Closed-End Fund Merger

BusinessWire — Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:45:55 +0000

BlackRock Advisors, LLC today announced that the merger of BlackRock Muni New York Intermediate Duration Fund, Inc. (“MNE”) into BlackRock New York Municipal Opportunities Fund (“NYMO” and together with MNE, the “Funds”), an open-end mutual fund and a series of BlackRock Multi-State Municipal Series Trust, with NYMO being the surviving Fund (the “Merger”), Financial Software is effective as of the opening for business of the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, June 22, 2020.

In the Merger, common shareholders of MNE received an amount of NYMO Investor A shares equal to the aggregate net asset value of their holdings of MNE common shares as determined at the close of business on June 19, 2020.

Relevant details pertaining to the Merger are as follows:

Fund	Ticker	NAV/Share ($)	Share Conversion Ratio
BlackRock New York Municipal Opportunities Fund	–	10.8366	N/A
BlackRock Muni New York Intermediate Duration Fund, Inc.	MNE	14.7485	1.36098961

This communication is not intended to, and shall not, constitute an offer to purchase or sell shares of any of the BlackRock funds, including NYMO, the surviving fund in the Merger. Investors should consider NYMO’s investment objective, risks, charges, and expenses carefully and consider in its entirety NYMO’s prospectus, which contains important information regarding the investment objectives and policies, risks, charges, expenses and other important information about NYMO

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PROS Holdings, Inc. Announces Appointment of Raja Hammoud to Board of Directors

BusinessWire — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 16:30:00 +0000

PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PRO), a provider of AI-powered solutions that will optimize selling in the digital economy, today announced the appointment of Raja Hammoud to its board of directors effective June 6, 2020. Hammoud joins the board as an independent director Fintech News.

A seasoned technology veteran with over 25 years of industry experience, Hammoud is executive vice president of products at Coupa (NASDAQ: COUP), a global, business spend management company.

At Coupa, Hammoud leads the product portfolio’s strategy and product teams, including product management and user experience. As a member of the Coupa Executive team, she has helped the company scale from a young startup to a successful public company, resulting in the launch of many applications and thousands of new product capabilities. Before her time at Coupa, Hammoud directed product marketing for Adobe System’s (NASDAQ: ADBE) business process management product line, drove the solutions roadmap for Adobe’s Customer Experience Management and spearheaded the product management of its innovative Social Brand Engagement Solution.

“I am thrilled to welcome Raja to the PROS board,” said PROS Non-Executive Chairman of the Board Bill Russell. “Her deep experience in strategy and product innovation is a significant asset and will complement the strengths and expertise of our board. I look forward to working with her to create even greater long-term value for our shareholders.”

“Raja is a strong addition to our team, and I am excited she is joining us,” said PROS President and CEO Andres Reiner. “Raja’s experience in growing successful SaaS companies, along with her track record in delivering solutions that translate into go-to-market success, make her an ideal partner for the PROS team as we aggressively pursue the tremendous market opportunity before us.”

“I am honored to join the PROS Board of Directors,” said Hammoud. “We are at an important inflection point in digital commerce where businesses are revolutionizing the way they engage with and sell to customers. I look forward to working with the team to apply my experience to help the company further drive the innovation needed to capture additional market share.”

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kACE partners with China’s Hangzhou Erayintong Software Limited to offer Electronic Distribution of FX Options in China

PRNewswire — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:30:30 +0000

kACE, a division of Fenics Software Limited, an entity within BGC Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: BGCP) (“BGC Partners,” “BGC” or the “Company”), a leading global brokerage and financial technology company, today announced it is partnering with Hangzhou Erayintong Software (“ERAYT“), a leading Chinese technology company providing front end distribution services to local bank branches, to offer FX Options solutions to the China market.

The partnership offers clients of ERAYT a seamless solution that connects the FX Options pricing engine of the award winning platform kACE Pro to ERAYT’s local language front office platform XFunds to offer electronic distribution of FX Options to client banks in China. The solution will support all currencies including CNY for both vanilla and exotic options.

“This is a very exciting partnership for us. Our partners at ERAYT have built an excellent reputation for financial software solutions within China, and when combined with our 30 years of experience in the global FX Options market, this new offering is proving to be very compelling,” says Richard Brunt, Managing Director at kACE. “Demand is driven by the continued investment in technology by banks in China to improve the efficiencies of FX Options product distribution to their sales teams and branches as FX Options volumes increase.”

Ms. Zhou Yi, Director at Hangzhou Erayintong Software Limited, commented: “We are delighted to be working alongside our partners at Fenics Software Limited. The kACE product has a global reputation for best in asset class for FX Options pricing and when combined with the distribution power of our XFund platform we are enabling our clients to bring real operational efficiencies to their distribution strategy by providing accurate market pricing at the sales level supported by our head office controls. The level of interest we are seeing in the first few months of this partnership is hugely encouraging for the rest of the year.”

About kACE
kACE is the product brand for the solutions provided by Fenics Software Limited. The brand was launched in July 2018 following the acquisition of Kalahari Limited by Fenics Software Limited. The product range includes pricing, analytics, distribution and trading tools for a broad range of asset classes.

Both Fenics Software Limited and Kalahari have over 30 years’ experience providing intuitive pre-trade analysis, risk management, automated client price distribution, post trade processing and innovative pricing solutions for the FX derivatives and financial markets. The extensive range of APIs facilitate connectivity to third parties and bespoke front-end solutions.

About BGC Partners, Inc.
BGC Partners is a leading global brokerage and financial technology company. BGC’s offerings include fixed income securities, interest rate swaps, foreign exchange, equities, equity derivatives, credit derivatives, commodities, futures, and structured products. BGC provides a wide range of services, including trade execution, broker-dealer services, clearing, trade compression, post trade, information, and other services to a broad range of financial and non-financial institutions. Through brands including Fenics, BGC Trader, Capitalab, Lucera, and Fenics Market Data, BGC offers financial technology solutions, market data, and analytics related to numerous financial instruments and markets. BGC, BGC Trader, GFI, Fenics, Fenics Market Data, Capitalab, and Lucera are trademarks/service marks and/or registered trademarks/service marks of BGC Partners, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

BGC’s customers include many of the world’s largest banks, broker-dealers, investment banks, trading firms, hedge funds, governments, corporations, and investment firms. BGC’s Class A common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “BGCP”. BGC Partners is led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Howard W. Lutnick. For more information, please visit http://www.bgcpartners.com. You can also follow BGC at https://twitter.com/bgcpartners, https://www.linkedin.com/company/bgc-partners and/or http://ir.bgcpartners.com/Investors/default.aspx.

Discussion of Forward-Looking Statements about BGC
Statements in this document regarding BGC that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements” that involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, BGC undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For a discussion of additional risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see BGC’s Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including, but not limited to, the risk factors and Special Note on Forward-Looking Information set forth in these filings and any updates to such risk factors and Special Note on Forward-Looking Information contained in subsequent reports on Form 10-K, Form 10-Q or Form 8-K.

About ERAYT
ERAYT Software Co. Ltd is a leading Chinese technology company founded in 2002 specialising in the development and services of financial funds software products. Customers include many of China’s large and medium-sized banks, securities firms and financial institutions of large companies. Located in the Zhejiang province, ERAYT core values are of innovation, passion and building trust with its customers and partners for the betterment of the financial industry. ERAYT holds the ISO9001 qualification certification, ISO27001 information safety management, CMMI3 certification and Chinese Foreign Exchange Trade System qualification.

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