According to Lisa Terziman-Gutu, head of business development at Salt Edge once banks start implementing the Open Banking principles and providing services to end-customers in a new way, it will help to build trust toward the fintech innovations.

You can meet Salt Edge as part of FinTech Stories stage at FinTECHTalents Generation 2019 Festival this November.

What is Salt Edge – what problem are you solving?

Salt Edge acts as a bridge between banks/eWallets/other financial institutions and end-users, solving the problem of interoperability on the Open Banking market. The company has two main vectors of activity: enabling TPPs to get access to bank Account Information and Payment Initiation channels via a unified API gateway, and developing the technology necessary for banks to become compliant with the PSD2 and Open Banking requirements.

Why do you describe Salt Edge as a ‘One-Stop-Shop’? What do your clients most use your products for?

Salt Edge’s products cover all the layers of interaction between financial institutions, end-customers, and third party service providers. We offer our clients a range of services meeting all their needs in the field of Open Banking (Data Aggregation API, PSD2 Compliance, Open Banking Payment Gateway, Data Enrichment Services), so they do not have to worry about searching for different vendors, negotiations, integration, etc. Being an all-in-one destination, we save our clients’ time, resources, and money. With Salt Edge, banks can easily meet the PSD2/Open Banking requirements and fintechs, lenders, credit bureaus, other companies can build new services, based on financial data from end-users’ accounts gathered by Salt Edge from 3100 connections in 60+ countries.

If you could educate the general public on Open Banking – how would you do it?

We wouldn’t. 😉 We should educate businesses in the first place. Once they start implementing the Open Banking principles and providing services to end-customers in a new way, it will help to build trust toward the fintech innovations. And this will be the best education for the general public.

What advice would you give new startups in this space?

Find a business model that works for you – it took us a while to successfully match what we offer to what our customers need. Open Banking will revolutionise the financial market, it brings multiple new paths and opportunities, just do not be afraid to experiment and you will eventually find what works best for your company and your customers.

We have an array of craft beers and independent music at FinTECHTalents – Give us a great song to listen to while we sip your favourite tipple.

ABBA – Money, Money, Money