On average, those who manage assets have three to five banks as partners. The fintech One PM helps to bring together the data of all banks. A conversation with CEO Fabio Giuri, who is not setting up his first business with One PM.
Mr Giuri, what problems does your company One PM solve?
Fabio Giuri: Worldwide, 10 billion securities transactions take place every year. Each bank has its own data structure. For asset managers or family offices, it is very time-consuming to collect, aggregate and analyse the data from the different institutions. We build an interface to the banks and prepare the data in a uniform format.
What does the customer do with it then?
He has a central overview of his portfolios, his payment and securities transactions at the various banks and can analyse his data to generate added value.
How did that work out so far?
Often with Mantech: You take all the bank receipts, type them manually into a programme and have a consolidated overview. Or, a little more advanced: you scan the bank documents, so they are already digitised. But a human being still has to do the merging …
... which is no longer needed with your solution?
Almost. The bank sends us a data feed in which the transactions are digitally processed. This is done via various channels, e.g. Swift, Ebics, SFTP, Blink, in various formats, e.g. swift, xls, csv or txt. We have a degree of automation of around 98 percent, which varies from bank to bank. The rest is booked manually.
Your tool incurs additional costs.
We are digitalising, we are automating. This brings firstly cost savings and secondly new earnings potential: those who can do something with their data can in turn develop products and services from it. Larger companies can save up to 80 percent of their securities accounting.
You are probably not the first to have come up with this idea?
No, there are a lot of PMS tools (Portfolio Management System), they have sprung up especially in the last few years. But we were there very early on. Our company was founded in 2015. We also offer more than just a PMS tool, because our clients can gain new insights and opportunities from data analysis.
In the US, you can give other service providers access to e-banking.
Who is the competition?
In the PMS area, we observe many fintech companies operating in the Zurich area. When it comes to the automated processing of payment and securities transaction data, there are a handful in Switzerland.
Is the market big enough for everyone?
Consolidation is already taking place. Big banks and large investor groups are gradually becoming interested in the topic of “open banking”: what is on the market is being bought up.
The First Advisory Group from Liechtenstein is your majority shareholder.
The company started with the three Fs as investors: Friends, Family and Fools. Then an expanded circle got involved. In 2019, CSL Corporate Services, a subsidiary of First Advisory Group, became a shareholder and strategic partner and took over the majority of shares in 2020. We are currently in a financing round again and are therefore also prepared to give up shares to a suitable investor.
Does the One PM have paying customers?
Yes. Among others, two large asset managers in Switzerland, a large family office in Hong Kong, the First Group and another well-known international industrial company.
What sets you apart from the competition?
We are the only provider in Switzerland with Swift certifications, which means we are audited like a bank and have access to highly standardised financial data. To put it bluntly: we are as secure as a bank.
How many banks do you already have an interface with?
Currently, around 50 banks are connected to our system.
How do the banks react?
Some are already very advanced in the field of “Open Banking/Open Wealth”. Smaller institutions and cantonal banks in particular stand out positively. The big banks also see the topic, but are behaving rather defensively in some cases, as they are relinquishing sole sovereignty over the customer to a certain extent. But Open Banking is coming. Either the big banks are also playing along, or they are not part of this future market. However, the big banks still have enough presence and market power to steer developments.
Do you need to dock to the core banking system?
No, our connection is to e-banking.
Is the data safe and secure?
Our solution was programmed on C#. We have everything on a Swiss Private Cloud. Each customer has their own virtual machine. The data never leaves the Switzerland/Liechtenstein area. The Swift certification with the bank audit forces us to maintain the highest standards.
Who owns the data?
To the customer. The customer can switch to a provider tomorrow and take his data with him.
Who does the operational work?
We are a team of 15 employees and our offices are in Sihlcity. Almost all of our developers are ETH graduates, and former banking and insurance experts from UBS, CS, Allianz and Julius Baer work in Sales and Operations.
How did you find the IT professionals?
IT experts can actually choose where they want to work and for what price. It is an employee market. We had about ten new hires last year. We have always been very lucky so far and good people have found their way to us.
Where do you want to grow?
Our current focus is on Switzerland and Liechtenstein. However, we also supply Asian family offices and individual European clients. In the medium term, we want to grow in Europe. We can offer added value for insurance companies, pension funds, financial and securities accountants. Our software is available in English and German. Our vision: We want to become the leading financial data provider in Europe and establish ourselves as an indispensable data hub.
Is the market ready for it?
The pandemic provided a big digitalisation push. Now the topic is at the top of the corporate management agenda, so: Yes.
Wouldn't your solution also be attractive for private individuals?
Private individuals also have several accounts, so you can sometimes lose track of them. In Switzerland, for example, there were efforts to create an open banking platform for end consumers with Numbrs. It is technically possible. The question is whether the financial institutions are prepared to offer interfaces for this. A UHNWI (ultra-high-net-worth individual, a very wealthy person – the editors) has more power to ask the bank to provide the data. The average consumer is less likely to be listened to. Yet it would be mega-simple. In the USA, for example, you can give many fintechs access to your own e-banking in order to use their services.
