IBS Intelligence Global FinTech Interviews
Go one-on-one with the innovators, disruptors, leaders, and decision-makers driving change in FinTech and financial services. IBS Intelligence delivers exclusive global interviews that uncover strategies, challenges, and the ideas powering the next wave of financial technology.
IBS Intelligence Global FinTech Interviews
EP1026: The future of digital transformation
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This interview with Eric Bierry, CEO of SBS, explores how modern banking is shifting away from basic technology toward advanced operational governance and open banking integration. Bierry argues that financial institutions must move beyond viewing compliance as a chore, instead using it as a foundation for innovation and superior data utilization. The text highlights how a composable, SaaS-first architecture allows banks to update their systems incrementally, avoiding the high risks associated with total software overhauls. Strategic partnerships, such as the one with Axway, are presented as essential tools for combining API management with agentic AI to automate complex tasks. Ultimately, the source emphasizes that success in the digital era depends on having a unified data foundation that supports secure, scalable, and intelligent ecosystem connectivity.
Right now, there is this um massive technological arms race in the banking sector. I mean, the common assumption out there is that the bank with the flashiest, most expensive servers, and the absolute newest core software automatically wins the market.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we definitely picture this scenario where simply outspending the competition on raw processing power buys you industry dominance.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Right. But what if the multimillion dollar core technology these institutions are buying is actually, you know, entirely irrelevant to their success?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell It is a fascinating trap that so many executives fall into. We've been heavily conditioned to view technological superiority in purely hardware or uh baseline software terms.
SPEAKER_01Like if you just buy the best system, you win.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. The assumption is that if you purchase the ultimate system, you simply win the game by default.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Well, today we're completely dismantling that idea. We have a highly revealing interview from the May 2026 edition of the IBSI FinTech Journal.
SPEAKER_00It's a really great source.
SPEAKER_01It is. It's an extensive conversation with Eric Bierry. He is a senior finance and tech executive with like three decades of experience. He's currently the CEO of SBS and the deputy CEO of 74 Software.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell And his core argument completely flips that shiny tech assumption entirely on its head.
SPEAKER_01Our mission for this deep dive is to unpack what is actually differentiating the modern banks that are thriving right now.
SPEAKER_00Right. Because it's not the servers.
SPEAKER_01Nope. We are exploring governance, integrated compliance, data structure, and the absolute tightrope walk of how these institutions are surviving the high stakes shift into AI and open banking without accidentally crashing their entire legacy systems. So, okay, let's untack this.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, what stands out immediately in Buyer's perspective is how he treats that shiny core technology. He essentially downgrades it to a baseline commodity.
SPEAKER_01A commodity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, as more and more global banks migrate to run on the exact same core processing platforms, that underlying software ceases to be a competitive edge.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell That makes sense. You fundamentally cannot differentiate your services if your biggest rival is utilizing the identical operating system to process transactions.
SPEAKER_00Precisely. If bank A and Bank B are rating the same massive check for the same software suite, they are technically tied.
SPEAKER_01So what's the tiebreaker?
SPEAKER_00The tiebreaker, according to Bayeri, happens in the ecosystem surrounding that software. Imagine those two banks running on the identical core tech.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I'm picturing it.
SPEAKER_00Bank A has meticulously built robust open banking frameworks and strict data sharing protocols wrapping around that core. Bank B uh has not.
SPEAKER_01Oh wow. So when you apply for a mortgage, Bank A doesn't just look at the checking account you hold with them.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. They use open banking to instantly pull in a comprehensive, real-time financial picture from across multiple outside institutions. They see your total household income, your macro spending patterns, your overall behavioral risk. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Well, Bank B is just like squinting at the narrow, isolated slice of data they hold internally.
SPEAKER_00Right. And the business outcomes diverge completely at that point. Bank A makes a highly informed, mathematically sound lending decision.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Ross Powell Because they actually know the real risk.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Exactly. They can offer a highly competitive rate because their risk calculation is accurate. Yeah. Bank E is essentially flying blind, so they're forced to price their loans higher to account for the unknown risk.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So the baseline technology is identical, but the governance of the data creates an entirely different business result.
