Final Tech Report HD - Flipbook - Page 34
The second was much more exciting. The economy as a
whole had become much more outwardly focused and
technology driven. This includes financial services and the
growth of smaller companies who don't see Ireland as their
primary market, but are building products and solutions for
Europe and wider afield. This has only increased since then.
In terms of how things will change, I hope these trends will
continue with lower barriers to market entry increasing Irish
consumer choice in retail banking and I'd love to see this
continued expansion of financial technology firms with this
outward ambitious focus.
It's fair to say that the government has recognised the
potential opportunity in the industry. Their strategies IFS2020
and Innovation2020 aim to build on Ireland’s strengths in
talent, technology, innovation, R&D and science to highlight all
that Ireland has to offer as a location for specialist international
financial services.
We're also getting a nice little financial technology eco-system
going in the country. Companies such MasterCard, Fexco,
PayPal, Realex, Ding, CurrencyFair, TransferMate, Rubycoin and
First Data and many more having significant operations in
Ireland. We've also recently seen announcements by a number
of challenger banks that they intend to open offices here and
Stripe has acquired an Irish e-money license.
From my perspective, this presents a major opportunity for
collaboration. Collaboration not competition will help spur the
growth of both traditional and fintech players and in turn, can
drive job creation in Ireland. At Leveris, we're already doing this
with a number of Irish and non-Irish partners to present better,
more holistic propositions to our clients.
As a core banking provider, one of our main challenges we face
is the time we need to put aside to make sure our products
and services can support our clients in being compliant. This
isn't always a big value add for us, but an absolute necessity for
us to do business. Finding the expertise and funds to navigate
and comply with the regulatory demands that have developed
in financial services markets can be challenging.
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