Ahon Sarkar, General Manager of Helix, breaks down how personalizing banking products leads to more customer retention and outlines the future of customization among brands.

Opening Bell

Q2 Launches Helix to Strengthen the Customization of Banking Products 

here to discuss is a han Sarkar general manager at Q two R. And tell us a little bit more about helix and how the technology here works. Sure thing, Felix is one of the largest banking as a service platforms in the country, quietly powering innovative companies that you've probably heard of from credit karma and Acorns to betterment and gusto as they launch unique embedded finance products that serve millions of people across the country like you mentioned were part of Q two, which is a publicly traded fintech based out of Austin texas and the leading provider of digital transformation solutions for digital banking and lending. So between Q two and helix, we're powering a bit of the convergence that you're seeing in the industry between traditional financial institutions and Fintech, six technology companies and brands and helping both sides come together in an effort to make the economy a little bit more human. As you noted, their fin techs like acorn are already using helix. So so how are companies then, you know, actually implementing this technology to one's current offerings And then what's the consumer experience like? Yeah, that's a great question. Um for the first piece of it we have basically an ap I first core that's built in the cloud. And so these companies basically code to our technology using the standard rest api calls and they partner with one of our partner banks to basically launch these banking services when it comes to the experience though. It's highly custom and highly personal. So I talked about a handful of those companies, Those companies are looking at their overall ecosystem. Thinking about how can I build something unique that solves a real problem for my customers and building an experience around that. So when you look at some of those products today in the market, they might look a little unique and feel a little bit different because those companies have spent a ton of time thinking about how to build a unique experience on top of our api platform. What are the challenges then? You know, that comes with kind of making banking and financing more personable for users. Yeah, it's a great question. I think historically consumer banking has been a bit of a one size fits all right, you get product A or product B. And the only thing that determines which one you get is how much money you have, the reality is you and I are different and so is everybody else and people have unique needs and unique problems. But the challenge has been the technology until now didn't allow companies or banks to necessarily build around the specific needs of each user. It caused them to retrofit these consumers into existing products. So by evolving that platform right? By building something that lets companies use the unique context. They have to build customized products down for each user. We're trying to make finance a little bit more personal and make it more human where the companies understand you and they build products that actually serve what you're looking to serve today. You know, considering some of the trends that we have seen in this space, I wonder, you know, is more products and services enter the market. Is there a concern that companies are going to have to continuously just do more to engage and retain customers just outside of bolstering their technology? I think that's a great question. I mean if you rewind just five years, the only people that launched banking products were banks, but today if you look across the market you'll see square and credit karma and chime and Affirm and Apple and all these other companies that are launching financial products. The reality is platforms like Helix have made it possible for these companies to launch banking for the first time. And so over the last five years until the next few years you'll see more and more companies offer these financial product as that happens. What becomes critical is not just acquiring customers but as you said, retaining them right, engaging them and that comes down to two things, differentiation and personalization, right? Because think about it right five years from now let's say there's 100 different options that you as a consumer can sign up for. Are you gonna sign up for something that is the exact same as everything else that one size fits all products? Probably not. Right. What's gonna make you sign up is a product that is unique that solves your unique problems right? That's a differentiation point. The 2nd point is around personalization. If you zoom out and you look at the tech industry, think about some of the products that you use the most right, whether that's netflix or Tiktok or Youtube or google or facebook, these products understand you right? They understand you because you've had a relationship with them for years. And so when you go on netflix, you might see the same content that I'm seeing. But because netflix knows I like comedy and you like action, it'll show you different pictures and different texts based off of who you are. Right? So we're trying to bring that evolution to finance as you look at these kinds of products in banking. Historically, we haven't necessarily considered the context that we have about you. And so by personalizing the product to each person, right? By giving me something that's unique to Wuhan and not just to my broader demographic, I'm much more likely to use it. So in that future world of increased competition, the people that have unique products that actually solve for people's needs and that build the relationship with the customer with these hyper personal products, those are the people that are going to succeed. We have just seen to your point there the growth of Fintech, right? Um, and, and based on that technological advancement, that continuous kind of personalization given the trend that we've seen and the kind of predictions you make kind of for the future, where do you see the future of technology and the financial space? Yeah, great question 1st, I think products are going to get more personalized right whether it be those tech companies or now these financial companies we as consumers are starting to expect that our products, whether they be entertainment and news or they be food or they be social media, but they understand us that they are personalized to us and that that makes it more useful. So I think you'll start to see that friend across industries, whether that's in the technology industry, in the fintech industry or beyond because that's what's gonna drive that engagement and stick Yeah. The second thing is the definition of money is going to change. 10 years ago, currency was always fiat and banking was always offered at banks today. You're seeing new companies that you would never imagine to launch financial services coming out with banking, products, credit products and beyond. And you're seeing Cryptocurrency change the face of how currency interacts in a modern day environment as you look into future years, expect to see companies that you wouldn't imagine from insurance to gaming. Like you were just talking about Microsoft to tech companies and beyond. Start to reimagine what finance looks like in their ecosystem and offer you brand new products, you didn't think would exist. And finally, there's this concept of the underserved across the United States which are tens of millions of people that are living either without financial services or with services that don't really serve their needs. Our goal is in these partnerships with these kinds of innovative companies to eventually eliminate the problem of the underserved. So every person, no matter how much money they have or where they live, can get access to human centric financial services that understands them and treat them like a real person. Glad to bring up that ladder point because it's something that I don't think we focus on as much. But in some parts of the country, one in 10 Americans don't have banking systems or access to banking. And so whether it's a geographical issue or service issue, um there are solutions that that that need to be catered towards them and certainly that presents opportunities for many companies. Really appreciate your inside a han Sarkar, General Manager for Q two.