SPEAKER_00It really does.
SPEAKER_01It makes me think of an analogy. It's like two chefs given the exact same state-of-the-art kitchen, right? Well, like that. You've got the most expensive induction ovens, the absolute sharpest carbon steel knives. But the ovens and knives aren't actually making the food taste any better.
SPEAKER_00No, of course not.
SPEAKER_01The difference is that one chef has a pristine, obsessive system for organizing their ingredients, tracking the freshness of their inventory, and orchestrating their prep cooks.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Right. Versus the chef who just has a chaotic, messy pantry where nobody knows where the salt is.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. The kitchen is the same. The governance of the kitchen is what actually produces the Michelin star.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Ross Powell That's a perfect way to look at it. And translating that organization of the pantry to the digital financial world reveals the true scale of what banks are dealing with today.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Because it's a massive pantry.
SPEAKER_00It's enormous. And what's fascinating here is that open banking is no longer a fringe experiment or a, you know, a beta test for early adopters. Beerie makes it very clear that as of 2026, it's the foundational model governing data exchange across the entire financial industry. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01Right. But having access to an ocean of customer data means absolutely nothing if an institution lacks the mechanisms to safely ingest it, route it, and act upon it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Precisely. They need impenetrable identity verification, rigorous consent management, and mandate enforcement built into the very heart of their operations.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell But wait, if you are suddenly funneling millions of highly sensitive customer data points from external third-party apps into your core system to spot these macro trends, I mean you are essentially begging for a massive data breach or a catastrophic regulatory fine, right?
SPEAKER_00It is a massive risk.
SPEAKER_01How are they surviving the legal liability of managing all this external data?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, that tension brings up the necessity for a complete paradigm shift regarding how financial institutions view compliance. Okay. Historically, compliance functions as the department of no. It is viewed as a heavy burden, like a box to check at the absolute end of the development cycle.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Right. Engineers spend months building a sleek new feature, and then the legal and compliance teams swoop in at the 11th hour to point out all the ways it violates international data protection laws.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. But Bayre points out that winning banks are flipping that script entirely. They're turning compliance from a burden into an innovation enabler.
SPEAKER_01An innovation enabler.
SPEAKER_00Yes. They build the compliance into the very beginning of the product journey rather than bolting it on as an afterthought.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell So if a bank is launching a new payment initiative, they integrate the necessary regulatory requirements, like the Payment Services Directive rules, from day one of writing the code.
SPEAKER_00That's the idea.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I have to push back on this concept, though. Because I know anyone listening who has ever dealt with corporate red tape is feeling some heavy skepticism right now.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm sure they are.
SPEAKER_01I mean, compliance as an innovation enabler, that sounds like a total oxymoron. It feels like saying the strict speed limit on the highway is what makes driving a sports car fun. Adding rules doesn't make you faster, it creates bottlenecks.
SPEAKER_00I get that. Yeah. But if we connect this to the bigger picture, the speed limit analogy actually holds up, provided we look at the engineering of the road itself.
SPEAKER_01Okay. How so?
SPEAKER_00Think about building a Formula One racetrack. If you don't build massive safety barriers, standardized banking curves, and incredibly clear rules of the road into the physical track, your drivers are going to be terrified. Right. They will inevitably drive slowly because the risk of a fatal crash at every turn is simply too high.
SPEAKER_01So building the safety mechanisms into the concrete means the drivers don't have to think about them.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. By embedding the compliance, the guardrails, into the architectural foundation of the banking system from day one, you remove the friction of hesitation.
SPEAKER_01Because the software engineers know exactly what the absolute boundaries are.
SPEAKER_00Right. Allowing them to push the system to its maximum speed without fear. Bayeri is highlighting the massive, often hidden cost of retroactive fixes.
SPEAKER_01When a bank bolts compliance on at the end.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And then a regulator changes a data privacy rule, and that bank has to tear apart a finished product, rewrite the underlying code, and delay their launch by six months.
SPEAKER_01Which is a nightmare.
SPEAKER_00Total nightmare. The institutions that build compliance into the foundation never have to do that costly, panicked scramble. Their products launch significantly faster and they are inherently more stable.
