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The Connector Podcast - Swiss Fintech Innovation: Andreas on Enhancing Data Quality and Resilience for Financial Institutions with theScreener
Can the secret to thriving in the fintech industry lie in data quality and resilience? Andreas, the founder of theScreener, thinks so. In a riveting conversation, he shares his journey from the tumultuous days of the dot-com boom to establishing a pioneering fintech company. He explains how The Screener sets itself apart by focusing on precise, twice-weekly data updates, catering exclusively to banks and financial institutions. This episode promises insights into how data simplicity and accuracy empower investors to make well-informed decisions amidst ever-changing market conditions.
We also explore the critical factors influencing equity prices, such as analyst opinions, market trends, and fundamental pricing, and discuss how advanced algorithms can provide a competitive edge. Listen to Andreas as he addresses the challenges private wealth managers face who must navigate a world with abundant information. Discover how The Screener, with its Swiss roots and global vision, is poised for future growth by harnessing the transformative potential of AI, offering a potent mix of technology and strategy to meet diverse market needs.
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Koen Vanderhoydonk
koen.vanderhoydonk@jointheconnector.com
#FinTech #RegTech #Scaleup #WealthTech
Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Cohen van der Hooydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:Welcome to another Connector Podcast, and today we're not going to talk about MacBooks, windows, but we're going to talk about the screener, and I have with me Andreas from the Screener. So, andreas, can you tell us a little bit what the Screener does and who are you?
Andreas Lusser:Hey, thanks so much, Koen, for your interest. Happy to do that. Yes, so I'm Andreas. I'm one of the founders of the of the screener. We are a 24 year old fintech, so we are the methuselah, if you want, of the fintechs in the world. Uh, we didn't think of the name fintech. That was invented much, much later. But we are a technology firm in the financial area and, in fact, what we do is we provide content for investors that should help to make tradable insights and cut a little bit through the whole fog of so much data that we have to get to the kind of the. So what of all the data which is around?
Koen Vanderhoydonk:And you say you have founded the company of the. So what of all the data which is around and you say you have founded the company in the year 2000? That was a very turbulent time, right, a lot of things were happening the y2k bug, I think. We were coming out of a dot-com boom. So how was that? How, how, what, what did it take you to actually start the company?
Andreas Lusser:Well, at the beginning it wasn't stormy At the beginning, it was very sunny. Just it didn't stay sunny very long. So when we started in spring 2000, that was still the dot-com boom going on. So initial founding for the company, that was absolutely the easiest thing you could do. Just call yourself dot-com and you have lots of money on the table. That was the easy part of it. It became then much more difficult about half a year later when the dot com boom turned into a dot com doom and in fact I mean in hindsight it was absolutely great in the sense we could start it and then kind of all the you know the noise was cut out by the market because everybody who survived the dot-com doom afterwards they were really storm proven.
Andreas Lusser:So I think it's you know, you start sunny but then you get into a big storm and you make it out of it. Then you have seen a couple of storms. More storms were to come. We had the financial crisis, covid, and lots of other ups and downs were to come. We had the financial crisis, covid and lots of other ups and downs. But, um, let's say, once you've gone through one or two of the major storms, you know what, what waves you have to expect, and and you're not just a sunny, sunny sailor- nice.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:Um, I think that's a very important uh life lesson for all of us listening here today. Now, earlier, earlier, you said, andreas, that you have financial analytic tools. You based your company based on data, financial data but what's the catch? Why is it so quirky? Because data you can basically get everywhere. Quote unquote.
Andreas Lusser:Yes, I mean, there is no saying. You know, we are drowning in data and we are thirsty for information, and in the financial business that's no different to any other business as well.
Andreas Lusser:And I mean sometimes the question when you do business, the question is differentiation how do we differentiate ourselves and how do we help our clients differentiate themselves? So, first of all, to understand very important is we are B2B, so we don't offer any services for retail investors directly, but we are B2B, so our clients are the online brokers of this world are the online brokers of this world. Our clients are the banks and the financial institutions who want to make their digital channel, their e-banking, their e-brokerage, more attractive. Their web applications, their mobile applications what is it? And we have to provide content for them to differentiate themselves and differentiation.
