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The Connector Podcast - DFS Digital Finance Summit - Transforming Credit Management: Jens from GraydonCreditSafe on Data Accuracy and Global Fintech Innovation
Join us on an intriguing exploration into the evolving world of fintech, banks, and regulators with our guest Jens from GraydonCreditSafe. Discover how the merger of Graydon and CreditSafe combines local expertise with global technological capabilities to transform credit management and fraud prevention. Jens shares captivating insights into how this alliance leverages data accuracy and reliability to tackle regulatory challenges, including KYC, KYB, and ESG compliance. Get ready to uncover the strategic advantages that this partnership brings to the table, offering a deep dive into the heart of financial innovation.
As we further our discussion, we explore the transformative power of data collaboration through the lens of Datavillage’s software platform. Learn how banks and insurers can confidentially share insights on persistent issues like fraud. Discover how GraydonCreditSafe's initiative to standardize global data enhances accessibility. This episode serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding fintech's interconnected landscape and data's pivotal role in shaping its future.
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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.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another podcast from the Connector and Belgium Fintech, and today I've got with me Graydon CreditSafe, represented by Jens. Good morning and welcome. Good morning. Can you explain us a little bit more about yourself and the company?
Speaker 3:Definitely, and also thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3:So my name is Jens. I work for Graydon CreditSafe. Coming from the Graydon part, as you may know, they're two companies.
Speaker 2:Well, you have to explain us all about this.
Speaker 3:Definitely, we'll definitely be a topic today and I'm head of fraud, meaning I'm managing the fraud department where we have solutions around fraud prevention and detection, and besides that, I'm also a consultant, so I consult also a consultant, so I consult also the clients that we have on certain topics. So, yeah, very happy to be here and explain to you more what we do and where we stand for.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and let's dive into that straight away. So what's the deal? Gradient CreditSafe what happened?
Speaker 3:Well, so, two companies, basically Gradient and CreditSafe. What happened? Well, so, two companies, basically Gradient and CreditSafe. Gradient is a very known player in Belgium for more than 35 years Started up in 88, I think, and CreditSafe started up in 97. Was more like a disruptor in the industry, and they decided to acquire Gradon in 2022, which was, in hindsight, a very logic acquisition, because Gradon was a very known player in the local market also on a data perspective and CreditSafe, yeah, a very known player in the international market, also on a data perspective.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, what we see is, yeah, the best of both worlds right now a match made in heaven correct, definitely and and why would you say?
Speaker 2:I mean you, you give like um the fact that local quality versus global quality is that sort of what it is yeah, correct, the baseline is global data, local intelligence.
Speaker 3:so we keep the local intelligence, and definitely in Belgium, from the Gradon part, and now we add an extra layer of international scope. So, yeah, it's really a match made in heaven, I would say.
Speaker 2:And what would you say are your core services with this new setup company? Well new, it's already a couple of years now, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been a couple of years. And right, yeah, it's been a couple of years. And also here you see a little bit the difference between the two companies. So let's say, the core business of the two companies was credit management. So we provide credit reports worldwide, also offering credit data in a lot of countries more than 200. But what we do now, and that's also what we saw ingrained on almost eight years ago that looking at the same company is not the same than a while ago.
Speaker 3:And now you have to have different views on the same company. So, yeah, we asked ourselves the question what can we do with the same data on different levels? And I think that's one of the reasons now that we managed to really stand out in the market right now.
Speaker 2:Because CreditSafe was also very known in the market around KYB Know your Business. How has that part been integrated in the new company?
Speaker 3:Well, that's one of the examples. So I think also the market is also driven by a couple of evolutions If you look at KYC, kyb coming from the legislation, of course, so it also drives us to develop solutions around compliance, around KYC. But also one of the new topics that is arising is ESG. Of course, esg is a follow-up of the Green Deal, so also there you see that definitely the banks now, but also other institutions, need to comply with this legislation and again we ask ourselves what can we do with our data in order to create insights around that? So it's going much more further than the traditional credit reports and credit management market in the past.
Speaker 2:So what? It's a lot about data. You said that a few times, but when you talk about data, your data is as good as the worst link or the bad data that you have. So how do you ensure there's accuracy and reliability for financial institutions predominantly?
