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The Connector Podcast - Nordic Fintech Week: Identity, AI, and the User First
The biggest fintech wins don’t start with features—they start with identity. We sat down with Curity CEO Gustav Sahlman fresh off Nordic Fintech Week to unpack why identity is now the strategic layer for conversion, retention, and rapid product launches, and how AI is reshaping what customers expect from every interaction. From passkeys and biometrics to data sovereignty and deployment freedom, we dig into practical choices that make security feel effortless while staying compliant across KYC, AML, and GDPR.
Gustav brings a builder’s perspective on cloud‑native IAM: portable architecture for API‑rich environments, orchestration for human and non‑human users, and the freedom to run on‑prem, in private or public cloud, or as a managed service. We explore how to avoid vendor lock‑in, tune user journeys for different segments, and adopt passwordless flows that cut friction without weakening assurance. Along the way, we address the global UX bar set by Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and industry wallets in Europe—and why even local fintechs must design to that standard from day one.
AI shows up as both accelerant and risk. Agentic systems can guide onboarding and support in natural language, but they also introduce new identities—bots, services, and tools—that need scoped access, auditability, and revocation. We talk real‑world pitfalls like convenience traps where user data is quietly used for model training, and we share how to keep sovereignty intact with clear consent, minimization, and standards like MCP for safer integrations. If you’re building in fintech and want security, speed, and UX to rise together—not trade off—you’ll find a blueprint here.
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Koen Vanderhoydonk
koen.vanderhoydonk@jointheconnector.com
#FinTech #RegTech #Scaleup #WealthTech
And welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintech, fans and regulated worldwide. Join CEO and founder Owen van der Hoyden as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the market.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to another Connector Podcast. And today we're gonna reflect back on the Nordic FinTech week a couple of weeks ago. And today with me there is Gustav, and you participated to the FinTech uh week a couple of weeks ago. Is that correct? Yes, very much so.
SPEAKER_02:And uh how did you find the event? Super interesting. I mean, we um met a uh you know a lot of uh interesting fintech companies, of course. I mean uh number of the banks, uh number of the payment providers, but also a lot of interesting startups uh that are reshaping the way that we view fintech.
SPEAKER_01:And did you take any like uh key conversations with you or any trends that uh stayed with you?
SPEAKER_02:I think of course it's very hard to to not have a view on on AI and and the capabilities that that enables uh our you know fintech businesses to to uh to do. So so that's of course a key conversation. How do you allow a gentic AI to engage with customers in a meaningful way? Um so that's that's that's a conversation that's really helpful. And of course, on the back of that, um the the European term sovereignty, you know, how do you actually keep control over your data in a world where where identity is really the key asset, which you know, key asset for anything, um, but it's also potentially a kill switch. If you actually outsource your your identity, you outsource your data, you you leave yourself slightly vulnerable.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, absolutely. And and I cannot agree more with uh what you just said. I mean, that was definitely one of the the takeaways for me as well. No, I guess by talking about identity, it it hoovers nicely in uh in talking a bit about you and your company. So I'm sorry that I didn't ask that in the very beginning, but Gustav, can you maybe introduce yourself and also Curity, the company that you work for?
SPEAKER_02:Sure. Uh so uh my name is Gustav Solman and I'm the CEO of Curity. And uh and by the way, I'm Swedish and I've been running quite a few software companies started in different spaces, in the cybersecurity space, in the AI space, but now in the identity space. And curity is a um is a category leader in in in the world where where companies have API-rich environments, lots of consumers wants to build the omni-channel presence, maybe uh uh enrich that with with having a strong agentic AI strategy to really get to customers in in new and innovative ways while retaining control over the identity. So it's an identity tech technology provider in the in what's labeled the identity access management space, but primarily focusing on the external part, not on the internal, the the workplace uh stuff, but rather on building a really strong uh user experience.
SPEAKER_01:And in your opinion, because you already talked a lot about what the future will hold, but why has um identity security become so urgent and so much of a high priority for fintechs and also financial institutions?
