What If? So What?

Efi Pylarinou, Top Global Tech Thought Leader on FinTech

• Perficient, Inc. • Episode 61

Share episode

In this episode, Jim Hertzfeld welcomes Efi Pylarinou, a Wall Street pro, former academic, and FinTech expert. They discuss the evolution of financial services, the concept of everywhere banking, and the impact of AI and other emerging technologies on the industry. Efi shares insights on the importance of adapting to new tech cycles, the challenges of legacy systems, and the need for a change in mindset to thrive in the world of AI. 

Thank you for listening!

You can also watch the episode: https://www.youtube.com/@perficient/podcasts

Have a question for Jim? AMA - submit questions: podcast@perficient.com

FOLLOW JIM

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimhertzfeld/

https://x.com/jimhertzfeld

FOLLOW PERFICIENT:

https://www.perficient.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/perficient/posts/?feedView=all

https://www.instagram.com/perficient/

Efi Pylarinou:

get your data architecture in order, whether you're a small business, a medium business or a large business. You know, getting your data architecture in order was also necessary for the mobile era, but a lot of companies patched it with band-aids and all sorts of temporary solutions.

Jim Hertzfeld:

Welcome to "What If? So What?, the podcast where we explore what's possible with digital and discover how to make it real in your business. I'm your host, jim Hertzfeld, and we get shit done by asking digital leaders the right questions what, if so what? And, most importantly now, what. I am really happy to welcome Effie Pylarinou, wall Street pro former academic, fintech expert, speaker, author and podcast guest. Welcome to the show, Efi.

Efi Pylarinou:

Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be on this show and, as I realized to be through a tweet on X, I pressed Grog and because I was quoted or tagged in that tweet, grog spoke about me and said things about me. You know, Efi Larinu is a fintech influencer, she talks about these topics and so on, and most of it was very good. I'm quite impressed with that sort of introduction, if you want, from Grok.

Jim Hertzfeld:

I'll have to do the same and see what comes up for me, if anything. Well, that's good. You have a pretty broad background. I love your story. Could you just tell us a little bit about kind of how you got here, kind of where your career took you on a couple of turns maybe, and how you got here today? Just give us a little bit of background.

Efi Pylarinou:

First of all, I'm joining you from the heart of Europe, Switzerland, out of the EU, up close to the Swiss Alps. I'm based in Zurich. I've been here for 10 years and pretty much for the decade. That really defines what I think of as my fintech career, where I decided to dedicate myself to all the innovations in financial services, and I do confess that 10 years ago it was easy to follow everything and everybody globally, and now it's such a challenge. I came to that decision because I started my career on Wall Street in New York in the 90s. I joined Solomon Brothers For those that are much younger, that was one of the top, I would say, boutique investment banks and Wall Street companies of the time, and I mentioned this because the culture was very cutthroat compared to any other company. And those were my formative years, if you want.

Efi Pylarinou:

And life brought me to live and work in several countries because I married a diplomat and I started reinventing myself and working remotely from the different posts where we were moving. I had the opportunities to move to Canada to teach at McGill during a very interesting time the 2008 global financial crisis. I was teaching real estate finance when everything was collapsing. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, you know, were changing the whole capital markets. Everything was impacted. So you know, if I look back, I've been in that hardcore, traditional wholesale if you want financial services and banking at the heart of the financial hub, if you want New York. And now I'm finding myself in Switzerland, which, on the one hand, is a top country, number one for 18 years in innovation globally and broadly, not necessarily in financial services, but we live in a time where everything is more decentralized and everything is more global, and everything is more connected. And that's how I kind of operate on a global network.

Jim Hertzfeld:

That's exciting. So you'd mentioned that Solomon was a cutthroat environment and those were your formative years. So I'm sure there were some scar tissue that got you to where you are and sort of formed your perspective. So I'm interested in hearing more about that as we talk through. But you know it's interesting you're in Zurich because I think in the United States part of our business culture is sometimes we believe that this is the center of the global economy and you're absolutely correct on many levels not just in global finance, but in technology and culture it is a very distributed. I think we often forget or we don't realize how much globalization has impacted the way we work and live. So it's interesting that your husband is a diplomat and has given you that exposure as well, so that's fascinating.

