#globalmf17

Constanze Lehmann, Financial Inclusion Specialist at Mambu

Founded in 2011, Mambu has been growing exponentially for the past 6 years. But speaking about your clients, how exactly do you help them to grow their business?

Mambu stands with our clients through each stage of their business evolution and we believe, as our clients do, in providing better financial services for all.  

Whether they are starting up, transforming or diversifying their business partnering with Mambu means our clients can access all the enterprise-level tools, security and scalability they would expect from a traditional core system in a Software as a Service model.  We support our clients in launching entirely new offerings or diversifying into new product and geographies by providing them with a quick and cost effective route to market through which they can grow and innovate with confidence and ease.  For those who are transforming their businesses moving their entire operation, or selected business units, to a cloud-based SaaS platform enables them to adopt a strategic digital first approach.  This model enables businesses at any stage to bring their ideas to market significantly faster and cheaper than offline and legacy systems.

Our SaaS model and the digitization of near all processes keeps initial investment and ongoing maintenance costs low, allowing our clients to focus precious resources on more impactful activities such as product innovation.  The rich data gathered by our platform and the ease of integration to advanced analytics tools helps clients better understand their customers. They can respond to these insights, any advances in technology or changes in their regulatory environment by leveraging Mambu’s product development capability.  Utilising our developer tools, such as APIs and webhooks, they can simply integrate, automate, test and scale.  This allows them to dynamically align their offerings to stay ahead in an increasingly digital world, meet market needs and differentiate themselves from the increasing tech-driven competition.  

Put simply Mambu enables our clients to attract new customers, investors and donors by quickly and easily creating better products and services at a lower cost and in a more agile way.

Produced by the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation (CSFI), the 2016 Banana Skins report ranks technology as the fourth greatest and fastest rising risk to the financial inclusion industry. How exactly does your platform address this risk?

Mambu sees technology as a huge enabler for the financial inclusion industry,  none of what has been achieved in the last ten years would have been possible without it. What’s more we believe that it has the potential to bring financial inclusion to most, if not all, of the currently underserved.  

However, we understand the challenge new technologies pose to providers. Those who fail to keep pace with advances will lag behind their competitors and eventually become sidelined.  In the race to meet consumer demands and gain market share they will be overtaken by technology focused, resource rich players, such as Telcos, commercial banks and smart fintech startups.  Yet the cost and complexity involved in selecting, integrating and implementing new technologies can be prohibitive for many stuck on antiquated core platforms.

Mambu helps our clients deal with this changing landscape in two ways. Firstly, the low cost of ownership, implementation and maintenance of our cloud-based core platform means that clients can focus valuable resources on differentiating themselves from the competition through the selection and implementation of new technologies.  Secondly, the simplicity of Mambu’s developer tools, such as our REST APIs, combined with the training and support provided by our in-house team means that providers can launch, iterate and evolve more easily than ever before.  Enabling them to bring their ideas to market at least three times faster and cheaper than with traditional core systems.  

By breaking down the barriers to new technologies Mambu is empowering our clients to deliver better financial services to an ever increasing number of people and businesses worldwide.  

You have just opened your first office in APAC region, in Singapore. What are your plans for 2017?

In 2017 we will continue building on the momentum and success we have gained over the past six years.  Our plans include opening an office in Miami to better serve our clients and prospects in the Americas, doubling our team, increasing investment in the platform and continuing to grow at over one hundred percent year-on-year.  We aim to be the engine driving the worldwide lending and banking revolution, challenging the old ways of delivering financial services, making things simpler, cheaper and more accessible for all. We are proud to say it is a really exciting time for our company and we look forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead!

What are you going to talk about in your presentation at 13th Global Microfinance Forum in Prague and what do you expect from the conference?

We will be discussing how technology can help bring true financial inclusion to all.  We at Mambu believe that digital financial services can be much more than just a payment instrument.  Breaking down the barriers to new technologies, reducing operational costs and complexities and gaining customer trust will enable providers to deliver a full suite of products and services aligned to market needs, which will generate growth for their business, increase adoption and improve inclusion.  The future of financial inclusion is in the provision of a full digital-first financial eco-system, offering individual and business customers the opportunity to choose from a broad range of providers, price points and products.  Enabling them to meet their evolving needs with confidence by giving them access to secure, reliable and affordable financial services including loans, deposits and insurance.  We will discuss how this opportunity can be realized to the benefit of providers and customers alike.

At the conference we look forward to sharing our experiences of the way digital-first companies are transforming the world of lending and banking.  We are excited to discuss how we can use the lessons learnt in the financial inclusion space with industry experts and thought leaders.  

Constanze Lehmann

Financial Inclusion Specialist, Mambu

Connect With Mambu

To learn more visit Mambu website and join them on Twitter, LinkedIn and Glassdoor.