SPEAKER_02:Because identity is really the key to enabling new types of services, you have to you have to provide a user experience, and this goes it it ripples through the whole business. It's from the sort of the initial phase when you want to, you know, how do you uh maximize the the customer conversion from the from the visitor that comes onto a site? How do you make sure that that that you actually get sort of maximum uh conversion of these? Is there a different type of user flow that should be adapted, whether it's a a teenager accessing your site or whether it's a retired citizen? And that goes, you know, how do you do churn prevention? Everything, how do you make sure that you the identity and that the information is kept securely? Everything is really identity is is the the is the the silver bullet behind a successful digital venture. Knowing your customer, keeping, you know, keeping good, you know, providing strong access, that is really the the key behind a successful fintech venture. And you know, on the back of that, if you have a strong technology solution in the identity space, you can deploy new services very rapidly. There's no you can minimize lead time and you can you know make that in a in a cohesive and coherent fashion. You know, so that's it's really the engine behind uh and especially in the authentic market. If you talk about banks, you have lots of, you know, you have your AML, you have your KYC process, you have lots of different regulatory requirements on how you deal with customer data, how do you make sure that you know your customer? All of that has to happen in the in the background while not impacting the user experience. User experience is absolutely key. Strong technology, identity technology solutions will enable a really smooth customer journey while you can actually comply with, you know, do all the things that that you by by law and by by good sound business practices are required to to undertake.
SPEAKER_01:No, I I agree. Um, but what makes you stand out against the others? I mean, there's there's obviously a lot of identity providers in the market, but what is your how is your approach different in terms of solutions that you bring to the market?
SPEAKER_02:It's built first of I I think you know uh we are a technology company and we've built this in a cloud native uh technology, meaning that it's you know it's built in a very modern fashion, meaning that it's built for dealing with very large volumes. It's very many different user flows, whether those are from humans or non-humans, whether that's uh actual consumers or if it's machines or agentic AIs or whatever it may be. It's all built for that. It's built for purpose. Uh, and the fact that it's cloud native also means that it's deployment agnostic. You can run it on-prem, you can run it in a private cloud, you can run it in a public cloud, you can run it as a managed service, you can run it in different shapes, forms, and that deployment flexibility is really, really powerful. And for us, many of our competitors, they're pure play sort of source vendors, where it's you you have to sort of uh you have to um use the the templated fashion which the they've come up with. You have to trust their ability to maintain data privacy. You have to rely on their ability to actually have the services up and running. And for us, it's you know, you want to be free. You know, you want to have a strong solution, you want to make sure that you can launch services really, really quickly with the the security required. Uh, while you can sort of, you know, go from one day to the other and say, you know, you know, we need to have um uh run it in a in a public cloud or in a private cloud, or you know, um that freedom is is is is quite valuable.
SPEAKER_01:Gustave, I'm I'm very um happy that uh all your replies and answers are coming from a place where you put the client in the center, and I think that's also the right way to do it. Um but how would you actually uh marry the facts with customer experience versus privacy versus regulation? It's a very sensitive triangle. So could you maybe give some examples how that's been achieved?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean there's several, if I say very important trends which we fully support, like passwordless, you know, how do you make sure that you use biometrics, for example, if if that is and you can incorporate that into the user flow because everything, everything for if you're running a digital entity, whether that's in the for that matter, if it's in the fintech space, in the banking space, or for that matter, if you would be in the retail space or any other space, you know, minimizing the number of clicks, minimizing user friction, having a you can never have security at the expense of user experience. You should could say, you know, you we want to maximize security, maximize flexibility without impacting the user experience. User experience can never be, you know, you have to make use of all the different tools in the toolbox to make sure that the user flow is is optimal. And you know, passwordless is is is is uh you know, power keys is is is is really, you know, it's one of it's a good example of of how the user experience becomes less and less um you know strenuous if I put it that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly, exactly. So security can never be at the expense of the user experience.
SPEAKER_01:I'm I'm glad you bring up pass keys because this is obviously a very international um effort done in the industry, but there's always also a lot of European regulations. So if a fintech would be expanding ex internally externally, internationally, what would be the the sort of key um aspirations you need to have from the start? And have you maybe have knows about failures that are very often being done and how that potentially could be prevented?
SPEAKER_02:I think it's I think the the perspective of uh of to make sure that you think about the user experience and all every aspect of this is actually you have to make sure that you're competitive against we're competing on a global arena. We cannot ever sort of uh make do and say we're the best of you know within a certain region. We have to make sure that we're best in the world. That applies to us as a technology vendor, that applies to to our customers. They have to make sure that because we even if you run currently a regional or local business, you have to assume that that's going to be under global competition. So um it comes, for example, when you think about like the wallet, uh, you know, now we have the uh European wallet structure. Of course, I mean from a consumer perspective, that has to be taken in consideration how does Apple wallet or Google Wallet, how does Apple Pay, etc., work. You know, you have to make sure that everything you can never allow yourself to be complacent for the uh global competition. You have to make sure that it is as seamless, as frictionless as the best. And I don't know, you I don't want to point fingers and say, you know, this should been done this way or that should be done that way, but always have the user in the as the focal point. Make sure that the the solutions that you develop are best in class.
