Not so long ago, legacy core systems operated on-premise were a point of pride, and were often at the heart of the mainstream financial businesses that operated them. Increased expectations and evolving customer needs, however, are forcing financial businesses to move beyond legacy core systems. Moreover, application programming interface (API) and cloud technology have democratized the types of businesses that can now offer financial services, as well as how those services are offered.
“When we’re talking to customers today, [mainframes] aren’t what they are talking about. What people want are really easy-to-use APIs that they can consume very quickly and leverage to build something over a weekend,” Jeff Currier, chief technology officer at Galileo Financial Technologies, told PYMNTS in a recent conversation.
Galileo, Currier noted, is built on a foundation of scale, security and availability. The company works with Amazon Web Services, and is deepening its commitment with AWS in part because it has the largest global footprint of supported regions, as well as a secure-by-default mindset that’s consistent with Galileo’s interior high-security standards. AWS also provides Galileo with the infrastructure for expansion, since financial services providers want increasingly complex services.
The goal for the platform is to enable banks and other businesses to create unique and compelling financial services experiences to tap into a robust set of APIs, built on the cloud, to differentiate themselves in a hypercompetitive market. They can establish accounts and create cards to build a full-on digital banking experience, a virtual card solution for commercial payments or a convenient way to access cryptocurrency or invested funds, to name several examples of the types of solutions Galileo powers.
The most interesting new FinTech entrants, according to Currier, are reimagining the financial services experience for consumers and businesses by leveraging rich troves of data in ways not previously possible.
“That’s where we’re seeing a lot of emerging experiences catch fire,” he said. “These new entrants are tapping into Galileo’s APIs to build out rich, differentiated, engaging experiences, optimized to delight their customers. It’s a powerful construct, and we’re seeing this trend spread out more broadly.”
Galileo also works with traditional financial services providers to merge the increasingly digitizing, API-centered world of FinTech with mainstream banking. The firm, Currier said, “doesn’t play favorites” in the segment – the goal is to bring the benefit of its tech stack to as many institutions as it can with an eye toward collaboration.
Throughout the United States, Canada and globally – as Galileo expands into countries like Mexico – the company is seeing demand to tap more deeply into API-based services to deliver more value for clients. As Currier explained, there’s a lot of emphasis on building seamless user experiences – but seamless user experiences alone aren’t enough. Experiences must be built at scale to earn customers’ trust.
“We’re continually seeking to add value for clients, and they’re excited about leveraging the completeness of the Galileo platform to offer new services,” said Currier. “And we’re equally excited to be able to bring additional new services to market via APIs and AWS Cloud in ways that haven’t been done so far.”
Because as the needs of the market are expanding, nearly by the day, noted Currier, the smartest thing Galileo can do is build the tools to meet them – notably around enhanced authentication, integrated payments and more complex, machine learning-driven transaction monitoring.
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