What A Director Of Technology Alliances At Glia Wishes They Had Known Before Entering The FinTech Industry
Daniel, a Director of Technology Alliances at Glia in the FinTech industry, wished he had understood "how banks and credit unions actually operate their business" before starting his career. This foundational knowledge of banking's core operations—including "growing deposits" and managing "assets and liabilities"—would have provided a crucial framework for understanding the role and impact of FinTech solutions.
Financial Services, FinTech, Technology, Business Operations, Banking
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Daniel Cuddy
Director of Technology Alliances
Glia
Boston College
UCLA Anderson (MBA)
Political Science, American Studies
Finance (Banking, Fintech, Investing), Technology
Business Strategy
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Understanding the financial services industry's core business model (banks' balance sheets, assets, liabilities, net interest margin) is crucial for understanding FinTech's role and problem-solving within it.
2. Knowledge of how banks operate, including deposit growth, fraud identification, customer verification, and payment rails, provides valuable context for FinTech innovation.
3. FinTech companies address specific technological challenges within the banking and credit union sectors to support their fundamental business initiatives, making understanding this sector's needs paramount for success in the FinTech field.
Transcript
What have you learned about this role that you wish someone had told you before you entered the industry?
I define the industry I work in as financial services technology, or FinTech. What I wish I had known prior is that having a baseline understanding of how banks and credit unions operate their business would be vitally important. It helps in understanding why FinTech companies are doing what they're doing.
A bank has a balance sheet with assets and liabilities. They grow their deposits, which are their liabilities. To grow their assets, which are their loans, they are growing their revenue source.
Knowing this helps you understand why FinTech companies are pursuing certain strategies. They support the basic initiative of a bank or credit union to make net interest margin.
So, what are the key things for a bank or credit union? They need to grow deposits. From a technology standpoint, to grow deposits, you need to identify fraud and verify a person's identity.
You also need to provide features that allow customers to transact. This includes payment rails and all the technology that supports the fundamental process of growing deposits to grow revenues or loans. It all boils down to that fundamental business model. FinTechs address small problems within these areas to help financial institutions grow their business.
Fundamentally, you need to understand the core problem you are trying to solve. This is how a bank operates, and what we can do from a technology standpoint to better enable that.
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