Thomas Fuss - CTO at Backbase

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:00) Hello, my friends. Today we are talking to Thomas, the CTO at Backbase. And we discuss how Backbase is making it easier for small community banks to compete with national banks. We talked about the build versus buy dilemma and what to look for as your organization scales and your culture evolves. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO podcast.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:23) Here we go. This is the Modern CTO podcast.

(Thomas at 00:00:35) No, it definitely—I mean, Amsterdam is really interesting. It has been a digital hub, but especially lately, it's really also developing into a strong Silicon Valley type of location in Europe where there's lots of, you know, not just fintechs like Backbase, but many, many other technology companies coming to Amsterdam because it's very easy to locate here. English is pretty much becoming the first language. And so, yeah, it's a wonderful city to live in and also to work at.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:07) Yeah. And so you grew up in Germany then?

(Thomas at 00:01:10) Yeah. Absolutely. I come from a teeny tiny village, not even a town or anything. 5,000 people, lots of cows and farms. And, yeah, so I grew up in Germany. I started also my career in Germany and eventually I landed in the Netherlands in Amsterdam because I met my wife. And that kept me also in this country.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:30) You ever go back home and visit?

(Thomas at 00:01:31) Well, my parents still live in Germany. My brother lives in the US. So there is a bit of a spread, but yeah, of course, I still go whenever I can. I go to Germany. Right now it's a bit difficult due to COVID, but normally I'll try to make the trip fairly often.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:49) I grew up in a pretty small town too. Have you noticed that the farms are all digital or are they still traditional? Because there's so much technology happening in the agriculture space.

(Thomas at 00:02:02) Yeah. Absolutely. I think that's often misunderstood. So we think about this as not the fast developing segment, but it's highly—it's operating at a fast pace, right? They have tractors who drive autonomously, harvesting the fields, and all these things. So it's a real business. And I think the level of automation is growing very, very rapidly, which is one of the topics that I'm actually quite passionate about—automation as a whole. But yeah, so in my hometown, I think it's still mainly, you know, local farmers. It hasn't become very industrial yet, but you see it coming definitely. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:41) So growing up in that small town, what was your first introduction to technology?

(Thomas at 00:02:47) It was intense from the beginning, I would say. So I was fortunate. My father used to work for a radio station. And so throughout the nineties and the two thousands, he basically was working on the digital transformation of these radio stations all the way, going from, you know, tapes to then CDs and then to, you know, computers and files. And I think that early on raised my passion. Let's say when I got aware of it around the computer technology and computer science. And a small nice anecdote—so my mother used to be a nurse and she worked on night shifts. And so when my father had to do upgrades—and back then, you know, you would during the night, you would take the PCs down, you would roll out the upgrades and everything. So he would take me into the server room, and I would sleep based on probably the noise and the vibration and the, you know, the fans of the servers. I would sleep in these server rooms while he was working and doing probably all sorts of upgrades and everything you would nowadays just do throughout the day. But yeah, so that's eventually, I think, where my passion for computers comes from. And then, of course, you know, it just went on and went on and on. So, you know, based also on his job, I was very fortunate to have a laptop very, very early on because it got decommissioned at his work. So, you know, I kind of got hold of it. It was way too slow, obviously, but so this is how I got in touch with it. And I think I always wanted to work in IT, in this sector. Well, later on, I drifted into the financial sector, but yeah, I always wanted to work in IT. And I think that just is based on the fact that probably, yeah, as a small child, I was sleeping on a server. That's, I think, where it's coming from.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:34) Yeah. I love that because my dad was an engineer and I had other siblings, right? So my mom would say, take that one to work with you. Right? So he would freelance at nights and weekends. So I'd get home from school and then he would go to his freelance projects, whether it was, you know, installing a computer system in a hotel when they first got the digital key locks or he was writing software or building some microchips. So I was just bouncing around to all of these offices, getting this experience. Yeah. I know what that's like. It's a great way to grow up though.

(Thomas at 00:05:06) Yeah. No. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's really funny. I think also my mother once told me, you know, I think that I really always wanted to work in IT and, you know, I didn't have to dream of becoming a fireman or anything like that. So that is quite—I think I was passionate from day one is, I guess, the point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:28) So when you were going through your high school, so like your public schooling before college, when you're going through that, how were you thinking about approaching the job market? Were you self-educating? Was your plan to go to college? How did you go from high school or grade school into the workforce?

(Thomas at 00:05:49) Now, I was always, even today, I'm a self-starter. I like to educate myself. And I think I've never went out there to say I wanted to have a very specific job. I was—I'm really driven by opportunity and things that grasp my interest. But eventually, you know, as a matter of fact, I went to something which is like a technical high school. So even in school already, I had a focus on electrical engineering back then also, and computer science. And then eventually I went, moved on to university. And I think also there I have a bit of a different approach. So I remember in my first semester, I went to the lectures and there were these professors. They were standing in front of the chalkboards and they were writing stuff on it. And it was incredibly tiring. And I felt like at the end of the session, I didn't learn anything. And back then, there was no need to have attendance. It was not mandatory. So, eventually, I found a job next to university. And, you know, I started in good old engineering fashion. I started my career at SAP. So it doesn't get more German engineering than working for SAP. And so more or less throughout my whole studies, I worked almost full-time, yeah, at an engineering company. And I basically, two weeks before the exams, I took off, studied probably something like fourteen hours a day. And, yeah, you know, made the exams. And eventually, that's how I went through university. And then back then, I got the opportunity to join an international talent program in a bank, a big European bank. And that bank back then was a pure Internet bank. It was, at least back then, it was the largest direct bank, Internet bank in Europe. And what that means is it didn't have any physical branch. You know, everything you would do, it was digital from day one. And, yeah. Again, like I said, I was very driven by opportunity and things that capture my interest and that are changing things. And I felt like, well, you know, this makes total sense. I'm really super passionate also about the Internet and everything it allows you to do and how it, you know, changes our life. And so back then, I felt like even though it was after the financial crisis and everything, I felt very much drawn to this concept that there was a company in a space that is very traditional that was fundamentally doing things differently. And so that's how I ended up actually in—for my whole, you know, studies and being an engineer and being passionate about engineering and everything—how I ended up in the financial services sector because I found a company that, you know, in the early two thousands still was already fully digital. And, yeah, from there kind of it snowballed because I really love the industry because it keeps on changing. It's one of the fastest changing industries, I think, out there right now. But that's kind of how my career has been going. So I've been always passionate, and I've been always a self-starter and been always driven by opportunities and change and, you know, especially, I think, centering around the Internet and everything it allowed us to do—to connect with each other, to enable new products, new ways of working, new ways of collaborating, all these type of things. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:14) Was that ING, that bank?

