Fintech Impact

Host Jason Pereira talks to Dennis Gada, Senior Vice President and Industry Head for Financial Service for Infosys. It is a global digital services company that offers end-to-end services to its clients from technology to business operations, consulting and helping them in the digital transformation journey, and helping them run in their existing business and technology operations.

Episode Highlights:

• 2.40: Jason inquires, “When companies come to Infosys for support, how do you navigate their digital needs?”
• 4.18: Dennis explains, “We work in three different layers; driving efficiency in running business and technology operations, digital transformation of their end-to-end business process, and helping them to grow the business in a new area for consulting services.”
• 5.10: Dennis affirms that the last 12 months post-Covid has seen significant acceleration of client journey, and we can call it a trigger, but it has been a prominent force of transformation. 
• 5:50: Dennis says there is an enhanced expectation from that banking and financial service. Not just traditional banking but also wealth management. He adds that all of that should be much more digital, and it has forced financial services firms to become more digital than it already was.
• 8.38: Dennis justifies that firms have been forced to drive change at such a rapid pace that decision making has been so much quicker and adopting to new technology has been so ramping.
• 9.30: Jason says, “He wants to know the decision-making mechanism how those are going to adapt?”
• 9.55: Dennis explains business and technology have really come much closer together. These days discussions in financial service firms are much more about - What is the next wave of digital transformation? How much you can change the customer experience? How much you can leverage cloud and AI capabilities?
• 11.35: Dennis reiterates with all the advancement in technology that has happened, on-boarding of new clients still tends to be the most complex process, and regulations also drive it.
• 15.30: Dennis says more and more of a partnership between fintech, and larger bank and financial service organization will help to drive the transformation instead of fintech trying to get into all banking services themself.
• 16.10: Jason asks Dennis, “How you see the development in these institutions to continue or had a lot of change in the post covid world?”
• 16.39: Dennis says now 99% to 100% of the workforces are working remotely and delivering great values; this is the trend that is not going to change.
• 17.35: Dennis says the digital transformation journey that had started is not going to stop in any aspect. 
• 20.59: Dennis says firms have realized that while investing in the cloud they have not compromised in security. Cloud is more secure if not at the same level of security, then their existing data center. That’s the mindset shift that has happened in the last year, and more and more investments are going towards the cloud.
• 21.35: Dennis says as firms invest in the new technology of the future, they also need to re-skill their own workforce as they have already done in Infosys.
• 22.06: Jason is curious to know about the biggest post-pandemic challenge that institutions are going to face.
• 24.20: Dennis says there will be some key challenges to sustain the pace of innovation, manage cybersecurity-related threats and risks. He stresses on the importance of motivating the new workforce to continue to work for large bank vs tech company of fintech and deliver the same kind of productivity.
• 24.42: Jason asks Dennis his one wish for something he wants to change in his company or industry as a whole. Dennis wishes to innovate and scale, thus making that a part of DNA that everybody wakes up every day and comes there to see how you can do things more innovatively.
• 25.30: Jason asks Dennis about digital transformation, the biggest roadblock he had encountered while facing clients he already had. 
• 25.37: Dennis says the biggest roadblock is cultural change. There is a mandate at the board level, CXO level. There is also a push from the market, from the client to drive change. There is a lot of democracy and a lot of constrain internally to enable that change.
• 28.12: Dennis says re-skilling of the workforce or right re-skilling of the workforce is an important factor to balance the understanding of business in domain with the understanding of technology.
• 28.56: Jason asks Dennis “What excites him most about every day when he wakes up in the morning and keeps doing what he is doing?”
• 29.40: Denies replies that the exciting thing is the platform we have and the technology we use really. It helps our clients to be successful and helps their end clients manage financial life better.

3 Key Points:

1. Dennis talks about his career journey. He has been associated with Infosys for about sixteen years, and Infosys financial business has been growing significantly over the years.
2. Dennis says digitization was not possible unless there was a new technology intervention that we have brought in; it was the automation of loan process, using AI for underwriting, using machine learning for collections, extracting information from documents so that things can be updated at a much faster rate.
3. Jason explains, “How the countries that are still developing tend to have new and better infrastructure that can help them to adapt to the technological changes what is happening currently.”

Tweetable Quotes:

• “Transformation of experience means a transformation of the process itself” – Dennis Gada
• “Digitization was not possible unless there was a new technology intervention.” – Dennis Gada
• “Firms have been forced to drive change at such a rapid pace that decision making has been so much quicker and adopt new technology has been so ramping.” – Dennis Gada
• “These days, discussions in financial service firms are much more about what is the next wave of digital transformation.” – Dennis Gada

Resources Mentioned:

• LinkedIn - Dennis Gada’s LinkedIn
• Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook
• LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn
• Woodgate.com – Sponsor
• LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn
• Podcast Editing