Hi Marvin! Thanks for joining us today! How has your career been in Neonomics so far?

I joined Neonomics as Technical Product Owner of our API platform back in 2020. Since then, I gradually took on more responsibility, taking part in the delivery of most of our products, while engaging with almost everyone in the company. In this intermediary role between tech and the rest of the company, I got a unique look at all parts of our platform, the open banking eco system it is built on, and the set of rules it is governed by.  

When the position of Head of Development became available, I was ready to jump on the opportunity. For me, this is the best position to bring my industry and platform insights directly to the management team. Furthermore, as PO it has severed me well to listen closely to the tech teams I was working with. This has resulted in releasing better functionalities with realistic timelines even for complex cross-team deliveries. As Head of Development, my goal is to ensure this approach becomes part of Neonomics’ DNA. Empowering the tech teams and making sure their point of view and ideas are well communicated across the company is vital for any tech company to thrive. In the end, we make the best decisions together in diverse teams. Empowering people is key.

How has the company evolved since you’ve been here?

The company has changed a lot in the 2.5 years I have been here. We have adjusted our approach to delivering new products with cross-functional teams. That required us to restructure a couple of times to arrive at our current organizational structure. Teams now have well-defined mandates and team members can become experts in their domain while reducing the off topic “noise” significantly. Fostering this niche expertise enables us to take a vastly complex and inconsistent eco-system such as open banking and deliver technically elegant solutions that provide a unified and high-quality UX across all the different banks we connect with. It took us until the end of last year for the benefits of the restructuring to crystalize, but now we are laser-focused.

A key change was also the shift from a pure API solution to providing web-app solutions along side it. We are now able to handle a critical part of the user journey which is a big improvement for our customers and their users. But we too benefit. Building solutions on top of our API and so becoming a customer of our own products, has given us valuable feedback and allowing us to iron out minute details that would have otherwise been difficult to spot.

What excites you about what Neonomics does?

Banking and finance are not highly innovative markets historically. Open banking changes that dynamic without sacrificing security. Being part of this momentous change and being a positing to shape open banking to bring the most value to the users is very exciting. We empower people to get better financial products that were simply not possible before. We are seeing those benefits almost daily. That said, we have not even seen the full potential of what open banking can bring. This also includes collaborative projects with banks outside the scope of PSD2. There is much still to be done and envisioned.

Can you give us a sneak peak of what’s to come?

We have been extremely busy building a unified API platform over the past years. Now this platform allows us and our customers to rapidly spin up new products. We have just launched a Checkout solution at the beginning of this year, but until today we have not just done that in one country. We were able to release this product in three additional countries in three months. That’s one month per country all thanks to the unified API platform it is built on and the hard work of everyone involved. We are now close to releasing an Invoice product as well at the same release cadence. We are also getting tuned for even more offerings for data products. But I do not dare to say what else is to come. The opportunities in this sphere are endless and constantly evolving.  

What are some challenges you are looking to tackle?

It is our mission to build the highest-performing financial products with the best possible UX. That is not always easy if your ability to do so is very dependent on what is provided through open banking. We want to create an environment where all parties involved benefit and the advantages of getting to high performance open banking with outstanding UX are clear.  

Internally, we want to build a strong and savvy tech organisation where people can grow their skill set and are excited about the challenges they are solving. We have a great company culture and very skilled people, and our collective goal is to always improve. It is my ambition to make Neonomics the envy of the entire tech industry and I believe we have what it takes.

Thanks for your time Marvin and good luck on your journey! 🚀

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