Speaker 3:yeah, and they're basically our clients, so they expect that extra, uh, going extra mile for them. So what we always have been doing from a Gradon perspective is you have the public sources, but you also see, for example, in Belgium, the CABIO, the Chamber of Commerce, more or less you see that there is a margin of error of 15%. So we need other sources to get that quality right. And then you see that we have the publications of the Belgian Gazette. It's a very complex, unstructured data. So we we had and we still have, but we had a lot of people that do manual input and corrections on that data. But nowadays you see that technology is coming, you can ocr a document, but you still see that there's a human in the loop necessary to create that extra layer of of quality. So that's what we've all been doing and due to technology, we can still improve that process.
Speaker 3:And that technology part is that credit safe? Yeah, I definitely can say that because they were a disruptor they still are that they're more perceived as a yeah, as a technology data provider and Gradle was more like the dinosaur, you know. So also, they're an example of bringing the best of both worlds and you also see that on group level that they're investing a lot in in technology as well to get the data accuracy as right, but as well, the insight following on that data is also very important because we don't only deliver the data, we deliver the insights on different levels. So you need technology to you know to create a scoring around it and to create the probability of a certain topic. Is it around fraud, around ESG, around the credit worthiness and the traditional way? You see that there's definitely a driver from the CreateSafe group as well.
Speaker 2:And how do you differentiate yourself against any other sort of providers in the market?
Speaker 3:Well, that's a good question and I think we do it in two ways. First of all, I mentioned a few it's around data and insights, right? So you see that today, today, if you look at a company and the credit worthiness of a company, yeah, it's. It's not sufficient anymore to look at that a very traditional way. You need different views on the same company. And, um, if you look at the topic around fraud prevention or esg, etc. These are topics that we really co-created with our clients. If you know that all the banks are clients in Belgium, all the insurers, 90% of the leasing companies so, yeah, we could have a lot of input around a certain topic. We use our data and our technology to create those unique insights. And I can definitely say that on those two topics ESG and fraud but also around shock resilience, for example, we had COVID, we had the energy crisis, so, yeah, we're constantly searching for other insights on the same company and I think that's where we make the difference. We really make the difference around that, make the difference around that. So, basically, on the data and insight one and two, what I also find that we're doing very, very good at this moment is, in a company, you have three things. You have data, insights and process.
Speaker 3:In the beginning, we're not managing a process. We just deliver the data to the front door. So we ask ourselves, okay, how can we improve the process? Because the better the data is being used in a process, the better for us as well. So we asked ourselves, okay, how can we improve the process? Because the better the data is being used in a process, the better for us as well. So we really choose our partners. So we use software partners, which I will definitely give a few examples later on but we choose the best partners in certain areas around compliance, around data collaboration. So we use the right partners to do so.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 3:I think that's also one of the benefits that we have in Belgium as well.
Speaker 2:Let's maybe zoom a bit on the partnership, because we're here also in a Belgium FinTech podcast. So yeah, do you work a lot with fintechs and how does partnership look like for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, and I think, well, the most prominent partners that we do have right now, they're Harmony. So Harmony is well, for the people that don't know, harmony is a compliance expert that manages the process of all around KYC, compliance, etc. Yeah, and basically we integrate our data into their systems, and it's a unique positioning because you combine the best of also here, the best of the both worlds process software and also data. So that's really a partner where we have a very strong connection with. And well, another member of FinTech is Data Village, as you may know. So data village, um, yeah, they can, they, they really create for us an environment, the software platform, where our customers meaning definitely the ones that have a, yeah, like a common challenge, and so the banks, the insurers, they all have to do with the same kind of topics, but they're not so eager to share data, Sharing data.
Speaker 2:Data collaboration is the king.
Speaker 3:Definitely, and that's what we embed into our systems as well. So I give you an example around fraud Every industry, but definitely the ones that I just named, they, have a problem with fraud Companies, entrepreneurs, persons that create a company it could be shell companies or companies to commit fraud. We do develop insights around that to prevent, but still there are companies that can really have a financial impact on those institutions. So what if they all could collaborate on the same topic and they share their experiences around it and from our experience they already did it with us. But you still see that there are some boundaries on that one and I think now, with implementing the software of Data Village, you see that the barriers go down because they know they can collaborate not sharing, but collaborate on the same topic, and I think Data Village is very strong in that area.