(Thomas at 00:09:16) Yeah. Exactly. So, yeah, for—it's not that known, I guess, depending on where you are. So I used to work for one of the largest banks in Europe. I used to work for ING. And, yeah. So they actually, you know, there's many people out there who say ING was one of the first fintechs even though it was a bank, because it had a very traditional banking sector in its core markets, but outside it had the concept of what it called growth and challenger countries. And there it had this fully digital proposition. Me being in Germany, I was part of that part, but they also operated, I think, very famously in Canada and then also drove down into the US, but which then got consolidated after the financial crisis. But, yeah, I used to work for ING, which is, I think, at least if you're familiar with digital banking, it's quite well-known because it has gone through this whole digital journey and being digital-first transformation, yeah, as one of the leading institutions out there worldwide. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:19) Yeah. When I was reading your bio and your history, I saw that you did management training there and that it was a very forward, like, very advanced technology company. Right? They were doing something, this digital banking, at the very beginning when it was possible. And so what I was thinking was, what was that management training experience like at this technology company that was forward thinking? What was that experience like going through their management training?

(Thomas at 00:10:47) Yeah. That's a good question. So maybe I'll get to this in a second, but maybe also interesting, though, my first year was a full disaster. And I loved my journey at ING, but my first year was a full disaster. But on a personal level, it was a big win. I think I came to ING, saw this digital, super digital proposition, and I thought that, you know, I would join this company and we would change the world. But at that moment in time, ING in Germany had set, let's say, a bit of—it got a bit—it was satisfied. Like, they were way ahead of the market already and there was a bit this sense of we don't have to stretch ourselves super hard right now. Right? They came out of this mega stretch and I think, like, when you're a sports person, you also, you know, you go hard and then you need a bit of a break. And I came in, I think, at that moment in time where they were basically going a bit slower. And so I think I had—I hit the wall, like, big time. Like, I didn't have a place and it was a bit difficult for me. But luckily, it was a big European organization and I was able, let's say, to transition into a different spot which had more momentum and it allowed me to, you know, to drive my passion. But, yeah, in terms of management training, I think that's an interesting question because I think I always—and even till today—I feel learning about management, learning about the business is, is always the element where I feel I need to learn the most because I think while we're all passionate about engineering, you have to understand for what you're doing this and how it fits into this organization and how you can enable this organization with this. And so my management training in a bank, it was interesting in the sense that I had to learn all the fundamentals of what banking means. I learned values, ethical values, which is something you wouldn't expect, but after the financial crisis also, ING and many other institutions, they learned that, you know, also when it comes to the behavior and expectations of their managers and their future leaders, they had to change the way of thinking in terms of, you know, maybe some of the not so ethical decisions that have been made in the past that led to the financial crisis. So it was not just management, learning about fundamentals, but also leading people, but eventually it was also about, you know, ethics and why are we doing this and putting, I think, at the end of the day also the interest of the customer first and really trying to think, let's say, what's our role in the society and how can we help people with financial services while at the same time, obviously, growing a business. Right? So you have to be also realistic. It is about making money, but it is also about helping people and fulfilling your role. So my management training was very diverse. I think it was not just about learning banking and leading, but it was also about these ethical type of topics. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:41) Yeah. And it's important. You sound like you've got a strong code of ethics too, the way you talk and hold yourself.

(Thomas at 00:13:48) Yeah. Well, I think you hope. Right? I think it's very important that you learn from mistakes in the past. And I think in this case, it was very important to to learn from what has happened in the past. And, yeah, I do have—I hold, so I have values. I hold them high. I think also in our companies in Backbase, we have a set of values that are very important to me, and I think I value them way more than, you know, necessarily having the most talented person at the end of the day in my ranks, because I think if you center an alignment behind values, then the outcome is always 10 times stronger. And so yeah. Definitely. I would say that's a big part of who I am nowadays.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:35) Is that one of the key reasons why you decided to join Backbase?