Andreas Lusser:So when it comes, let's say, to this financial data, and the problem of it is, first of all, there is a lot and second, it's not bad, not good quality, and third is, you have to make the conclusion out of lots of data yourself. So, essentially, there are a lot of companies who have technologies and they access raw data. You, you know the numbers, the charts, the financials, the underlyings, the forecast by the analysts. There are lots of numbers around there which you can find on the usual web information terminals, but the first thing that we do is we don't access this data through an API just automatically, like would do any other quantitative company, but we upload the data only twice a week into our system and the reason for this is simply quality. That means we have an algorithm that spots potentially erroneous data and then we have an employee who has to personally check and decide what data to correct before it gets on our machine. So the quality in garbage in garbage out. That's unfortunately true even if you apply whatever intelligence, whatever comes. But first you have to get good data.
Andreas Lusser:That's the first part, and the second part to differentiate is, in my view, simplicity. Things have to make sense. If I give you so much reading, it doesn't help you. At the end you have to make a trade. You buy or you sell the security. You have it and you bought it. You have to decide every day I keep it or I sell it. I keep it or I sell it. I keep it or I sell it. That every day, I keep it or I sell it. I keep it or I sell it.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:I keep it or I sell it. It's a very simple rule, isn't it? That's the decision you have to take.
Andreas Lusser:We are not here to write books, to have good readings. We are here to assist our clients, which are the institutions, so that they can help their end clients to make, within reasonable time, reasonable decisions. Mm-hmm.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:Well, you say that. Well, there's two things that come to my mind. The first one is you talk about data quality, which you explained, but in that explanation it sounded almost to me like machine learning. So is this something that you could call it's the new AI trend that you're following, or was it something you're already doing 20 years ago?
Andreas Lusser:Was it something you were already doing 20 years ago? It's a good question. I mean, the good news about this AI now, in the last whatever two years, is that finally people understand what we have been doing for 20 years. So that's the good news. Excellent. If you go behind, let's say, if you go behind the mechanisms. Of course you know there are different generations and tools and technology becomes more modern, but the basic principle to take data and to make sure for compliance and many other reasons, that the same input must give the same output.
Andreas Lusser:So we use algorithms that make sure that when you have the same input today, you get the same output, and if tomorrow you have the same input, you again get the same output. So there are certain subtleties within, but at the end of the day, it is a form of artificial intelligence that we are applying Absolutely.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:Let's move a bit more to the business side of things. We're talking investment. Investment has different shapes and forms. It can be done by your own execution only. It can be done by a private banker or a wealth manager. So, for example, looking at self-directed investors, how would you typically help them in their journey?
Andreas Lusser:absolutely. I mean, first of all, as I said, we are b2b, so we don't try to. I don't get a monthly fee from self-directed investors themselves, but we help the platforms for self-directed investors and essentially what we observe is there are two types of self-directed investors really completely on their own, and they have their tools and they trade a lot and they go to the cheapest trade around who offers you cheap and reliable execution, and there are excellent brokers out there who offer you this service. That's not where we come in these people. They are completely self-directed and they have their own tools and methodology. And the more the the bigger part of the self-directed investors they could be called lonely investors.
Andreas Lusser:The problem is, in the old times, even with a small fortune, you had a banker, a broker, an advisor who was at your side and when you asked them, what do you think about this or that equity, they said, well, why not? You know that's a good company and you felt comforted. Well, why not? You know that's a good company and you felt comforted. That's like I say, when you go and buy a pair of jeans, you can do that completely alone, or you can change it in the dress room and then nevertheless have your whatever, your friend, your wife or maybe even the salesperson to tell you well, it looks good on you. And it is this side where the investor that is lonely because they're just left in the digital room, you have to give him something to hold their hands and not just conflicting another 500 numbers and things, but to boil it down to the essentials. And we really looked at you know. Einstein once said you should tell things as simple as possible, but not simpler either.
Andreas Lusser:And when you look at the market, there are essentially three drivers that drive the price of any equities. It's the analysts. The analysts are out there, some like them, some don't. It's not an issue. They are a relevant impact in the market. If they forecast, you make a loss. If more forecast to make a profit, that impacts an equities price.
Andreas Lusser:The second force that impacts is the market itself. If you go against the market, you have a different life than if you go with the market. So the market itself is the street buying, is the street selling, is it selling more and so on. There are aspects to it Technical analysis, behavioral finance, there are a lot of words for it, but at the end it's the same thing. It's the market itself. That is a driver.