Jim Hertzfeld:

You know you've seen a lot of changes. It seems like, not to introduce too much recency bias, but it seemed like the changes are happening more and more and they're more impactful. Much recency bias, but it seemed like the changes are happening more and more and they're more impactful Technology, cultural, economic, political. It's now early 2025. There are some big changes happening, seems like daily, but from some of the things I know you've written and spoken about, you know around fintech and Bitcoin and AI, and your recent blog post talked about X money and deep seek was just announced last week. How do you keep up, what are you focusing on and what are the big changes that you're paying the most attention to these days.

Efi Pylarinou:

Well, I must admit that you know financial services. Over the past decade, borders of what we think of financial services don't exist anymore, or rather, they are reshaped and extended as we speak. They used to be within the confines of physical branches and physical banks, I mean. We moved to mobile banking. We are actually I don't know if you realize we are in the stage of everywhere banking. You can do banking on e-commerce sites, on travel sites, on educational sites, on all sorts of businesses, and we can give some examples, but the boundaries are changing, so they're changing for many reasons. The enabler are these technologies and right now we are in the beginning of a new major tech cycle. We've gone through the cloud cycle and the mobile cycle. Some talk about it as the digital tech cycle. I would say that cloud and mobile were major tech cycles and now, although AI has been around for a very long time and especially in our end of financial services, it's been used for a very long time. It's not new. However, the advancements, the recent advancements, really are shifting everything and are opening up a new kind of possibility of moving to an intelligent era. So, in order to make sense of what possible scenarios we're going to live in, because I can't predict the future and nobody can, but we can think through scenarios that are possible, given what problems we have, what opportunities we have, what economic - because we're talking about economically viable businesses - technologies that are enablers, and then look at scenarios. So, I look at the technologies and then I try to understand what scenarios are possible. Right, one scenario in one area that I'm watching is this everywhere banking trend. It's not about whether it's at the physical branch or on your mobile. It's about whether you can be served for your financial needs where you're at. And that might be you want to buy a house. Why do you need to go to your banking mobile app when it's all about who's going to help you to make that decision and close that decision and serve that decision? And maybe you want to do it on a real estate app, right? Or if you're shopping on a retail site, the same you need some credit, if you need some insurance, you need different payment choices. You have it there. So that's one big trend that I'm watching. And another big trend is these new businesses that are fintechs in disguise, if you want. So these are businesses that are not financials, but most of their revenues are earned through offering financial services, and this is a new type of greed. These are sort of very tangible trends that you and whoever who's not focused in financial services could understand.

Efi Pylarinou:

And then there's other trends that are really about how regulation is changing, how geopolitics are changing that, whether we will have digital identity on a blockchain, for example, which is very core to moving to the future of the internet. We need that. The current way the internet, you know, it was not set up to be doing all these transactions that we are doing whether we are putting in our card details are repeatedly being authenticated. All these are issues that need to be solved. So, they're linked, because your digital identity is really the most precious asset that you have, and you would think that banks would be taking care of that. We're not there, but these are things that we're watching.

Efi Pylarinou:

Then I'm watching what's going on with money what is money? Traditionally? We all understand what money is. And then there's the big topic of AI how it's going to change and is changing financial services, how quantum is not only a risk but also an opportunity in financial services. And I'm also watching cybersecurity issues, which are a big headache and increasing globally, and I'll stop there because there's so many topics there. Some of them are very core at the infrastructure level, like what is money? Who can issue money on what rails does money move in the US? In the US, the US is really behind in payments and how money is moved In other parts of the world. We have real-time payments In emerging markets like India and Brazil. The governments and the central banks have created new infrastructures, so there's new rails, new ways happening, and all this is connected to technology and geopolitics and the geoeconomics.

Jim Hertzfeld:

So, that is a lot. There's a lot on your mind, Efi. There is a lot on my mind that stood out and I guess even just kind of our prior conversations and following up with some of your work. You know you mentioned sort of everywhere banking, I think that one most people can relate to. I've heard that called maybe embedded finance and I think different terms for it, because we recognize everyone has a wallet and maybe has some cash in it or a credit card. So, I think most people can relate to that.

Jim Hertzfeld:

What I find fascinating is, you know, it is disruptive for sure, right, it is global. We talked about this is extending. Now, if you know, there are some country over country differences. They can't be ignored. They're going to impact global markets.

Jim Hertzfeld:

But if you are sort of the everyday, maybe a digital professional, someone who grew up in that web era or even in that cloud era, I was thinking to myself at one point in the 90s we put an E in front of everything.