(Thomas at 00:14:39) Actually, no. This is a very good question. So I mentioned that I was part of ING and I had, you know, had a number of fantastic years that allowed me to go to different countries to work, continue to work on the digital transformation of ING, work on the mobile-first strategy. I founded two startups for ING. But then one morning, I woke up and my battery was absolutely empty. And I said like, it was sweet—I remember, I will always remember this day. I woke up and I said, I can't do this anymore. And so, you know, I handed in my resignation at ING and then I took a few months off, got married and then I was looking for a new job. And then at the beginning, when I found Backbase, I found a software company that was working in this digital transformation space for banks. So make them more digital, make them digital-first, make them mobile-first, all these type of things. And I felt like I think I'm pretty good at this. So it's also in Amsterdam, so that makes a lot of sense. But my initial intention was to take it a bit slower because I think similar to my journey when I entered ING in Germany, I came out of this marathon or this sprint and I felt like I needed something that I'm passionate about, but still maybe I don't have to go super hard. But then, yeah, I also learned something about myself because I joined Backbase and I think I was hired as technical director doing special projects just in Europe.

(Thomas at 00:16:08) And then two weeks later, I was sitting on a plane to Colombia, and I don't speak Spanish, right? And probably it's one of the cultures that is most remote to the German culture. So it was quite a leap. And, you know, from there, again, I just went again on this crazy ride where I saw this company has humongous potential to help thousands of financial institutions out there.

(Thomas at 00:16:35) But it was organized, let's say, still very basic. It was just transitioning out of, let's say, a bigger startup into a scale-up. So everything was organized around Amsterdam while our customers were predominantly, nowadays, outside of Europe. And so I started building local hubs all around the world. You know, we added Toronto, we added Mexico, we already had Atlanta, we'd grown that.

(Thomas at 00:16:59) We added Singapore and other locations. And so, you know, probably a year in, I became the vice president for our implementation side at professional services. And then, I think another year in, our CTO left and, you know, then our CEO asked me, "Hey, Thomas, can you recruit for a new CTO?" And I think I interviewed like 50 people, and I didn't like any of them.

(Thomas at 00:17:24) So eventually, I walked to our CEO and said, "Hey, I think, you know what? I'll do it." And, yeah, he gave me the trust.

(Thomas at 00:17:33) I think he had seen how I came into the company, how much passion I brought to the table, and how excited I am about the company and how far this fintech out of Europe can come. And, yeah, so now I'm getting close to four years, I think, in Backbase. And like I said at the beginning, I learned something also about myself. I won't take it slow ever.

(Thomas at 00:17:57) I think that's something that I definitely learned. Yeah, four years in and I'm the CTO of one of the fastest-growing fintechs in Europe. And I think, yeah, that's really my journey and how I ended up in Backbase. And, you know, I think what's very nice about Backbase is that probably it's even closer to my heart than working for this digital-first bank because it's much more—as it is a software company that produces software for banks, so your internet and mobile applications, any type of digital channel that you have—it's much more engineering-heavy.

(Thomas at 00:18:32) It's a software company, right? And so it plays even stronger to my strengths in being passionate about engineering, but also, you know, loving this industry, which is just full of change and it doesn't stop changing at the end of the day. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:48) Yeah. I got to talk a little bit. I think we got connected through Yogesh. Am I saying that right? Am I pronouncing the name right?

(Thomas at 00:18:54) Yes. One of my—yeah. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:56) And we had a really great conversation talking about, you know, the technology and what you guys do. But the quick overview, you make technology that helps banks stay competitive, or how do you say it?

(Thomas at 00:19:09) Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, let's start. I always say there's the party explanation.

(Thomas at 00:19:14) So if I have new employees and I say, "Hey, you have to explain to your friends at the party what we're doing," you say, you know, at the end of the day, we're building mobile banking. So your mobile—you open your phone, your mobile banking application, or your internet banking application for banks all around the world. We do this for retail. So that's the private individuals like you and me being a customer of a bank.

(Thomas at 00:19:38) We do this for small to medium-sized enterprises that are customers of a bank, all the way to corporates or even wealth management. And so let's say that's the simple explanation of what we're doing. But that's very simplified because it's really—I think there's a lot more to it than just, you know, this mobile application, right? It's all about your financial life cycle, and that life cycle is a very—maybe bad term, but I think, you know, you think your bank is just there to, you know, I don't know, hold a bit of money or give you a credit card and perform a transaction. But eventually, it fulfills a much bigger need, which is not just your day to day.

(Thomas at 00:20:20) So it's top of mind for you every single day because you interact with it or you have some expenses on there. But it also, you know, helps you in some of your life moments, and that's also where Backbase plays a strong role. And by life moments, I mean, for example, you want to buy your first house. How are you going to go about that, right?

(Thomas at 00:20:37) Or you want to buy a car and you need a car loan. Or, you know, I think, uh, also always a nice example that I love to make is, I think—I don't know all the percentages, but there's huge studies that show basically pretty much no country, no matter which country you're in, people have no plan for retirement. So they're not, you know, saving or they have no clue, you know, work will end and then will I survive kind of, right? And also there is—that's a life moment that I think we, as Backbase, can help you to plan for. And that's really how we look about it. And I think one of our mission statements is, build the bank that people love.

(Thomas at 00:21:21) And that sounds quite out there, right? Because especially you don't necessarily think about—maybe, I don't know who you're a customer of and what's your relationship, but trying to go out about and say we're trying to build a proposition where people really love the bank they're interacting with, that's what we're trying to do. So nothing that is, you know, feels like a burden.

(Thomas at 00:21:42) It's about unburdening customers, about helping these people fulfill their needs. And, yeah, that's what we're bringing to financial institutions worldwide, also to credit unions in the US, also smaller institutions. And we really help them to go through their transformation. And I think COVID is a nice example, right? Suddenly, all these bank branches were closed.

