Smart Documents in Financial Services with Rado Kotorov, Founder and CEO at Storied Data

In this episode we speak with Rado Kotorov, Founder and CEO at Storied Data and explore the intersection of financial services and technology. We delve into innovative document formats, digital transformation, and future trends in information sharing, emphasizing interactivity, decentralization, and AI-driven personalization.

Key Words:

• Financial services
• Technology
• Digital transformation
• Interactive documents
• Decentralization
• AI personalization
• Story Data
• Information sharing
• Future trends
• Web-friendly content

Transcript

0:00
welcome to banking on information where
0:03
we dive deep into the dynamic world of
0:05
financial services and Technology
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discover the innovative solutions
0:10
driving the industry forward explore the
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latest trends and uncover the strategies
0:16
that are reshaping the future of Finance
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join us as we unravel the why what and H
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of solution providers in the financial
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services industry stay tuned for
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insights that will revolutionize the way
0:30
you think about money and
0:33
Technology hello and welcome to banking
0:36
on information I'm your host rurin Fen
0:40
we are digging into the why what and how
0:44
of solutions at the intersection of
0:46
financial services and technology today
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I'm speaking with r COV the founder and
0:52
CEO of story data welcome R to the
0:57
podcast thank you for having me on the
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podcast
1:00
we're gon to start off with a question
1:04
based on start with why from Simon s um
1:08
I would love to hear why you do what you
1:12
do let me tell you about a change that's
1:14
undergoing right now in society that we
1:18
are unaware of quite often until we see
1:21
it so I'll starting here with a little
1:23
bit of a history if we think about that
1:26
for centuries we've been Associated
1:28
every content and every document with
1:31
Pages flipping pages and when Steve Jobs
1:35
saw For the First Time The graphical
1:37
user interface what did he see on the
1:39
screen he saw a blank page he said wow
1:41
it's a tab orasa I can draw a circle and
1:44
a square on it and different people came
1:47
after them and one of them saw me a
1:49
presentation and they made PowerPoint
1:51
another one came and saw I can build a
1:53
magazine and they made a Doby and then
1:56
another one came and said I can type a
1:57
legal document and it became word so
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different tools have emerged for
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different types of documents and then
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came the worldwide web and we didn't
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know what to call it even though it was
2:07
not exactly a page because some of them
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didn't fit on a eight and a half by 11
2:11
format but we called it web pages still
2:14
and we couldn't detach entirely from
2:17
that page based concept so there is a
2:19
company that made quite a bit of a noise
2:22
by creating a flipping pages on the web
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still a lot of Publications going in so
2:27
we're still attached to it and then
2:28
suddenly came the and we couldn't call
2:31
that the page any we were kind of show
2:33
shocked and what is this thing and it's
2:35
an app it became an app and then at that
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point we were looking at younger people
2:40
participating in an entrepreneurial
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program who didn't make this distinction
2:44
at all they grew up with phones so for
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them the concept of a page and an ad and
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the different tools for a different type
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of content didn't exist in their head
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they were like why can't I do everything
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in one thing that is a one document why
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shouldn't have buttons on it like I have
3:01
in the apps and Etc so realized here is
3:04
evolving a new culture that's merging
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traditional document design we deps into
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a new kind of presentation and
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information type of sharing file and
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that's what we started calling an info
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as an informational application because
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that exactly what it was for that so we
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are on The Cutting Edge of this kind of
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providing the tools the file format
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because their generation they want to
3:29
work with data with uh you know visuals
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with everything in something they often
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call it for like of better words
3:36
PowerPoint on steroids but that's what
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we've created and if you think also for
3:40
them the medium of distribution and
3:42
sharing is the web so so the way we were
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growing with Pages different tools and
3:49
different file formats does not make
3:51
sense anymore to a new generation and
3:54
that change is going on and you can see
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it even in comedies like lot when the
4:00
says at some point oh she sent me a PDF
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what's a PDF there are people who don't
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even know that so that's the change
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that's the trend we're enabling and
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we're staying on the front end of it so
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your why is to make documents and
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Communications web friendly so that we
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don't have to be on a page
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anymore web friendly and information and
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data rich and user friendly because we
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all suffer from an information over law
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and when you ask anyone today do you
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read the 100 page PDF that you get they
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will tell you no yeah and by not
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providing a new ways to present this
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information actually we're risking that
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people are skipping the content That
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Matters to that so like with every
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industry we're at the renewal phase like
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we moved from the Papyrus to paper we're
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now moving to a new digital format
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that's completely different than what we
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were used to the constraints of a page
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they're no longer existing so your why
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is to get us off the page and and how do