SPEAKER_01:Well, looking looking towards the future in terms of uh identity access management, what are the challenges that you look at and and how are you preparing your company to stay ahead of the game?
SPEAKER_02:I I of course. I mean, we I and this is back to one of the original uh statements. If you look at uh the I would say the transformation of the software landscape that is happening on the back of uh AI. I mean, you can you can you can have all types of perspectives on this. How how much will it do in practice? What will it mean? But I think one of the fundamental aspects of it is the expectation of software, how software should operate. The AI brings about a new set of expectations. It should be super easy to deploy, it should be super easy to manage, the user experience will be redefined. The way that you communicate, whether it's through you know perplexity or chat GPT or whatever it may be, it's a very, very user-oriented U UX. If I and that same type of never been so human as it is at the moment, isn't it? Exactly. It's it's human while it's not human. It's it's super interesting.
SPEAKER_01:I agree.
SPEAKER_02:And that is gonna be that's gonna be it's a transformational force that's gonna affect uh us as uh as an identity provider, and of course it's gonna affect the way that we deal with uh you know, when you set up new flows to deal with not just how the humans should interact with the technology, but rather how the non-humans should act with the interact with the technology and with the brands. I mean, traditionally you could say in the identity space, it was like you know, authentication, you would log into a system maybe a few times a year. That's not how it is. Now you would need to interact with the consumer, with the whether that's you know, whether that's a a um whether it's a machine or a uh an actual human being, lots of times. It's gonna be much more sort of pressure on the on the back-end technology, on the identity technology that's you know, serves these machines or these human beings or whatever it is. It's it's it's just a it's a it's a it's a it's a fabulous new world where where where I think technology is gonna you know look and feel a lot different.
SPEAKER_01:And and also maybe the the new world will sort of make us forget important things from the past. I mean, you you named perplexity, perplexity came out with comment, the browser. Yeah, they said in the statement that the data that you actually put on comet will be used for further training purposes. Yeah and there's people that actually don't mind to do it because of the user experience. So I'm following you 100%, Gustave, because that's where we forget we're putting the data out because we it's made so easy for us.
SPEAKER_02:And then that sort of ties into this sort of uh you know, um actually sovereignty, you know, which data do you want to share, and which data do you not want to share, which data do you need to keep, you know, by yourself, and which data is it okay to sort of train. But you know, you see, I think you know, we're gonna see many more implementations using like M, you know, you know, standards like MCP and so forth, you know, how how you know, which which really sort of opens the floodgates to to a whole new set of uh uh AI capabilities, which I think are gonna be absolutely necessary for for you know for the for our customers, for the banks, fintechs, whatever you may, you know, payment providers, etc., they will need to adapt to that world. That's just how it is. And and hopefully we can be an enabler to make sure that they stay competitive in this in this uh in this world while keeping the the you know customer data you know safe and sound uh at the same time.
SPEAKER_01:I I agree, and and I think this might also be a good moment to sort of come to an end of this podcast because we're at a pinnacle where it's clear we've got a lot of things to talk in the future, a clear problem statement ahead of us. So the only question for me remaining is Gustav, if people want to continue these conversations, how do they get to you?
SPEAKER_02:I'd love to continue the discussion because I don't think it's a it's a this is uh you know, I'd love to continue that discussion, and they they can uh reach me through maybe best through, you know, send me an email on Gustav with an F at the end, okay, like Frederick at the end, dot Salman S-A-H-L-M-A-N, single N for those German speakings that tend to put in two N's at the end at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay. I'm glad I don't have to give you mine because my last name is very long.
SPEAKER_02:Your your email must be a little bit complicated, you know. So that's a absolutely yeah I would love you know if you shoot me an email and you know I'd love to keep the conversation going.
SPEAKER_01:Excellent. Thank you very much for being here in our podcast. Thank you also to the audience for staying tuned. And uh please stay here because more news will come from the fintech industry. Thank you. Thanks.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening to another episode of the Connector Podcast. To connect and keep up to date with all the latest, head over to www.join theconnector.com or hit subscribe via your podcast streaming platform.