Deploying tomorrow’s financial services today: Skaleet’s success story

The financial services sector is under unprecedented pressure. From all sides, competition is heating up as new products, solutions and ways to engage with customers take the market by storm. This changing financial landscape demands a trusted partner to bridge the gap between legacy and future-forward approaches, with end-to-end solutions, automated processes and personalized offerings, keeping customers at the core.

Skaleet is a future-forward global financial services technology partner. With its solution already deployed in over 30 countries, Skaleet supports digital banks and financial institutions worldwide. Designed to be highly configurable, it quickly responds to the requirements of different regional and local regulations.

In this inspiring interview, Yves Eonnet, Chairman and Co-founder of Skaleet bares his mind on the business transformation journey, impact of regulation, competitive advantages and the broader expansionist plan to emerging markets.

Let’s meet you. What’s your role and what inspired Skaleet?
My name is Yves Eonnet I am the chairman and cofounder of Skaleet. Skaleet was created from our vision that the banking industry was going to be transformed by emerging and disruptive technologies.
How long ago was Skaleet founded? Where is its corporate headquarters located?
Skaleet was created 15 years ago and we are located in Paris. It was previously called TagPay.

How many employees does the company have?
Skaleet is supported by more than 60 emplyees

What is the problem that Skaleet is solving and who does it solve it for? What in your background gave you the confidence to tackle this challenge?

New digital technologies are impacting dramatically banks operations and they need new offers from new suppliers to enter this new technology era.

My business partner, Herve Manceron, and I have the perfect legitimacy to bring to banks these new solutions since I am an expert in the innovative banking technologies and Herve is an expert in Telecom infrastructure technologies.

Congrats on your recent rebranding. What is the significance of this strategic move?
Our former brand, TagPay, was very much fitting with the first markets we addressed. Since then, our offer has evolved, our customers have evolved and our working land scape has been transformed. We needed to be supported by a new brand in adéquation with our market and technology evolution.

In this increasingly competitive space what makes Skaleet’s solution better than others? What functionality does it have that sets it apart?
Skaleet has 4 major strengths:
1- Achitecture designed to use 100% of the cloud capabilities
2- Natively mobile centric and digital
3- Full real-time
4- Compliant with the most strict security banking requirements.

Which emerging technologies do you see as game-changers and will have the greatest impact on banking? What is Skaleet doing in these areas?
The disruption is coming from the new digital architecture of next gen CBS. It is the end of monolithic centralized architecture for banks based on two clocks (one for the front managing the UX and one for the Back managing the batch processing). Ants are now full real-time and fully digital with an open architecture.

This is going to transform banking business. New processes, new business model, new partnerships, new offers, and often new customers.

Skaleet has been extending its impact across banking technology in the past few years with new technology products and services. Could you tell us more about your strategy?
Every bank in the world will have to become digital in order to survive in this new digital era.

We have chosen Africa and Europe as our priority markets aiming to become the leader in these two continents. Then we will address the rest of the world.

In a cloud-based world, privacy and data protection are common concerns of customers. Why is a company’s data more secure in cloud rather than on physical servers? How has Skaleet been able to navigate these concerns?

Data security and availability requires the most advanced expertise, especially for banks.

We are convinced that the Cloud hosting Companies are the ultimate solution to address this problem. Due to the complexity of the threats and of the protecting technologies, it is very wise to be supported by suppliers whose business is precisely to address these issue. Skaleet can be installed in any cloud hosting company and will always choose the best.

How can banks leverage their strengths to better compete with tech giants that are entering the banking services space? Are banks sufficiently prepared for the digital future and what should be top of their agenda?

This question is critical. Today banks are using CBS’s from another age….

as we all know you cannot win a war using the weapons of the former war…. It is urgent for banks to become digital and to use new generation CBS, as what Skaleet offers,

if they want to have a chance to successfully compete with the GAFA.

What has the impact of the global health crisis had on Skaleet both in terms of your relationships with customers and partners, as well as how Skaleet itself may have had to adjust internally to adapt to the “New Normal”?

Companies like Skaleet are extremely adaptable and agile. We have had a strong acceleration of our activity during the Covid crise due to acceleration of bank’s demand toward digital solutions. We have doubled our number of engineers from 25 to 50 during this period. We are ready for the “new normal”.

Without specific governmental regulation, do you think it’s possible for all banks, fintechs, and consumers to be on the same page when it comes to open banking?

Open banking is a fantastic opportunity for banks. They will have to become the centre of a local ecosystem making new partnerships and building new offers with the most dynamic companies. The technology is available (Skaleet), the customers are ready. Banks have to move.

Finally, what can we hope to see from Skaleet in the future? What plans do you have for the African Market? Anything else you would like to share with us?

My vision is that every large bank in the continent should open a BaaS offer in order to connect to, work with and support local Fintechs who are very close to customer new expectations and newdigital needs.

At the same time they should all open their own Neo banks to ensure new market presence and get ready for growth… Skaleet is available to support these two strategies.