SPEAKER_01He also extends that embedded compliance philosophy beyond internal software development, applying it to external partnerships too, right? Absolutely. Like when a legacy bank collaborates with a nimble fintech startup, if they build accountability and strict auditability into the technological partnership agreement from the very beginning, it creates a rock solid foundation.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. They can co-innovate and share data much faster because the trust and the legal safety nets are already hard-coded into the digital relationship.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell That makes a lot of sense. But the reality check here is that building a perfectly compliant, highly flexible track from day one is incredibly difficult.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Oh, it's monumental, particularly when navigating a complex patchwork of global regulations. Aaron Powell Right.
SPEAKER_01European data laws differ wildly from American frameworks, which differ from Asian regulations.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Exactly. And a single bank generally cannot build all of that specialized connectivity and dynamic compliance mapping internally. They rely on specialized partners to handle that massive computational burden.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell And that dynamic is exactly what we see in the mechanics of how SBS is executing the strategy, specifically through their partnership with a company called Axeway.
SPEAKER_00Yes. This collaboration brings together API connectivity, deep compliance, and what they are calling agentic AI.
SPEAKER_01Okay, the SBS and Axeway partnership represents a really fascinating division of labor. SBS handles the heavy lifting of the banking operations layer, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. The core processing of deposits and loans with the AI and compliance built directly into the foundation.
SPEAKER_01And Axeway, on the other hand, manages the API ecosystem.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Now for anyone who doesn't live and breathe tech infrastructure, APIs are often described as messengers between software, but in this context, they are much more than that, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00Oh, way more. They are the universal translators and the bouncers for the bank's data vault.
SPEAKER_01Bouncers, I love that.
SPEAKER_00Right. They don't just carry messages, they actively verify permissions, check IDs, and translate ancient coding languages from legacy mainframes into modern data that a new app can actually understand.
SPEAKER_01That definition of translators and bouncers perfectly captures the first level of this integration, which they call Axeway Amplify.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Amplify's main job is to drive API adoption while ensuring perfect automated alignment with complex global regulatory frameworks.
SPEAKER_01In Europe, that means handling the technical requirements of PSD2, the upcoming PSR, and PSD3. Exactly. Okay, let's pause and define what those actually mean in practice because they kind of sound like droid names from Star Wars.
SPEAKER_00They do.
SPEAKER_01What is PSD2 actually forcing banks to do?
SPEAKER_00So PSD2 or the Payment Services Directive 2 fundamentally forced European banks to open their heavily guarded customer data to authorized third-party providers.
SPEAKER_01Right. So if you want to use a budgeting app that analyzes your spending, the bank is legally required to let that app securely access your checking account data.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell, which creates an absolute security nightmare for the bank. They suddenly have thousands of external apps knocking on their digital doors demanding data.
SPEAKER_01And in the US, the FDX, the financial data exchange standards, are attempting to create a similar standardized flow of data.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And Axway Amplify manages this terrifying volume of traffic. It verifies every single knock on the door, ensures the consent is legally valid under PSD2 or FDX, encrypts the data, and securely hands it over thousands of times a second.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Wow. And then we step into the second level of this integration, which is where things get genuinely futuristic.
SPEAKER_00Axe-Way Fusion.
SPEAKER_01Yes, Axe-Way Fusion. This is the layer that introduces agentic AI into the products. They do this through gateway and governance capabilities built on something called model context protocol or MCP technology. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_00Right. And this elevates the banking operations from just being compliant to being genuinely intelligent and autonomous.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell You know, looking at our source file for this deep dive, there's a striking visual provided to illustrate this concept.
SPEAKER_00A robotic hand.
SPEAKER_01Yes. It shows a sleek white robotic hand extending outward, and hovering just above its palm is a projection of glowing holographic dashboards.
SPEAKER_00It's very sci-fi.
SPEAKER_01Very. You see a digital globe, complex financial charts, real-time data streams, and facial recognition nodes all floating in mid-air. When you look at that image, it perfectly encapsulates what agentic AI feels like here.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. It's not just a customer service chatbot trying to help you reset your password.