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you do that what's what's what is it
5:09
that you do at story data to to live
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that why we started with inventing a
5:15
unified singular format so we saw the
5:18
convergence and we said look you don't
5:20
need these different formats you don't
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need anymore what people actually always
5:24
asked for was can we get a PDF because I
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can email it to people I can send it I
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can design a beautiful thing on it but I
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want to put data in it and make it
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interactive and you couldn't do that on
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that document so we invented a very
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difficult technology how to actually
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create a Pixel Perfect HTML document
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that says beautifully designed can be
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designed as a PDF then we invented how
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to put in it lots of data compress
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because a lot of your reports contain
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and a lot of the brochures and magazines
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contain a lot of data and and then we
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invented how to put an analytics engine
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in it so if you want to see and do
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certain things like all of that into one
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single file smaller than the PDFs
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emailable working online and offline so
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we removed all the constraints around
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content creation and content
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consumption so we can now send the share
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these documents on the web share as a
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publication share them via an email
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attachment email share them with via the
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chat apps and there all the same
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regardless of the
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channnel so you're helping everyone move
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into the web age and get access to
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information and not by just flipping
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Page by page right but by making it more
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interactive now can you tell us a story
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of how you've applied that um for one of
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your customers and how that created
6:49
value for them I'll tell you actually
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maybe two stories not one but one is uh
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traditional customers we have a lot of
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customers in the financial industry and
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some of them are aggregators of very
7:02
important structure Finance information
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these are large deals Al to loans and
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Etc all kinds of things like that
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Consumer loans mortgages whatever they
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can be and I typically publish books
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that are 600 page long on information on
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these packages how they different
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vintage types how they age overtime
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delinquency rates and things like that
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and now imagine the printing cost the
7:30
carrying the book when you go because
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when a mortgage package shows on a
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market the decision maker has to do all
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that and go through the book find
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information to make important decisions
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right that's what we do with
7:42
analysis and they migrated this entire
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process to a single one pager infb in us
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it was built by uh just gr student who
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graduated we didn't even have time to
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train him so he trained himself without
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a manual which was the amazing part
8:00
and and build it and uh you know that
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saves them tremendous of time to the
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decision makers because they can save it
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bookmarked it on their phone and even if
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they're offline something comes
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instantly they do it they try to do it
8:14
before into an Excel and stuff but it's
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very complicated I won't get into that
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costly maintenance and everything this
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is really transitioning to a digital
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convenient for the user
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publication right the second case I want
8:28
to say are uh boardroom reports and
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these These are tremendous problem first
8:36
of all the number of people involved in
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the production of a boardroom report
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second of all the guys get about 100 200
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Pages I've seen four books 400 pages
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each depends on the complexity of the
8:50
operations because the boardroom report
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covers a wide array of area from
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operations to finance to HR to
8:57
technology to whatnot in Investments and
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Etc and imagine all this compressed into
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a one interactive pager where it allows
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the user to do is to immediately find
9:10
the area of Interest that's most from
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them or to to click through many areas
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and get automatically highlighted
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important things and like that so it
9:19
saves busy board members time to review
9:22
access and everyone is on the same page
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and then imagine that this thing is not
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emailed to you like book but you get it
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in your email and you can get and go
9:33
through it wherever you want read it