(Thomas at 00:22:04) And, you know, while some of them had maybe a digital proposition, you could see your account balance or something like this online, most of them were not able to help you, for example, with a loan anymore or like a, you know, state relief fund or anything like that. And so then typically, these type of customers, they come to us and we really help them to fast-track their digital transformation. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:30) Yeah. And that's, when COVID happened, I ended up getting our Paycheck Protection Program through a local community bank versus the normal, like, national bank I use. So I'm used to the big bank technology, right? And then I have to go get my PPP loan over here at this community bank and it was a world of difference as far as like stepping back in time.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:56) Right? Their technology was so old and it's like you're spoiled on this. So when I was talking about Backbase, I was like, this is going to be exciting because, um, you talk a lot about the customer and the end user, right? Because that's super important and it's on top of your mind all the time because you're making—but one of the things I was thinking about in our research of this was the community banks have the older customers, typically, at least in my state.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:25) Right? The people I've been talking to.

(Thomas at 00:23:26) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:27) And the older customers have less desire for technology or the older people have the less desire for technology traditionally. And so they were getting by. So one of the thoughts that I had was I don't believe that the community or the local banks have really experienced the full force of technology because once those people start to age and their, you know, children take over their finances and things like that, they're just going to move everything to the platform that's super easy and right on their phone and amazing to use. So I wonder, have you ever thought about or do you ever talk about in any of your materials, like this mass exodus that's going to be happening in the next 10 years as these people start to, you know, pass, unfortunately, like pass away, life goes on. It's hard to talk about, right?

(Thomas at 00:24:14) Yeah, that's going a bit far, but yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:15) I totally get your point.

(Thomas at 00:24:16) No. I mean, listen, these credit unions, they're absolutely aware of this, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:22) Oh, they are. Okay.

(Thomas at 00:24:23) Yeah. No, no. I think that they are, right. And that's why they are coming to companies like Backbase, but especially also to us.

(Thomas at 00:24:31) So we are really there to help them to transition into this next generation because you're absolutely right. I mean, I think, you know, it is—there's quite a big gap between you probably using Robinhood and whatever credit union you are still using, right? But that is why they're coming to Backbase is really, you know, they also realize next to the fact that they have to make the step—also going through the leap actually, you know, what that means for the organization then to, you know, suddenly they have to think about what's going to be their cloud strategy, right?

(Thomas at 00:25:02) Or suddenly they're going to have to think about, you know, maybe they have some big monolithic banking application floating around—that's why it is so static. But to have a rich customer experience, you probably need to deploy, you know, something south or north the 200 microservices range and how to orchestrate this and foremost to even have the people like the technical people, the engineers to make this happen and, you know, the engineering managers with the vision to pull this off. And that's why they come to Backbase is eventually to really help them leap into this digital era. And I think that's, you know, I think why they're coming to us. And I think they are fully aware of it, and they are—they're going to change in the next years.

(Thomas at 00:25:45) And I think the reality is also they know if they don't change, it's going to be very difficult for them to survive. So next to the passing maybe of their members, I think that would be the challenge for them. But here's the good news. You know, if you look at a lot of these more digital banks out there or, like, newcomers like Robinhood or like Revolut, some of these more digital banks, you know, let's say everything they can do, at least Backbase can do as well, but I also truly believe it's not absolute rocket science. I think what they do really, really well is understand their customer needs and then select the right technology to enable these needs at the end of the day.

(Thomas at 00:26:26) And yeah. So and obviously, I think we are bringing the engineering talent and the vision to these credit unions to really make this happen at the end of the day. And this is really, I think, what it is about and what these credit unions are going to also either—going to go through this transformation in the next few years, you will definitely see this. I think the challenge will be that they will have to drastically change the offering to attract a different type of additional customer base. But how do you actually, you know, also make—how do you take also their older members by the hand and help them as well?

(Thomas at 00:27:03) And I think that'll be probably the real challenge also for them to deal with that. And, yeah, yeah, so I think we really enable these credit unions to make this step. And I think even beyond some of the capabilities that maybe their bigger competitors have. So like a Bank of America or whatever, I think Backbase could definitely out-compete some of this offering because we have a unique value proposition in which we operate globally. And what I see in banking is that, you know, a lot of banks and credit unions, they're very centered on their local market, right? They look what's happening, you know, what's in my—what's happening in my area. But we also, for example, do co-innovation with, you know, a small bank in Kenya, Africa, or we have a customer in Australia. And we do co-innovation together with them. And customers of Backbase have a subscription to our platform.

(Thomas at 00:27:57) So, you know, it's not a one-off license, and this is what you get. No, it's a subscription for, for five years. And whatever we're going to innovate all around the globe, suddenly all the credit unions are able to participate in this innovation. I mean, I'm not saying that everything will apply to them. But suddenly you go from a very local narrative and view, you go to a global innovation pool.

(Thomas at 00:28:21) And I think that's something that we bring to the table. So actually, I think we are in a position to make credit unions very, very successful. And I think then they're in a very strong position, in my opinion, because they have a purpose, right? So let's assume you are credit unions for teachers, just name an example, right? Why wouldn't you want to be part of that? I mean, you get, you know, better interest rates or, you know, you get whatever type of additional benefits. And if then the experience with working with these credit unions or dealing with these credit unions is as good as, you know, your Robinhood example, I mean, why wouldn't you do it right? You get the benefits and you get the experience.

(Thomas at 00:28:58) And I think that's Backbase what we're aiming to do, enable our customers to get this first-in-class digital experience by completely unburdening them of, you know, this digital transformation and the technology that comes with it. Because I think, you know, that's really the challenge. I think some of them, they even know what they would have to do, but then actually pulling it off is a whole different game. And, you know, also the technology, it keeps changing all the time.

