FintekNews is pleased to offer our readers our “3 Questions With…” column, where we chat with 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 Sid Yenamandra of Entreda, Entreda — the leading provider of comprehensive cybersecurity software, systems and training to the independent financial advice industry.

NAME:

Sid Yenamandra

TITLE:

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

COMPANY:

Entreda

WEB ADDRESS:

https://www.entreda.com/

What do you believe the next major innovation in financial technology will be and why?

The next major innovation in financial technology is the merger of human and machine. This is not science fiction and cyborgs. I’m referring to investment and wealth management professionals using automated tools in every aspect of their jobs to supply stonger data, analysis and protections at faster rates with fewer errors.

Whereas now financial professionals still do a lot of manual clicking and typing for repeatable tasks, like entering the same customer information into multiple systems or documents, soon different software will communicate with each other well enough that such data will only have to be entered once.

Along the same lines, user interfaces will become much more intuitive. So once you enter that data, software will begin crunching numbers and preparing reports and sending files to various stakeholders as needed, both on regular schedules or when specific events occur.

For example, an advisor could automatically receive daily and weekly account-by-account asset breakdowns while a client could automatically receive a birthday or anniversary message — without the advisor having to configure many settings.

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

Nonsensical and unsubstantiated claims. (I know that’s a bold statement, given my above prediction.) But in all seriousness, fintech has a big problem with vendors pushing misleading and dangerous claims about their services. That confuses financial professionals, makes it hard for them to know which tools they need, and potentially hurts both their firms and their clients.

In general, think twice if fintech vendors rest their entire value proposition on things like “seamless, at scale, onboarding” or that the platform has “passed the highest levels of due diligence review” or that it is “designed specifically for large enterprise firms.”

Those first two claims are table stakes; any vendor lacking them is subpar. The third claim is silly because in finance, many firms with huge budgets have lean teams. There are quite a few multibillion dollar teams with under a dozen employees.

One claim to run from is that the software “cannot be circumvented” by users. This creates an adversarial dynamic between management and staff while fostering suspicion and fears of Big Brother. Worse still, it’s unrealistic because technology only works when people use it.

Take my field, cybersecurity. My software protects financial firms from digital data breaches. But if an investor uses a pen to write their name, address, Social Security and bank account numbers on a sheet of paper — then leaves it around strangers — that investor may encounter a data breach that has nothing to do with a technology fail.

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