Think back to when you got your first bank account. What year was it? How did you deposit cheques, pay for items or check your balance? I bet a lot has changed since then. Today, you can do all of this from your phone, in any location you choose.
Thanks to the financial technology (or FinTech) industry, more is changing every day. Our banking apps are constantly being updated with new information and tools. Do-it-yourself platforms are giving more access and control than ever. And AI has the power to improve security, giving way to new services and products. Ben Janetos (BA '08) joins the podcast to talk about the latest updates in FinTech and what the future might hold. Ben has worked in the financial sector for more than a decade, and eventually jumped into the world of FinTech startups. Today, he's an advisor at Frank Mortgage, a company transforming the broker industry in Canada.
Exclusive Frank Mortgage offer for alumni: https://uwaterloo.ca/alumni/frank-mortgage
Think back to when you got your first bank account. What year was it? How did you deposit cheques, pay for items or check your balance? I bet a lot has changed since then. Today, you can do all of this from your phone, in any location you choose.
Thanks to the financial technology (or FinTech) industry, more is changing every day. Our banking apps are constantly being updated with new information and tools. Do-it-yourself platforms are giving more access and control than ever. And AI has the power to improve security, giving way to new services and products. Ben Janetos (BA '08) joins the podcast to talk about the latest updates in FinTech and what the future might hold. Ben has worked in the financial sector for more than a decade, and eventually jumped into the world of FinTech startups. Today, he's an advisor at Frank Mortgage, a company transforming the broker industry in Canada.
Exclusive Frank Mortgage offer for alumni: https://uwaterloo.ca/alumni/frank-mortgage
Think back to when you got your first bank account. What year was it? How did you deposit checks, pay for items or check your balance? I bet a lot has changed since then. Today, you can do all of those things from your phone in any location you choose, thanks to the financial technology or fintech industry. More is changing every day. Our banking apps are constantly being updated with new information and tools. Do-it-yourself platforms are giving more access and control than ever, and AI has the power to improve security, giving way to new services and products. Ben Janetos podcast to talk about the latest updates in fintech and what the future might hold. Ben has worked in the financial sector for more than a decade and eventually jumped into the world of fintech startups. Today, he's an advisor at Frank Mortgage, a company transforming the broker industry in Canada. Ben, thanks so much for joining.
Ben:Happy to be here.
Meg:Yeah, it's great to have you, so I'm excited to talk about fintech and the future, and when we first spoke, you mentioned three major changes that were produced by the industry cost, empowerment and efficiency. Can you explain what those changes mean for the average consumer?
Ben:Yeah, absolutely. I think there's probably a fourth change in there as well, and it's a little less certain whether it occurs or not and that would be innovation. But I certainly would like to touch on these three changes. Fintechs are at the forefront of revolutionizing traditional financial products and services, and it's these companies that will likely come up with new innovative products or services and bring them to the market in the first place. So that's where the fourth one could come in. But let's dive into these kind of expected changes that fintechs are pushing ahead.
Ben:Efficiency that's kind of the first one that fintechs brought to the market, and it's an obvious change of fintechs in general. They're designed to deliver a financial product or service which uses or has the support of technology, and this technology should transform a very human intensive process and ultimately automate it. This can result in efficiencies for both the fintech and clients. Cost would be the next one, and it's relatively straightforward. If fintechs that properly harness the power of technology, they will be rewarded with lower operating costs or higher margins, and that allows the fintech to decide whether those savings are passed on to the clients. It allows them to be more competitive in the market, so that's where everyone can benefit from a cost perspective.
Ben:The last one is a little bit new, so empowerment. This is probably the latest change that fintechs are driving. This involves showing clients what options they have and allowing them to make the decision. This also is the hardest to achieve, as most clients have become accustomed to being told what their best option is, as opposed to being shown options themselves. So empowering the client is done through providing access to information, allowing clients to develop greater financial literacy and in turn, they will be able to make a more informed financial decision themselves. If you want to provide clients with financial options, you have to arm them with the resources and understanding to make that choice. So these three changes efficiency, cost and empowering clients should all be achieved, and if a fintech is a true disruptor in the industry, a single fintech could actually achieve all three and not necessarily just one or two of them.