(Thomas at 00:29:31) You keep on rewriting code, you keep on changing technologies. So what used to be everything Java in the past, maybe, you know, whatever, 20 years is now tilting to Go and Python and all those type of things that are floating around. So that's also something that we're taking away, the way we're unburdening these customers at the end of the day. So, yeah, they are—we—they are aware of it and that's literally, you know, I think the point of what Backbase is trying to achieve is help these credit unions with any type of financial institutions to really cater for the needs, keep cater for the changing environment that is out there, and really create a first-in-class experience. And like I said before, hopefully create the bank that people love.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:07) Some of my favorite customers—so historically, I've built some companies, sold them, and then I had an app development agency for almost 10 years, right? And some of my favorite customers were people that went and tried to do it themselves first and then created so much pain because they came to me and they're like, "How much is it?" I'm like, "This is how much it would cost to do what you want to do."

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:29) And they're like, "Oh, we can go, you know, do it cheaper ourselves." And a year later, they would come back and they'd be like, "Please take our money. Like, just do it right the first time." Do you guys experience that at all? How is the market?

(Thomas at 00:30:40) Yeah. Absolutely. I think, you know, I think Backbase, I think we take a lot of pride that we are market leaders in what we are doing. But our biggest competitor is surprisingly not necessarily—I would say it's not a different software company. It is really the notion of what you just explained, which is people thinking they can do it themselves.

(Thomas at 00:31:03) So self-built is our biggest competitor. And, yeah, many, many will start and will go down that road and try and fail and then they come to us. So I think that's also a huge portion of our business where they basically—they have identified the need to change and they have been working on this in the past, you know, let's say, three, four, five years, but they've gotten nowhere. And so they're also coming to us and seek for help and advice or, you know, really partner then with us. But self-built is for sure the biggest—yeah, our biggest competitor.

(Thomas at 00:31:41) And, you know, some of them will succeed, so I don't want to be very absolutely negative about it. You know, again, my career started at ING, and I think they're succeeding at being excellent at self-built. But, you know, there's a bank with maybe very deep pockets at the end of the day, so they can also afford the, let's say, the scale, but also maybe they can afford the talent that is required to do that. And they are able to attract the talent that is required to do that. And I think that's maybe really a challenge for a lot of the, you know, the credit unions, but also, you know, smaller to larger banks out there. Next to, let's say, even if you have the money, it doesn't mean you get the right people.

(Thomas at 00:32:19) Or what I've also seen is they get the wrong people. So what happens is, and it's a very common observation, and maybe I don't know if you've seen something similar, but so they panic. They will see they have to change. And then they look at, let's get the best possible engineer, right?

(Thomas at 00:32:35) And so let's say they end up maybe hiring, let's say, 10 engineers from Uber, and they all get a fortune. You know, they'll make a fortune. And this is not about Uber, but, you know, they might enter, but they have a short-term objective. They come in, they say, you know, okay, there's a monetary incentive, and then it's a greenfield. We can do whatever we want. So also, I see there, you know, they get sometimes talent in, but they have a short-term objective, which is basically just, you know, following their maybe right now technology passion and exploring that and making that happen.

(Thomas at 00:33:06) And then they move on again after two years. And then as a bank, you are basically in that cycle where you get the next wave in, and then they're going to again do everything crazy new because they say, well, these guys were completely wrong, so we're going to do it again. So there's also this, you know, I think this is the big trap that I see, is either they are not able to attract them, or they are attracting talent, but then the leadership is lacking, the vision is lacking. And then also, let's say, I was talking earlier about values and, you know, how that matches into what you're trying to accomplish. So there's a lot of institutions that are struggling, if not failing right now, on the self-built example. And I think that's why eventually fintechs exist, not just Backbase, any type of fintech.

(Thomas at 00:33:53) I think, you know, banks are coming to Backbase because they fundamentally believe that we do things differently. Because if we were just to do the same as they would, then what's the point in that? So yeah, self-build is definitely our biggest competitor.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:08) What I hear you saying too a little bit, or at least what you're reminding me of, is how important really great people are.

(Thomas at 00:34:17) It's everything. How do you find them? Yeah. That's actually also something that I'm incredibly passionate about, but also thankful to experience it in Backbase. So we are a super diverse company.

(Thomas at 00:34:32) So we have, I think, whatever, I think 50 nationalities. We really, really, really recruit all around the world. You know, we have people from Brazil, Japan, obviously, you know, India, but also Europe, throughout Europe, the US. And I think we really look for people that are skilled. Obviously, you need to validate them on skill.

(Thomas at 00:34:54) But that match in our values and our passions. I think what you see with Backbase, we find a lot of people that have something to prove. I think they are looking for an opportunity. Sometimes they are looking for an opportunity to leave their home country, to make a life for themselves and for their family. But yeah, so I think that's probably really a strength of Backbase too. We find, we don't limit ourselves to a market again.

(Thomas at 00:35:21) We try to find the people that fit our mission and bring them behind our purpose and let's go, right? I think that's what it is about at the end of the day. So I think it's really recruitment without borders and also creating an environment where all these people with all these different nationalities, cultures, and beliefs, which is, this is not an easy task, right? Also, how do you create room for them? How do you create mutual respect for each other?

(Thomas at 00:35:50) How do you not, you know, you shouldn't tolerate anything but that. And I think that's also what hopefully a lot of Backbase employees would say about us as a company, that is a very inclusive company where we care for each other. And I think there's many companies who, you know, will say the same what I'm saying right now, but I can tell you what I really admire about Backbase is that I'm saying these things, but they happen very naturally and we don't have to try about it. I think that's really powerful. So yeah, we find it's all about people for Backbase, but we find them all over the world.

