FintekNews is pleased to offer the 11th installment of 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 are pleased to introduce you to Kristopher Bishop, CEO of Integrated Legacy Solutions (ILS). The firm offers data migration and conversion software and service packages that help banks move data from legacy or acquired systems into their system, or onto ILS' OmniView Browser for long term research.

Kristopher Bishop
President / CEO
Integrated Legacy Solutions
www.IntegratedLegacy.com

How did you personally become involved in fintech?

I have worked in the financial services industry my entire professional career. My first job out of college was with a company called BancTec in Dallas, Texas. I started out servicing the payment processing systems and software for their banking and credit union clients. I then moved to Document Solutions Inc (DSI) in Birmingham,
Alabama which was the first company to produce an “image statement” and sell a fully imaged POD system. I had the opportunity to travel the country with DSI and met lots of great banks and bankers along the way. As a young single man I loved installing software at a client site and teaching them how the new technology would change their operations. It was a great time to be in the imaging business.

What are the biggest problems facing the fintech industry in the future?

I think one of the biggest problems in the industry is the lack integration from the new creative products and start-up companies with the big 4 core solutions providers (Fiserv, FIS Global, Jack Henry & Assoc. and D+H). The big 4 all have some type of cobbled together solutions and will bundle it with their core product set keeping any third party with a superior product from being able to compete for the business. This in turns highjacks the financial institutions into only the solution of their core provider whether it fits their needs or not. These big companies have proven they are not product innovators but rather are product (company) acquirers. However, they are only looking to acquire companies that are large enough to impact their stock prices and that can’t be done with a small company. Conversely, it’s hard to grow a small business with a superior product to those sizes when you can’t easily get an interface with the core system.

How do you feel businesses are adapting to the facet of fintech that your company operates within?

When I started my first data conversion company in 1998 I was the only company that was “CORE Agnostic” and would convert data from any check image, document image, signature card or statement system on the market. Your only other choice was to keep the old systems around and try to keep it up and running for the next 7 to 10 years. We opened the market up to actually converting the data from one system into a format for loading into their new system.

Today we are changing the marketplace once again with our OmniView Browser, which has eliminated the need for banks to spend hundreds of man hours and tens of thousands of dollars trying to convert legacy data and make it fit into their current system. While we still do traditional data conversions for check images, statements, reports and document systems, OmniView keeps the data in its native format and allows the client to research all index’s and meta data that was in the old system from a simple browser based solutions. Clients love it as they don’t have to suffer through the hardship or expense of a traditional data conversion for months and months, instead a migration to OmniView can be completed in a matter of days.

Our clients are used to traditional data conversions lasting months or even years. So the industry is starting to come around and start to think about NOT putting all their legacy data in to the new system or service bureau’s data center as a way to save time and money. The fact is the data centers don’t want the clients loading mass quantiles of legacy data into their production system. It slows down their system, impacts their production and people for months and months during the loading process. With a migration all the original data, index’s, audit logs and meta data comes across very quickly into OmniView and they can discontinue the use of the old system a lot sooner.
 

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Kristopher Bishop is the President / CEO and founding member of Integrated Legacy Solutions (ILS), the leading provider of legacy data migration and conversion tools to the financial industry. A 20-year veteran of the financial services industry, Kristopher started ILS with a focus on improving the way banks and credit unions deal with legacy data and images.