FintekNews is pleased to offer our weekly feature column “3 Questions”. Each week, we feature a thought leader within a unique sector of fintech and ask them to answer just 3 questions for our audience in their vernacular. This week, we’d like to introduce you to Mark Medline CTO & Co-Founder of Paragon Application Systems, a leading independent provider of automated, virtualized testing tools for the financial services industry. Paragon’s solutions help financial institutions, major interchanges, software providers and payment processors across 90 countries to improve their customer experience, boost efficiency and reduce time to market. NAME: Mark Medlin
TITLE:
CTO and Co-FounderCOMPANY:
Paragon Application Systems, Inc.WEB ADDRESS: paragonedge.com
What does your firm do/offer within the fintech sector?
Simply put, Paragon provides next generation testing tools and services to the ATM and payments industries. While testing has traditionally been a highly manual, cumbersome and costly task, our solutions allow financial services organizations to automate those tests, streamlining the process. Our technology can virtualize any system in a transaction path to fully automate nearly any test,including card, token, device or switch testing.
We see great value in the API revolution as it relates to this process transformation. By leveraging APIs, all systems in a testing organization can work together to replace manual operations, liberating testers to spend time on more complex, higher value tasks.
What is your role within your firm and what do you do there on any given day?
I am the chief technology officer and co-founder of at Paragon. As co-founder, I started at Paragon on the ground floor and have since watched it grow into the successful international organization it is today. I’ve been working with the bright team we’ve built around us to build innovative technologies and develop software to help organizations more comprehensively and efficiently test their systems for more than two decades.
No two days are the same for me. My time is split between reviewing new technologies, organizing product feature sets, communicating with the technology teams, brainstorming new innovations and writing software code. It is rewarding to have a career where I can do what I love, and help the industry that I’m so passionate about.
What are the biggest problems facing the fintech industry in the future?
The biggest problem facing the ATM and payments sector of fintech is the same in the future as yesterday and today – financial services organizations tend to underestimate the importance of testing. The payments industry has grown increasingly complex over the past decade, and financial service organizations have failed to appropriately update their testing methods. Testing is often easy to put on the backburner because it’s not a noticeable problem until something goes wrong. However, when a failure does occur, it can negatively impact consumers’ ability to make transactions and access their accounts, and irreversibly damage an organization’s reputation and brand.
A number of our clients are making testing a priority to ensure reliability in the systems that store and transport peoples’ life savings. These organizations realize that while everyone wants convenience, innovation and portability, it’s worth nothing if integrity and trust are compromised. The companies we see embracing our next generation testing tools are easing pain points while alleviating the cost, time and burden associated with dated testing technology.
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Mark Medlin is co-founder and chief technology officer of Paragon Application Systems. Mark has been with Paragon for more than two decades, supporting the company’s international growth and development of its next generation testing tools and technology.