Tech Tuesday: The Effect of APIs on the Future of Financial Services
Scarlett Sieber
Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, Money20/20. Contributor, Forbes. Author, Wiley. International Speaker. Board Member.
Meet Shamir Karkal, a software engineer turned finance and banking expert.
Shamir and I met at BBVA when he served as head of Open APIs. Before BVAA, he co-founded Simple, the pioneer of digital banking. Today, he is the CEO of Sila, a company that provides APIs for fintechs to build products for the future of financial services.
By using advanced APIs and distributed ledger technology, Shamir and his team are ushering in a new wave of global fintech innovation, or Finnovation.
#TechTuesday Highlight #27: Shamir Karkal, Founder and CEO of Sila Money
Tell us more about what you do and how did you move into Fintech?
I’ve been involved in finance for awhile – I was a software engineer by trade, before becoming a consultant with McKinsey & Co. for financial institutions. My first foray into fintech was co-founding Simple, one of the pioneering digital banks, in 2009 which was sold to BBVA for $117M in 2014.
What role do you play in the fintech ecosystem and why is that role important?
I like to think I played a significant role in the early days of fintech, before it was even an industry that was developing beyond traditional banks. When we founded Simple, there were a number of technological (and regulatory) hurdles that have since been reduceddisappeared as a result of the work of the early challenger banks.
Sila is a continuation of my ongoing mission to remove the friction from payments and transfers: it’s still incredibly expensive for startups to compete against legacy banks whilst remaining compliant. The costs to become regulatory compliant kills many startups before they get off the ground. We’re devoted to creating a API suite that not only makes development easy, but takes care of the heavy lifting where navigating regulation is concerned – ensuring innovators can seamlessly and rapidly get their high-performance products to market..
How has technology impacted your industry and why is this important?
Though the internet revolutionized innumerable industries, both identity and money have traditionally lagged behind – dealing with these requires permission from a small consortium of gatekeepers.
Innovation in the blockchain sector (and, to an extent, open banking) in particular is poised to level this asymmetry, by laying the foundations for a more inclusive and easily accessible financial system – at last, we’re seeing the emergence of truly ‘programmable’ money.
What do you believe is the most exciting tech trend for 2019 (as it relates to your industry)?
As touched on above, I believe blockchain technology is a fascinating platform for launching new applications – we incorporate a stablecoin into the Sila suite, which allows cheap and rapid transfers of value to anyone, anywhere, in a trust-minimized fashion. While the inherent volatility of cryptocurrencies rules them out of many business use cases, our stablecoin maintains parity with fiat currencies through full backing.
Who is a person that inspires you? Why?
Lots of people inspire me, from Mahatma Gandhi to Yi-sun Shin. Probably the most interesting one from the current generation is Patrick Collison from Stripe. Love the company, love the product, love how he's gone about building it, and love how he’s remained close to his brother and co-founder, John.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into your space?
The world is your oyster. It’s a fast-moving industry with a wide range of different roles, so identify your strengths, network and get involved with projects you’re interested in.
"The world is your oyster... identify your strengths, network and get involved with projects you’re interested in."
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Have thoughts on this week’s trends or questions for me or Shamir? Post your thoughts in the comment section or share them on Twitter. Please include the hashtag #techtuesday and mention me @ScarlettSieber! Until next week. ??
You can connect with Shamir on Twitter and LinkedIn
#fintech #techtuesday #APIS #cryptocurrency #finance #banking #tech
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Head of LSBX
5 年Interesting chat! Makes me nostalgic for the days when we were all at BBVA! Keep fighting the good fight guys! :)
Software Engineer
5 年???
Independent freelancer
5 年Great concept, surely technology will continue to morph the financial sector, especially transaction banking space. Truly inspiring