Jim Hertzfeld:

We called it e-business, right, and that was sort of new. And then we started to put an I in front of things because it was like the iPhone and now the I is intelligent. But as people who grew up in that sort of web, digital, even cloud, era who think they have it together, you're kind of opening up a whole new discipline. I think that people need to pay attention to Because in legacy, or again, traditional business or businesses, they're going to be challenged. This is the innovator's dilemma we talk about all the time. There are going to be these fintech startups that are really challenging major global banks, right and currencies. They have to pay attention to it. But for the everyday digital professional, I think you maybe made the case, but why should they pay attention and start to learn about these movements in the financial services and fintech market?

Efi Pylarinou:

Because, quite frankly, they are going to impact the way we earn our living, the way we work, everything, all our life, and therefore we are right now at an inflection point where everything is interconnected. We have these technologies that are advancing, and at a very fast pace. We have socioeconomic trends like the future of work and the future of mobility and these types of trends, and they're all connected and creating very different possibilities in really every aspect of our life. And let's not forget that financial services are core to any economic activity and that is never going to change. Doesn't matter if we use crypto or blockchains or whatever. That will remain core and that is really the reason that, like we say now, you know, ai is general purpose technology that affects everything.

Efi Pylarinou:

Well, financial services affect every economic activity and, in that sense, they're behind everything, and that is really the reason that everyone should care. This is going to change every industry, society. As I said, how we work, how we earn our money, how we educate our values, how we are thinking of, what our assets it's just going to be a major change before and maybe they're getting shorter, yes, and this one with AI feels to accelerate faster, but nobody knows.

Efi Pylarinou:

We will see how the adoption goes. One thing that is clear with this upcoming wave is, I think, those that are of the camp of let me see what everybody else does and then you know, when the dust has settled I will catch up. Right, and that worked before for some, not for everybody, right For some. I think this time it will not work, because not only we're talking about fast pace, they won't be able to catch up when everything is said and done and we can talk about why is that and what can be done. But I like to always bring up this Greek myth, icarus myth. I don't know if you know about it.

Jim Hertzfeld:

I am familiar yeah.

Efi Pylarinou:

So you know, everybody that knows Icarus myth thinks that, okay, you shouldn't fly too high, because you know he flew and his wax wings - too close to the sun, right, because he went too high close to the sun, right. But what is not discussed so much is that that myth also was talking about danger of also flying too low, and that is not talked about so much. So, there's a danger of flying too high, close to the sun, but also too low, close to the sea, and you'll never really take off and go anywhere. You're going to drown. You know the Greeks, they're wise, right, you have to know the dark but hey, a least they're wise, right?

Efi Pylarinou:

No, the dark, but hey, so let's think of that. It was true during the cloud and mobile era, but now it's really pressing and very true. And, yeah, I would say that there's two main things in terms of not flying low. Not flying low If you were to put an alert on your board to yourself and say, you know, danger here, I really need, we really need to move, and there's two things that need to be done absolutely now, yesterday. One is a change of mindset and the second is get your data architecture in order.

Efi Pylarinou:

Whether you're a small business, a medium business or a large business, you know, getting your data architecture in order was also necessary for the mobile era, but a lot of companies patched it with band-aids and all sorts of temporary solutions. I don't think there's any more time for temporary and band-aids, because the AI era is really like you don't have something to feed that you know the engine of your car, whatever the analogy is, and you need to do that. Whether it's your proprietary data or not, it doesn't matter. You have to do data architecture.

Jim Hertzfeld:

Well, that's good advice. I mean, I think, yeah, I was going to ask you sort of what's preventing people. I mean that's great advice. I think we've been talking about that for a while, whether you're just taking a data first philosophy and you just have to have better handle on your operation, right, you just have to have better business intelligence or analytics. But I think the stakes are high with AI. The stakes are higher because we need to start leveraging that data, exposing and utilizing and monetizing that data with AI in a number of ways and enriching that with others. I think that's great advice.

Jim Hertzfeld:

But I want to touch on something in your book, fast Future Blur. That's a lot. There's a lot on your minds that you talk about, but you talk about thinking like an AI native. That, I think, is really what you're getting at. You know again this evolution of maybe you were digital native or through cloud mobile, thinking and acting like an AI native. And there are businesses and business models that are going to be built on AI, but as an established organization, being grounded in the financial systems that you're involved in, in your data, having the right mindset those all sound great. But what's preventing individuals or what's preventing companies from adopting that? They're just hanging on to what they know well, is it? They don't have the competency or the vision. I mean. What do you see as kind of holding companies back?