Andreas Lusser:And the third question is the fundamental price. If you have something which is trading at 10 times what is fundamentally justifiable, you have a different situation than if you have something that looks like a bargain, than if you have something that looks like a bargain. And what we do is we have lots of algorithms that, at the end, boil it down to every investment. We give you a checklist that says you're investing with or against the analysts, you're again, investing with or against the market, and you follow justifiable fundamental mathematics, yes or no. Now you can go contrarian if you want, but then you should be at least conscious that you go against the analyst, against the market, and you know, or you can go with them, but at least it's a very simple, boiled down result out of lots of numbers and a lot of algorithms. That's a bit where we come in, where we really try to simplify it for the end user and to help the platform so any digital banking platform that they can give this content to their investors and thereby really defend their margin.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:That's really what the business is about and I'm glad that you put it so clearly that it's like information, because you're not giving an advice as you're informing the client, and when you talk about advice, there's advice and discretionary what. What are the tools that you then provide, or is there anything that you provide?
Andreas Lusser:there is information and there is let's say there is from the retail investor wants to have it simple but good, and we have also the professional asset manager, who has certain access to platforms that we offer, and a very important part is the advisor in between. So we have the real pure asset managers, professional portfolio managers, you have the self-directed investor and an important part for us is also the client advisor. Put yourself in the role of the manager of a private wealth institution, of your whatever private bank or organization. You have a hundred or a thousand or whatever different front client facing individuals in your organization.
Andreas Lusser:Now the question is if you want to increase your share of wallet, you have to make your Client advisors look smarter than the ones of the competition. That's the obvious part. The question is, how do you do that? And the moment of truth is always when the client challenges you with something. If a client says, look, I just won in the lottery, I want to invest my money, typically any wealth management institution has their recommendation list and they're well prepared for this question. But if somebody just challenges you and said how do you see at the moment the semiconductors? How do you see at the moment Intel versus NVIDIA. How do you see at the moment this or that? That's a spontaneous question which you cannot plan, because there are thousands, even millions of different types of questions that can appear.
Andreas Lusser:And thanks to our machine-based algorithm, we can cover almost anything and make sure that your client-facing teams have the better answers for stupid questions, and that essentially results that the next spontaneous question from your client comes to you and not to the other institution where the other part of the money is. So that's for us very important to assist the client-facing people, because they have a terribly difficult situation. The client expects you that they have a knowledge gap. They have a knowledge lead over you, otherwise you wouldn't. Why should you call them and pay them? On the other hand, information in the internet is just so completely available to everybody, so it's quite a challenge for institutions to give your client-facing professionals a real edge over your end client, and that's essentially where we have certain services that we offer.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:Yeah, and I think I would like also the fact, if I would be a private banker that you said that the same input gives the same output. So knowing that everyone in your team sings the same song, it's a very powerful thing, also as a bank, because then you know that there's no compliance and conflicting things within the private bank force. I can imagine hey, we're almost at the end of our conversation. Time flies when we're talking innovation and talking about our personal passions. How do you see the future of the screener and what do you see in the market evolving?
Andreas Lusser:We have been around for many years. We have been a bit traditionally in my accent. I'm a Swiss person, we are a Swiss-based company, we have subsidiaries in different countries, but clearly we have been extremely successful and active around our kind of home place and the surrounding places and we feel, first of of all, growth is international. We see a lot of demand now for our products also outside, where we are just simply maybe we have, you know, we have whatever. Maybe we should take more ales earlier on, but the data is around for all the markets almost worldwide. So it's a question just of marketing presence internationally. So that's very clearly we are in an international growth phase that we started.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:And the feedback we get is really fantastic, super exciting it's extremely exciting.
Andreas Lusser:It's extremely exciting to see the needs, which are somehow similar but yet a little bit different in the different countries, and, as we are a boutique, we are able to really listen to the different markets and to come up with solutions that suit, and that is really something On the general product development side. Of course, this AI, but that's a buzzword nobody wants to hear anymore, so I'm sure there are millions of podcasts on this. I will uh, I will not go into more details but just keep on this, yes you know.
Andreas Lusser:Of course that's something, as we have been in this field for more than 20 years. Of course we follow every generation that comes, and there's a lot to come, but I I save you and your listeners the details of yet another speech on artificial intelligence.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:All right, great. I think. What you can give us, though, Andreas, is to let us know how people can contact you and the Screener.
Andreas Lusser:I mean we have a homepage, of course, thescreenercom that's an easy one. That's an ad, if you allow me to, to make this. Of course, you'll find me on on linkedin um, we, uh, we work with, uh, with the connector. That uh, that is, uh, that's fantastic. So, uh, you can find us easily on the usual either linkedin, andreas loser or um on our home page, the screenercom what brilliant.
Koen Vanderhoydonk:well, andreas, thank you very much for having you. Thank you also to the audience and stay tuned for more news out of this wonderful fintech world. Kun, thanks so much, you're welcome.
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