SPEAKER_01No. It is a machine actively holding, processing, and independently managing a global data ecosystem.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Right, because agentic means the AI possesses agency. It can take independent actions, orchestrate multi-step tasks, and manage complex workflows based on the data it receives.
SPEAKER_01And the MCP technology you mentioned, model context protocol, is the breakthrough here, right?
SPEAKER_00It really is. It acts as a standardized secure bridge, allowing the AI to safely reach into the bank's deep data vaults, pull the context it needs, and execute a task without breaking any of those rigorous compliance rules.
SPEAKER_01But wait, that robotic hand is only as steady as the body attached to it. An AI with the agency to make independent financial decisions based on messy, siloed, or inaccurate data is a recipe for a catastrophic high-speed disaster.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. That absolute need for clean data is where SBS's operational layer comes back into play to close the loop.
SPEAKER_01Okay, how so?
SPEAKER_00Well, SBS ensures that the data flowing across deposits, payments, lending, and servicing is unified and strictly governed.
SPEAKER_01So by aligning all these historically fragmented products under one roof with shared compliance principles, the AI has a pristine data set to work with.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. It can support incredibly complex human decision making, like parsing a massive corporate loan application while simultaneously cross-referencing global sanction lists and macroeconomic risk models.
SPEAKER_01And doing all that without introducing new blind spots. Okay, so they have designed the sleek, highly intelligent, self-governing banking machine. It anticipates market needs, it never violates a European data law, and it connects seamlessly with every other financial system on Earth. Sounds flawless, right? It sounds totally flawless. But here is the elephant in the room. If you are the CEO of a 150-year-old institution, your current systems are likely running on 40-year-old legacy code held together by digital duct tape.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, completely.
SPEAKER_01So they are stuck. Ripping out that core risks a total operational meltdown, but leaving it means they lose the market to the newer tech native banks. Do they just build a parallel bank next to the old one? How do you upgrade a plane while it is currently flying in the air?
SPEAKER_00This raises an important question. And it is arguably the single most terrifying issue keeping banking executives awake at night.
SPEAKER_01I can imagine.
SPEAKER_00The historical approach to digital transformation in finance has often been the big bang rip and replace. A bank spends hundreds of millions of dollars in five years building a brand new system in the background. Then, over one highly stressful holiday weekend, they shut down the old system and try to boot up the new one.
SPEAKER_01And pray that when the branches open on Tuesday morning, millions of people can still actually access their life savings.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And the industry has watched several of these massive rip and replace initiatives fail spectacularly.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wow. Really?
SPEAKER_00Yes. There have been instances where major institutions locked millions of customers out of their accounts for weeks. It resulted in enormous operational chaos, financial losses, and severe regulatory punishments.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00It is quite literally professional suicide for an executive team if a big bang migration goes wrong. Because of that embedded trauma, many traditional banks are entirely paralyzed.
SPEAKER_01But doing nothing guarantees irrelevance. So what does this all mean for a bank that's terrified to move? I get that ripping the band-aid off is dangerous, but isn't standing still and letting your tech rot an even bigger risk right now?
SPEAKER_00Yes, standing still leaves banks highly vulnerable. If your competitors are using agentic AI to instantly underwrite loans and capture your market share, standing still is just a slower death.
SPEAKER_01So what is the actual mechanism for modernizing without triggering the Big Bang?
SPEAKER_00Well, SBS solves this paralysis through a strategy based on a composable, SAS-first architecture. Yes, composable is the vital concept here. Instead of replacing the entire foundation of the institution at once, you decouple the functions. A bank can modernize progressively.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I see.
SPEAKER_00They might choose to completely overhaul their payments processing capabilities first, utilizing the new AI and open banking tools while leaving their ancient, deeply complex deposit systems running exactly as they always have.
SPEAKER_01Okay, let's bring back our chef analogy to figure out how this actually works mechanically.
SPEAKER_00Go for it.
SPEAKER_01Composable architecture isn't just updating the dining room while keeping the kitchen old. It sounds like they need something sitting between the two. In this scenario, is the mechanism acting like a master wait staff?
SPEAKER_00That's a great way to picture it.