Efi Pylarinou:

Well, there's many factors, but I would say the first is legacy debt, and that's both technical debt and maybe, you know, the fintechs. The grownups don't have that, right. There's the mindset - not yet, not yet, right?

Efi Pylarinou:

But there's the mindset that even the grownup FinTechs, it's not clear that they have the mindset to really understand how to adopt AI towards becoming an AI native. And why do I make this distinction? Because just using AI as a tool here and there is not going to change culture. Much like two decades ago, if you were a traditional business and you started your digital transformation journey just using some digital tools, some analytics and so on didn't necessarily make digital natives. They really gave rise to the experience economy. They really provided feedback loops, data between customers and the business and many other types of data that were not there before and were not harnessed or understood as core part of the business.

Efi Pylarinou:

Digital natives. They use different KPIs to look at their business and run their business than the traditional one right Now. Think of it An AI-native business, in a way, isn't born yet. We don't have new PIs. We don't have a new business model that is really, at its core, an intelligent business, and an intelligent not only at the customer level, which is typically where most start their journey, but they should be at the enterprise and the ecosystem level. We're scratching the surface, but it's important to have the vision. We've seen that before those that led successful digital transformation in businesses, and we do have examples in financial services. Take JP Morgan, for example. They had a vision and they strategically implemented that, and I think that it's in our book and when we talk about thinking like an AI native, we have a framework help leaders start that journey, but it's important to understand where and how and what we're talking about, and it's ever more important in this environment where there's increasing complexity and uncertainty. You need to start this journey.

Jim Hertzfeld:

To get started. Yeah, I know you have a lot on your mind. I love your framing of some of the challenges that are all actually enablers. So I love that idea. You mentioned quantum computing. Is that a threat to cybersecurity but also an opportunity to scale machine learning? But there's a lot to think about. I think there's a lot of literacy, I think is the word that I'm going to come up with. Like we're going to take financial literacy for the digital professional to a whole other level, you know, in addition to really adopting and understanding some of these emerging technologies. But if there's sort of one piece of advice that you would leave someone with today what would you suggest?

Efi Pylarinou:

Well, let me sell our book, buy our book. I didn't see that coming. Yes, buy our book and many others, but you know beyond that, really, I would say that each of us should work systematically and strategically on self-educating, and I would say you can do that in many ways, but today, one of the core ways to do it is to become part of some hub, whatever you want to call it, and learn from and with others. That is the core strategy, and think of it like your responsibility. Your business has two main parts. One is business as usual and the second is what do you want to call it? You want to call it business where the puck is heading. Whatever you want to call it, call it innovation. You want to call it not becoming obsolete.

Efi Pylarinou:

Think of the importance of doing things to maintain your physical and your mental health right. They're both interconnected and interlinked and somehow you have to find a way to take care of both of them right the same here. Find a way to systematically do the two things the business as usual and where the puck is headed. Don't freeze because you're doing 90% of one and 10% of the other. Start from somewhere, like an atomic habit, but do it systematically. It's part of your daily work and work as in, not because your employer said it, it's just part of work. You cannot stand still, you cannot fly low, you cannot ignore this, whether you do it because you see that it can be valuable or fun, or for practical or for survival reasons. For all these combinations, I mean, the best attitude is to take it and do it as in my opinion and my book, the way I like to think of it, it's a growth opportunity and take it and do it with a fun attitude, but systematically, and that combination Intentionally and with purpose.

Jim Hertzfeld:

Don't fly too high, don't fly too low, but whatever you do, you have to fly.

Efi Pylarinou:

You have to fly, you have to fly. You can't ignore, you can't stand still, you can't stick to you know this hasn't happened. This will take longer. It's not about trying to guesstimate the timeline. It's about just going with the flow of things. It's not a question of what is the right pace, the wrong pace. It's like with everything, like with exercising, like with a good diet, like with something that you want to change. Start small, but do it systematically.

Jim Hertzfeld:

That's great, Efi. So much great advice. Thanks for sharing your insights. You've earned them. You've earned these lessons over the years and you've seen a lot. Thanks for sharing that with us and I hope to talk to you again.

Efi Pylarinou:

Thank you so much for having me.

Joe Wentzel:

You've been listening to what, if so what? A digital strategy podcast from Proficient with Jim Hertzfeld. We want to thank our Perficient colleagues JD Norman and Rick Bauer for our music. Subscribe to the podcast and don't miss a single episode. Thanks for listening.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jim Hertzfeld

Host
Head Shot

Efi Pylarinou

Guest