Meg:Yeah, I think that's a great overview and a great point that you make that consumers are used to just being told what to do in the financial sector often, and now we have all these options available to us. Frank mortgage is is a good example of something that can deliver on on these changes, especially empowerment, and it's focused on one particular area. It's in the name, obviously, mortgages. Can you tell me how Frank mortgage works and how does it improve consumer experiences?
Ben:Absolutely. We believe that Frank Mortgage truly is a disruptor in the mortgage broker industry as we are providing an open and transparent marketplace for clients. We want to empower our clients to make their own financial decisions. We do this through our system based approach and educational platform. So our platform is easy to use, it's streamlined for clients and their benefit and we remove the the headache of repeated interactions, the back and forth that you might get with the traditional mortgage broker or process. So a client can complete one application, they immediately see all mortgage products in one marketplace that we provide and there's one document upload point. So any documents we need, it's all in the same document point and we guide them toward which documents are required. So we remove all that back and forth communication hurdles, that that that exist today.
Ben:That's the benefit of our kind of technology focused platform that that we're bringing to Canada and Frank Mortgage. We're technically an overdue change in the mortgage industry and we're delivering the changes that we discussed earlier. And we're also providing efficiencies for both our company and clients, reducing costs and trying to empower our clients with our educational platform. And this is also a reason why the University of Waterloo has decided to partner with Frank mortgage because we do provide, through the University of Waterloo, an exclusive alumni offer to secure your mortgage financing with Frank Mortgage and I think you can find the details of that on the U of W's alumni website.
Meg:Yeah, for sure, and we will link from this episode description directly to the page about Frank Mortgage and how you can take advantage of that discount for alumni. So just go to the episode description and it's right there for you. I what I like about Frank mortgage is it seems like such a simple solution to a very confusing problem. I think it's something that a lot of fintech companies are doing. Right, you, you want to empower people with information that they might not get in a traditional conversation with a broker. As someone who has dealt with a mortgage broker before who really didn't understand what was going on and was just accepting what was told to me, I, if I could do it over again, I think that I would. I would. I would go for one of the platforms that gives me more info.
Ben:Yeah, that's a response, megan. We've heard plenty of times. That's why we do feel like we're overdue trying to get the word out about this new way to engage with the mortgage market and that the traditional method or even hiding behind a technology platform. But but providing the traditional method is what some of our competitors still do to this day. So by by kind of building our company from a technology first standpoint, we're able to deliver kind of a first of its kind service in Canada. And and again, yeah, it's all about putting the customer first, providing them the choices in the market and allowing them to educate themselves and have greater financial literacy and make an informed choice so that they're happy with it and not leaving the kind of that broker experience thinking did I get the best deal? Did I get the right product? We're trying to make sure that everything's on the table and they're very happy and comfortable with what they came away with.
Meg:Yeah, so you can choose the best deal for you, because often financial products are not a one size fits all. So, yeah, that's, that's great to hear, very good to be an educated consumer. So you, you touched a bit on on. We've been touching on the future of things. We're talking about a current product right now, and, and currently, a lot of us do our daily banking on an app, but there are still some processes that require physical papers, physical signatures. You have to actually go into your bank branch and get these things all filled out. Is that going to change in the future? Could, could apps or or different technology make this more efficient for us?
Ben:100%. I think there's a lot of reason to be optimistic about what the future holds and what what FinTechs in particular can can bring to the market and deliver. Just maybe using an anecdote is it's always hard to try and look back and and see anything positive that came out of this pandemic. But one of them as a small one, but it's still worth noting is is electronic signatures. Prior to the, the COVID pandemic, you had to go in in front of your lawyer or the lender and sign your mortgage documents in person as as a level of due diligence, basically for them to double check you are who you report to be. But then, through the other pandemic, we realized we can't do that anymore. We had to go to the electronic signatures. So the market was kind of forced forward in that that instance. Fast forward to today, electronic signatures are still accepted by most lenders. There are some that have gone back to the, the traditional in-person signing, but many have continued to to accept the electronic signatures. So that's a small example of kind of being forced forward with, you know, adopting new technology and again that's just quite simply an efficient form of completing your mortgage.