(Thomas at 00:36:24) That's our secret, I guess.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:27) Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about because I get to meet so many different people. And before COVID, I would go fly around the world and get to meet with them and go visit their offices and get to see their culture. And most of the time, the person who I met, they were in sync with their culture. Sometimes it wasn't.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:47) Sometimes I would get questions about, you know, like, how do we change our culture, or here's where we're at, how do we get to where we want to be? And what I have noticed as far as the companies that subjectively I feel are the most successful, is that it's just embedded from the beginning. There's no magic program. There's no magic anything.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:08) It's they picked the right couple people to start, and those people constantly picked the right people. And now you have this huge organization and it's just got a very successful culture.

(Thomas at 00:37:19) Yeah. Absolutely. I think, actually, I would even say the moment you start to talk about culture as you need to do a program or whatever, you most likely have an issue already in that corner. But I think you also said something nice about, you know, find people at the beginning that match with you and then go. And I think also, for example, in the US, obviously, which is maybe the most important location for us right now.

(Thomas at 00:37:44) I think there we were very fortunate. You had Yogesh, one of my guys on your podcast as well. I think we want to have people that, we acknowledge, you know, there's a piece of culture, there's a little bit of different DNA also in every of our regions. But again, coming back to the values, and one of them, for example, in Backbase is can-do. There's this can-do attitude.

(Thomas at 00:38:08) If you don't have the can-do attitude, you shouldn't be in Backbase. And I think that's then the key. How do you bring in, you know, key people that share some of these, you know, where this overlap and you have an instant connection and where you have a shared value? And then there might be still, you know, a local flavor to a culture. You know, definitely, I think if you walk into our US office, it has a different vibe than if you go to Amsterdam or you go to Cardiff in the UK or you go to Singapore, and that's okay.

(Thomas at 00:38:34) But the funny thing is, at the end of the day, you would still see that they center around a bunch of commonalities at the end of the day. And yeah, I think that's very important.

(Joel Beasley at 00:38:43) Now, let's say there's great people all over the world, right? And so let's say you've got someone great. Let's just take, I'll just use myself. Let's say I want to come join your company, right? And you have these specific concepts, these values, like you just mentioned, can-do attitude, right? Is there, how do you, like, well, I may match with your culture, right, on several things, how do you say, here's a list of how we act, here's the behaviors that we value?

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:19) Is it something, like, do you have some sort of HR or training program that would explain that to me? Because high-performing people, I think there's two conversations. I think the first conversation is typically companies with culture problems that are looking for solutions. The problem's way, way deeper than buying a product. I think that's one conversation.

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:40) But then you have companies that have great cultures that are scaling, and they have to figure out how do they communicate what their culture is to all the new great people who are joining so everybody can focus and drive everything forward. So how does that look at Backbase? Do you have a leadership training program there?

(Thomas at 00:39:58) Yeah. I mean, we are not a corporate, so I would say we have a bit of a leadership training, but it's not, you know, coming from ING, it's not the same type of level. No, let me start. I think there's a few things that you have. First of all, everyone who joins in Backbase goes through the same onboarding week. So it doesn't matter if you end up, actually if you are in accounting or if you are in, you know, one of my engineering teams and you're a DevOps guy, you go for the same onboarding, which is about getting to know the company, whatever, and you there, you basically already get distilled into, you know, what this company is about.

(Thomas at 00:40:31) And then I think at Backbase, we really believe in also ceremonies. And ceremonies, maybe, for example, well, it's COVID, but this is still a nice example. We always have summer parties all around the world. We have summer parties, right? And really, this is where you get everyone together.

(Thomas at 00:40:48) And then it's not about work, it's about doing something crazy together, right? It's creating shared moments. And I think, and then we have, so for example, the summer parties are an example, but also, for example, we have every month, we have a demo day for the whole company. And in the meantime, we are more than, you know, we're way more than a thousand people.

(Thomas at 00:41:13) And to organize a demo day where everyone gets to see what we are producing this month, that's quite an investment, right? And I think, yeah, we have a bit of leadership training and we have, let's say, also a bit of a Bible that says, you know, engineering principles, you know, values, these type of things. But we at Backbase, we really also believe in creating ceremonies. And if you keep on doing this, it kind of automatically keeps these things floating and keeps them alive.

(Thomas at 00:41:42) But also something else, something I definitely realized is, you know, the company, I think right now we're trying to grow by another 500 people. Culture does also change. So I also think it's important to not cling on to who you are today, right? I think the company in five years is definitely going to be a different one than it is now. I think that's also important.

(Thomas at 00:42:04) I always tell, you know, one of my sayings or what I believe in is, you know, people who embrace change will succeed in life, no matter if it's business or private. And yeah, that's also, I think, when it comes to culture, you should also not be too worried about that it's 100% this, but also acknowledge it will change over time.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:24) Yeah. Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about. It's you can't be rigid with it. You have to let it evolve.

(Thomas at 00:42:32) And it's natural, right? You also, you know, you have different people coming in. You have maybe some people with long experience leaving. And so again, while you have an overlap in values and so and so forth, it does bring different DNA, and that eventually changes the culture a bit.

(Thomas at 00:42:48) But I think I see it as a positive thing. I really think so. And I think also you are part of a journey, and this company, no matter, I think, no matter which company you are joining, you are, that's a snapshot, and this company needs you in this moment in time. And it might also end, I think, like my example with ING. I woke up and I was done. And maybe ING was equally done with me.