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online or offline it's published on the
9:37
site to internally so when the board
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gets together they look at the same
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screen everyone has the same data
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everyone has access to the areas of
9:45
interest and production gets completely
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automated so way more efficient for the
9:51
customer but also much easier to
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interact with the information and
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basically everyone create their own
9:56
story right by using the data and by the
9:58
Interac of the of the the engagement
10:01
that is very very interesting the value
10:03
of the board is actually the different
10:05
perspectives and they can only have this
10:08
perspective if they can interact the
10:10
data to draw their own conclusions
10:14
yeah the same as if I sneak a third case
10:17
with wealth management statements and
10:19
bank statements now people go and say I
10:21
can't read my current statements an 80
10:24
page statement you you have to take a
10:26
pen and pencil and write numbers on the
10:28
side so you can compare them so there is
10:31
now a demand for make these interactive
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make them more user friendly more them
10:36
like the apps we have so that we have a
10:39
better experience and a faster access to
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information because again it's all about
10:43
speed we live in the speed economy yeah
10:47
no I I can totally see that so more
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efficient faster better access to
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information you can basically create
10:53
your own story and pick and mix how you
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want to see the data that is very very
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valuable now let's talk a a little bit
10:59
about F the future I like to do this
11:02
thing called future thinking which is
11:03
when we think about a possible future of
11:05
course no one can predict the future um
11:08
but if we think about what a possible
11:09
future could look like and you think 10
11:11
years out so we're in
11:14
2034 what does the market look like and
11:17
how's it different from today what what
11:18
do you see in that future aut I think
11:21
documents are going to get first of all
11:23
smarter and
11:24
smarter and by this I I mean uh very
11:29
uh I I mean a couple of things first of
11:32
all the content would be personalized in
11:35
them a lot what everybody gets would be
11:38
out of that but also we started looking
11:40
at that and saying how do we look at the
11:42
document now up until now we had the
11:44
vision of a portal being an access to
11:48
documents yeah but now we're thinking
11:51
that the document would become an access
11:54
to all the things in the portal because
11:57
right we're now beginning to embed uh
11:59
the the corporate AIS in them that can
12:02
help you not just answer question within
12:03
the document because they're complex
12:05
let's get that uh straightforward out
12:08
but you may ask questions that are in
12:12
other documents out there so the
12:14
document becomes a living document the
12:16
second thing which we're we're
12:18
experimenting with this so I think this
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is going to be in the near future much
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closer than we we think about that and
12:25
it's relatively straightforward
12:27
technology to do that
12:29
but I think the next big thing is
12:32
actually uh peer-to-peer documents and
12:35
somebody came to us and told us that
12:37
it's kind of like if you think it's like
12:40
like the blockchain was supposed to
12:41
decentralize and do peer toer many
12:43
things yeah but if you get to the point
12:46
of decentralized compute which is what
12:48
we essentially do with our documents we
12:51
decentralize the document distribution
12:53
and analytics and Computing the
12:55
documents yeah then if you decentralize
12:58
the Comm Comm unication and you have
13:01
open documents you have a very
13:04
interestingly connected stuff because I
13:06
may have an information that I highlight
13:08
in one document and it can bring it from
13:10
another document without you having to
13:12
go to CH GTP at all yeah so and not to
13:16
speak about forms and feeling forms and
13:18
things like that so I think we're going
13:20
to get much more smarter of that I mean
13:23
documents are here to stay it's it's
13:25
yeah we're not in records and things
13:27
like that but uh yeah so so that that's
13:30
to us is how these are going to
13:32
transform and become more living type of
13:34
a material in a decentralized way and
13:37
then I think from a tools perspective I
13:39
really think that we're going to be in
13:41
the singularity of tools for creation of
13:43
content the way it happen with the
13:45
smartphone Consolidated with device I
13:48
don't think people would be looking into
13:50
office as we know it now and say oh I
13:52
need Excel I need PowerPoint I need work
13:54
people oh this is every this is my story
13:57
data and I can do everything and there
13:59
would be many story data types like of
14:02
applications but that's what I think
14:04
will be so we're really getting off that
14:07
page idea that everyone started off with
14:10
it's going to be much more Dynamic and
14:11
interactive and you could actually you
14:14
can actually interact through the the
14:15
document maybe even in a decentralized
14:17
way that that is a very interesting
14:19
possible future so what are you doing
14:21
today to get ready for that possible
14:25
future we have a lot of AI expertise so
14:28
we con stantly are looking we don't go
14:30
after the popular topics of like can I
14:32
create a document with AI and I can
14:36
write another disertation on that
14:38
because it's too much typing back and
14:40
forth sometimes you're more efficient
14:42
doing things than typing and describing
14:45
them and that's the value of a
14:47
professional but even though it has
14:49
value for the uis but I don't believe
14:52
that everything would be a
14:53
conversational UI but we certainly are
14:56
working a lot on the uh on the content
15:00
and the
15:01
searchability and turning the document
15:04
into the portal into everything else
15:08
yeah and we are at the early stages of
15:11
uh the what I said the document to
15:13
document communication and figuring
15:16
those types of things because then like
15:18
I said you might be on a mortgage
15:20
application and you can get bids right
15:22
into your document from all the banks so
15:24
it's reversing that system bringing
15:27
another layer of intermed
15:31
intermediation uh that's that's in a
15:33
very very kind of based research too uh
15:37
we're thinking how we are packaging
15:40
small AI type of computing the documents
15:43
for calculations but that's a relatively
15:46
so the question is can you abstract like
15:48
what we did is to put a bi engine in a
15:51
document so yeah we mini chise the big
15:54
powerbi servers that you pay hundreds of
15:56
thousands of dollars and now we can put
15:58
them on page to decentralize compute and
16:01
liberate you from uh the dependencies on
16:04
internet and servers and other services
16:07
but uh think now about it that if you
16:10
put certain AI in a decentralized on the
16:13
edge to use the same kind
16:15
of it's a different
16:18
Paradigm I think these are like the last
16:22
two or five years from now certain ones
16:24
you see within a year but those are
16:26
still very early stages no that that
16:29
sounds very very interesting thank you
16:30
very much R for for coming on the
16:32
podcast and for thinking through what
16:35
the future could look like and how
16:36
you're ready for it um thank you very
16:38
much for for your
16:40
insights if you have any questions for r
16:44
or myself and like the episode please
16:47
subscribe to the podcast um reach out to
16:50
us on LinkedIn with any questions and
16:53
until next time choose to be curious
16:56
thank you so much R thank you
16:59
[Music]



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