Ben:Now, looking ahead, what I'm probably most optimistic about is the two changes that I see coming, and that's the use of AI Across FinTech. In particular, Frank Mortgage is adopting AI and open banking. Those are. Those are two of the the big changes that Are being adopted currently, some faster than others. You know, AI is the hot topic these days and FinTechs need to begin adopting this in order to continue driving the efficiency and Empowerment of clients that we spoke about. It's being adopted really quickly. It's it's too hot these days to kind of ignore. So we'll see a quick, a quick adoption of that, and there's going to be different levels of that adoption. For instance, frank mortgage is Doing so by integrating AI into our application flow. Open banking is is maybe for specifically to the mortgage industry, a little bit more exciting, but the change is not going to happen overnight. It's going to be a bit slower to integrate, probably even slower to get adopted, because it's something new.
Ben:It's something scary that people aren't comfortable with, because what open banking is is the concept of Sharing your personal information. Now, obviously, this can only be done in a safe and secure manner. That's what we all need to kind of get comfortable with, wrap our heads around, not that we're just sending our information out to the public and anyone can access it. No, it's not. It's not that it's it's through consent that you can actually immediately access some information of your clients that you need in order to complete the product or service that you're offering. So mortgages they require lots of information and due diligence and it's very time-consuming process for everyone involved.
Ben:The future is where this information can be instantly obtained through encrypted networks instead of scanning and emailing documents. I know we've all become very accustomed to that, but it's actually not a very safe form of transmitting documents in the first place. So a company like Frank Mortgage being able to access information and pull it directly from the bank, you know, through an encrypted network and we instantly get that that would save a whole lot of time and effort on both the company and the client's perspective. When Fintechs are able to securely access this information, it will speed up the identification process, which, again, we're doing a lot more online now, and help eliminate fraudulent activities that occur as well, as documents can be obtained directly from the source, and that would prevent any tampering of the documents that get sent. And, again, that's that's what essentially leads to a fraudulent activity in the financial space anyway. So I'd say, those are two of the big, exciting changes that are happening right now, and how quickly and fast they get adopted is what I'm looking forward to.
Meg:Yeah, yeah, you can see how I mean. We don't really think much of it because to us right now it seems like, well, how am I gonna get this information from one place to another? It makes sense to download a document, print it out, scan it. You know, fill out your information and scan it and send it in. But yeah, if there was a closed network that was encrypted, with only approved players able to access that information, you can see how that would be much more secure.
Ben:Yeah and you're 100% right.
Ben:It's the way we do it. It's been going on in Canada. The concept of open banking is not a new concept. It certainly is to call it mainstream, with the general population using it.
Ben:Most of us still have a bank account at the major banks and all of our banking information is stored at the major banks and it's behind lock and key. So if you work with the major banks, with your own bank, for instance, they have all your information readily and immediately accessible. But if you ever wanted to go outside of your institution, it's hard to get that information out except for actually getting physical documents either going to the branch and getting them or having them sent and then you'd have to print them off. But it's still not a safe way to securely transmit your information. So open banking is looking at ways to, first and foremost, securely share this information and there's kind of three parties involved. There's the receiving company that needs to access the information. There's the individual whose information it is that they need to consent and be okay with the transmission and sharing of information. And it's your financial institution or the bank that needs to be willing to release it so that they don't have that stranglehold on information that truly belongs to you, to the client.
Meg:Yeah, I think that's a great overview. Ben, thank you so much for joining and giving us a peek at what's happening in FinTech today and maybe what could happen in the future. It's been great to talk to you.
Ben:Great talking to you, Megan. Thank you.
Meg:Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our feed. If you want to learn more about finances, career paths or other practical topics, check out our list of upcoming events for alumni. Thanks to alumni volunteers, we host events all over the world. Follow the link in our episode description to learn more. You Waterloo alumni podcasts are produced and hosted by me, meg Vander Woude. I also happen to be a proud alum. Thanks to Angle Media for editing this episode.