Speaker 2:It's the magic of confidential computing.
Speaker 3:Yes, it is. Well, it's a very technical aspect. I'm not that technical, but what I've seen so far from the technology is very promising.
Speaker 2:So it's nice to see that you work with other companies. Now, the fact that you use so much data I would imagine that your big data team is tremendous. Or is that a misjudgment?
Speaker 3:No, we have to keep up to date with everything that happens in the world. Look at the geopolitical situation right now. So, again, we're constantly looking on local level, but also from a group perspective Okay, what are certain relevant topics in society where we can have a contribution on? So they're constantly busy like, okay, this is happening, how we can react on this certain event. I think one of the biggest examples here is everybody agrees that the economy from 10 years ago you have like a high and low conjuncture. That's not happening anymore. We're evolving towards an economy with a lot of shocks.
Speaker 3:So, again, we had the COVID period, where everything had to close, so turnover went almost to zero for certain activities and industries. Then we had the huge energy shock as well. Now we see the war in Ukraine. So you see that there are a lot of things happening. Now also, trump gets elected. He's going to put a lot of import and import tariffs on a global sale. Will that have an impact? Definitely so, yeah, that's why we created also a shock resilience indicator. Again, another view on a company which didn't exist four years ago. So, constantly looking for what's happening in the world, what's happening on a local level, in order to you know what clients really ask is to give input around certain topics.
Speaker 2:Jens, I'm glad that you bring it back on that global level, because I want to jump back a little bit towards the end of our podcast. Now, on your globalization, do you see differences in terms of how data is being used in Europe versus I don't know Middle East versus US versus Asia? Would you be able to shed the light on that?
Speaker 3:well, I think I can give a very personal example. My wife is colombian, so, uh, I've been there a lot as well, uh, for, uh, for family visits, so, but I'm always very interested in exploring the market, like how it does it work, and I think latin america versus europe is a good example. You know, so interesting, yeah, if you see we here, we see here, we're not there yet, but you see that a lot of processes are optimized and, you know, automation is very key here. Digitization is also key here, and if you look at Latin America, there are emerging markets like Brazil that are very, very growing a lot.
Speaker 3:But, yeah, the pure credit management or core business is, yeah, like 10 years behind, and so that's one of the examples I can give from a personal perspective, but also data-wise, I can tell you that we have a very strong network worldwide, and one of the things that CreditSafe does best is gathering all the information from all over the world and make it very uniform into our database, so with one click, you can have the same rating on a belgian company than from a company in australia or in puerto rico or whatever, and that is what our business does, so you don't need to be, yeah, very educated to see if the light is green, orange or red.
Speaker 2:So that's the strength. Oh nice Now, since we're at the end of the podcast. So what would be your ideal customer that comes to you and how do they get to you?
Speaker 3:That's a very good question. Well, I think when I'm the most happiest is, you know, I've been doing a lot of business with financial services companies, banks, institutions, et cetera, et cetera. It gives me a lot of pleasure, but what I really get energy from is, you know, providing the right insights to a startup scale up in order that they can grow. I think I can also mention a company in Belgium that is very close to me. It's Lizzy. It's a second-hand leasing company. You know, they've been, uh, doing business with us and we provide them insights from the beginning and they keep on growing, expanding into other markets. So that's really a customer where I would say like, okay, I really get the pleasure working with them and facilitate them in their growth, so that that's for me, the ideal customer, because I get a lot of energy from from those types of company cool and jens.
Speaker 2:How do they contact you?
Speaker 3:yeah, they uh well uh. We have a very strong uh marketing team, so they came to us via via the website. It was very uh, very uh, very good to uh to have that kind of uh inbound, uh inbound, marketing makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you very much for your insights.
Speaker 3:Thank you also to the audience and please stay tuned and thank you again for having me. It was a very nice conversation.
Speaker 2:You're very welcome. Bye-bye, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to another episode of the Connector Podcast. To connect and keep up to date with all the latest, head over to wwwjointhekonnectorcom or hit subscribe via your podcast streaming platform.