(Thomas at 00:43:08) I don't know. Maybe that was the case, right? But I think that's why also companies keep changing because as companies grow and hopefully if they are successful, naturally everything in their ranks, in their DNA, their culture, it changes over time. And I think I see that as a good thing.

(Thomas at 00:43:26) And, you know, I also always said, one of the learnings of my past and now is I will only work as long for a company as the company has something to give to me, and I have something to give to the company. And I hope if more of my employees do the same thing, that creates a very powerful dynamic also as a company. But that's hard.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:50) Why is it hard? It's hard because it takes a strong person to realize when those two things are out of sync, and it takes a stronger person to actually take action to correct the sync, you know?

(Thomas at 00:43:59) Yeah. Absolutely. But that's, let's say, personal growth, right? I think that's the one that I went through that I educate, you know, all the employees that directly report to me.

(Thomas at 00:44:10) I'll try to explain to them why that is. But I think more and more people are grasping this because also I think, you know, at the end of the day, you know, we spend 40 hours a week or whatever your working hours might be at work. If you don't enjoy it, why are you coming in, right? I mean, and do that for 40 years every day.

(Thomas at 00:44:31) Like, what's the point in that? And I think that's equally a bit part of my equation, is the thing is, let's say, hey, why come in? Why get up in the morning to do this if it gives nothing back? If there's no energy that comes back out of your job, then, I think, yeah, that's a difficult one.

(Thomas at 00:44:49) I understand, of course, sometimes you have to do that for a period of time because you need to, you know, like COVID right now, you don't want to put your family into, you want to have financial security, you don't want to do this. But eventually, I'm not saying you have to do this like me, you wake up and you leave. But you can get to, over time, to that conclusion that, hey, maybe I should be looking for something else. I understand that it's hard, but I think more people get to the point where they say, hey, you know, a large portion of my life is working for a company, and that'd better be also a little bit of fun, I guess, at the end of the day.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:21) Yeah. Well, experience will show you that while it's hard to make the change or, you know, to take action and realize it and correct it, it's harder to live in this bad state, the state where you're unhappy. Like, that's a hard thing to do, to be unhappy for a long time.

(Thomas at 00:45:41) Yeah. No. But again, that's also what I said. It reflects also in their private life because I think you'll be unhappy in your private life then too eventually.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:48) So yeah. Oh, for sure. I want to talk a little bit, though, about invisible technology. Because when I saw that, I was, it's really well named and I have no idea what it is. Can you explain invisible technology?

(Thomas at 00:46:03) Yeah. So I think the point is, so let's say, I think it's also been for us as Backbase looking forward, right? Also, what's, if you ask me personally, what's the passion of Thomas? And then my passion is really in invisible technology. So I think today as consumers, we have to knowingly, we have to interact with everything, right? It's like we have to use our phone to accomplish something. We have to open, let's say, the banking mobile app that I described earlier. But I think technology is getting to a point due to artificial intelligence where we can really unburden people about it. So, in our context of Backbase, for example, I made the example that people have no idea how to maybe prepare for their retirement.

(Thomas at 00:46:52) So when at the end of the career, do you have enough money? And let's make a small example. In our case, we can totally forecast how much money you're going to have at the end of the month, right? Based on previous spending behavior, based on whatever other age groups, whether you're going to spend, external factors. So we can say, hey, Joel, you're going to have a thousand bucks at the end of this month left.

(Thomas at 00:47:16) And then, instead of me now going to my phone and putting this money into an extra fund or, you know, putting it invested into some cryptocurrency or whatever, you know, why wouldn't we immediately do that as well? Right? Like go to the next step, do the automatic automation and say, hey, you know, we took this thousand. You know, for some people, I'm aware this is very intrusive, but we took this money and we invested it for you. And of course, there's also coming back to ethics and trust that there's a long way to go. But I think that's where it cuts to me for invisible technology.

(Thomas at 00:47:47) Let's say we can do these things. We can help you without you having to take an action and we can help you to have a better life. We can help you to not have to worry about certain things. I think the most simple example, and it has nothing to do with AI or anything, but I think, I guess we all love, at least the concept of Uber when it came in. And the fact that you can just, you know, you hail a cab and at the end of the day you walk out, right?

(Thomas at 00:48:15) And it's just charged back on your credit card. I think that was for me one of the most eye-opening moments where I felt like, well, this is so logical. Like every time you're in a cab, you have to run somewhere, you have to find a stupid card, you have to put it in, maybe you even have to enter a PIN in Europe. And it's so stupid. And so I think that's why I'm in general just passionate.

(Thomas at 00:48:36) I think technology should be just surrounding ourselves without us noticing it. And yeah, I think it should be really based on, a lot centers around the behaviors and who we are as a person. And we know these things, right? Like we have smartwatches. In the future we're going to have some type of jackets, our houses are going to have some type of sensors that will recognize what we're doing. So we can, based on all this information, we can be of help. And again, I think, coming back also to Backbase, we're really looking at the needs of the private persons, the individuals, or the companies. What are they, what's the challenge?

(Thomas at 00:49:14) What can we do for them? And with machine learning, you can really create and distill these signals, and then you can even automate them. And so that's really what invisible technology is for me about. You don't even have to worry about them, or you even never thought about it, but I'm solving a problem for you. And it really has to be in this nature that I'm solving a need, I'm solving a problem for you.

(Thomas at 00:49:39) And yeah, I'm very passionate about this because it's all possible. And that's also why I'm passionate about technology. It's basically, I feel like nothing is impossible at the end of the day. It's just, you know, at the end, analyzing data and recognizing patterns, making assumptions, forecasting elements and taking action on it. Yeah.