SPEAKER_01The wait staff takes a highly complex order from a customer using a modern app in the dining room, translates that order into the exact shorthand the 50-year-old grill cook in the back understands, and ensures the meal comes out perfectly, all without the customer ever knowing how old the kitchen equipment is.
SPEAKER_00That translation layer is exactly how it functions. And the mechanism SBS uses to manage those moving parts is what they call the SBP platform.
SPEAKER_01The SBP platform.
SPEAKER_00Right. Byery notes that in 2026, SBS is positioning the SBP platform as the central orchestration layer. It is the master weight staff. It brings execution, control, and evolving regulatory reporting into one single framework.
SPEAKER_01So the SBP layer intercepts a payment request, routes the actual payment through the brand new AI-driven rails, but knows exactly how to send the final ledger update back to the 1980s mainframe so the math still balances.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. It acts as the grand conductor for the entire operation. The SBP platform sits above the mix of brand new AI modules and ancient legacy systems, giving the institution the centralized oversight they need to operate confidently.
SPEAKER_01That's incredible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they can move at a pace that matches their organizational readiness, entirely avoiding the catastrophic risk of a full system reboot. They ensure total business continuity because they never have to stop the business to transform it.
SPEAKER_01It is a brilliant technical compromise. It allows these legacy giants to evolve into modern, agile entities without ever having to hold their breath and jump out of an airplane hoping the parachute they just packed actually opens.
SPEAKER_00Right. It is realistically the only practical way forward for institutions handling trillions of dollars in global wealth. The technological transformation has to be entirely invisible to the end user right up until the moment it suddenly provides them with a remarkably better service.
SPEAKER_01This has been an incredibly revealing look beneath the surface of modern finance. To distill all of this down for you listening, the ultimate takeaway from Eric Bieri and the evolving strategy at SBS is that the future of banking isn't about writing a massive check for the shiniest new server farm.
SPEAKER_00No, not at all.
SPEAKER_01It is entirely about having the cleanest, most interconnected data. It's about building smart governance and compliance directly into the foundation of your products, turning the speed limits into the safety barriers that let you go fast. And it's about utilizing a composable architecture, that master orchestration layer, to seamlessly integrate incredible tools like open banking APIs and agendic AI without ever taking the system offline.
SPEAKER_00The industry is undergoing a fundamental shift from valuing the raw hardware to valuing the intelligence and the structural governance that directs it. The real competitive advantage separating the winners from the losers is entirely invisible to the naked eye.
SPEAKER_01And this perspective fundamentally changes how we view the systems we interact with every day. Whether you are an engineer building financial tech, an executive trying to navigate international regulatory nightmares, or simply a consumer who wonders how their banking app suddenly seems to know exactly what kind of loan they need before they even ask for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the everyday impact is huge.
SPEAKER_01I want to leave you with a final thought to ponder, something that builds on everything we've explored today about data aggregation. We've talked extensively about how banks are utilizing open banking and agentic AI to pull in data from everywhere. They see your income, your spending, your behavioral patterns across multiple platforms, creating a perfectly clear, unified picture of who you are financially. Right. If this technology continues to compound, we are approaching a horizon where financial institutions will know our financial future better than we do. Oh, wow. Think about it. If a bank's AI can see that your discretionary spending has plummeted, your late-night purchases have spiked, and you recently paid a retainer to a family law attorney, the bank's risk model knows you are getting a divorce before you have even fully processed the life change yourself.
SPEAKER_00That is an intense thought.
SPEAKER_01What happens when the robotic hand of AI can perfectly predict your needs and your crises? Does the bank of the future become less of a passive vault where you simply store your money and more of a fully automated, proactive life manager?
SPEAKER_00When an institution shifts from passively holding capital to actively predicting human behavior based on macro data patterns, it fundamentally redefines the relationship between human beings and their wealth. The implications for personal agency are massive.
SPEAKER_01They really are. And it brings us right back to the core realization we started with. When you look at the Bank of the Future, remember the true differentiator isn't the flashy tech you can see on the surface. It is the brilliant, perfectly governed, invisible structure holding your entire digital life together.