(Thomas at 00:49:57) But this in a nutshell, I hope this was clear. So invisible technology is really for me helping people without them having to take any type of action, like take your phone or, you know, go to a location or do anything like this. It should just surround myself and help me in my day-to-day life.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:15) Yeah. I was talking with Sri from PayPal about the future of payments, and he brought that exact situation up. He goes, Joel, when you took your last Uber, at what point did you pay them? And I go, oh, I don't. You don't.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:29) Like, you just get out. And he had this word for it. I don't know if it was like ambient payments or there was some good word that he had for it. But basically, the payments just kind of happening around you based on the situation. And you know, you see things like, I think Amazon had a store that'll do it based off of your face identification and you just pick stuff up and it just kind of happens. And it's so cool.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:52) It really is the future and it's happening so fast.

(Thomas at 00:50:56) Yeah. And I think, you know, it's really about, and the funny thing is, it can be even safer, right? And so I understand that there might be also some fear around this, but you bring a lot of elements into this, like behavior, biometrics, like your face, your fingerprint, whatever. Like you go shopping to Amazon and you're maybe worried that, oh, you know, is someone else going to be checking out my goods and I'm going to be charged for it?

(Thomas at 00:51:21) No. I mean, like based on the fact that you, every time you buy a yogurt, a bread, and whatever, and it's this time and you're in this location and it was your face, you can just walk out very safely and with high confidence versus, you know, someone in the past using your credit card and copying the magnetic stripe and stealing your money like this, right? So I think that's also, yeah, it's exciting because, you know, forget about your wallet at home. In this case with PayPal or also with the Amazon shopping thing, you just walk in after work, I need to get a few groceries, I'll get these things and I'll get out, all of it. You know, I think you're going to go into an overdraft, so maybe I need a positive pay or something like this. So you can do all of these things at the end of the day. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:52:04) I saw a new technology. I think there's some Chinese researchers working on it where they could, they can measure the infrared light coming out of your fingertips. Your fingers will actually emit this sort of light and the rate they can pick up on that unique signature. And it's as unique as a fingerprint. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:52:24) It's crazy.

(Thomas at 00:52:25) That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that's also, I heard this long time ago, so I'm not entirely sure if it's true, but I think it somewhat makes sense. I heard that the knowledge about medicine is doubling every year. So how much we know about medicine as a whole is doubling every year. The knowledge about computer science and technology is quadrupling every year.

(Thomas at 00:52:48) So I'm not surprised if you tell me that now they can do something with infrared and your fingers. I think that's the amazing time that we're in, that, you know, hardware, software, all of these pieces are starting to come together and they're creating a whole new experience, a whole new life for us. And I think that's super exciting. And yeah, I think from my point of view, most software that you have to physically interact with today nowadays, it will disappear. And I think your Google Assistant or your Alexa, whatever, is already the perfect example. You know, maybe they are not there yet, or you're also not comfortable with it as a human.

(Thomas at 00:53:30) So there will be also this space where we have to get comfortable with using these technologies. But eventually, all of this, it's just magically there. And it's putting all these pieces together.

(Joel Beasley at 00:53:43) Yeah. I'm curious. So your company, you're very passionate about building great user experiences, helping people through these journeys and their lives and these moments that matter, right? And you have all of this experience because you have customers all over the world, banks of all these different sizes. And you're, you know, you're building these platforms that they're using. Are you, have you ever played with the idea of creating an abstraction? So like, for example, you have like a Backbase Financial app that I could use instead of Wells Fargo, and it would API back in. And that way, you could serve like any bank account.

(Thomas at 00:54:25) Well, actually, there's this notion of what is called open banking in many countries nowadays in the world. So banks have been forced by the governance to open up APIs. And so therefore, you start to see what you're just describing is basically aggregator apps. So you will be having one app to administrate all your accounts wherever they are. So this is becoming reality already.

(Thomas at 00:54:47) And as Backbase, we do allow for account aggregation, which is a bit interesting because it means also maybe two of our customers are kind of aggregating each other's accounts and the customer could choose which one to use. But let's say we as Backbase ourselves, we don't have the ambition to, you know, be a bank ourselves or be such a solution ourselves. We have all the means of what you just described. But, you know, we really focus on the enablement. And I think this is really what we're good at.

(Thomas at 00:55:19) I think you also have to simply stick to what you're good at. And we're not good at being a bank or, you know, being a company that actually owns, does the marketing, does the B2C, everything like this. We are a technology company. And today, we focus very much, like I said, on, you know, digital experiences. Our engagement platform focuses on digital experience, mobile banking, internet apps.

(Thomas at 00:55:40) But in the future, it might be something completely different, right? It won't stop at these apps. It won't stop at Alexa. It won't stop at your Apple Watch or anything like this. So yeah, we are able to do this, but this is not our business. I think we're really a software company that is passionate about creating these digital experiences, and they keep on changing. Yeah. I think that's also who we are and why I think we will be successful also in the years to come, even though our business model today is very much around software that you interact with. But because we have that mindset like I just described, I think we will succeed and I think we are not afraid of changing our company if it has to.

(Joel Beasley at 00:56:22) Yeah, dude. This is great. I love it. You're great at answering all the questions.

(Thomas at 00:56:28) Thanks. You make it easy. Yeah. No. I mean, I think, yeah. I think, you know, I am, I hope this came across right. I am super passionate about what I do. And I think that's really what's driving me and I really enjoy what I'm doing. And I think that's what modern leaders, modern leadership should look like.

(Thomas at 00:56:50) You should be passionate about what you're doing. Inspire other people to do the same, if not better.

(Joel Beasley at 00:56:57) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.