Why QED invested in Plumery

At its core, Plumery enables banks to implement new digital banking applications in a faster, cheaper and less disruptive manner. Rather than replacing them, Plumery sits on top of core banking platforms, letting banks launch digital customer interfaces that are state of the art in a manner that feels more like an evolution and not a revolution from the bank’s implementation perspective.

One of the key strengths and value propositions of Plumery is that it is bilingual – speaking both “fintech” and “bank” at a native level proficiency. Their implementation layer thus serves as a bridge, or a Lingua Franca, that enables big banks to quickly launch the types of customer experiences that the modern user nowadays takes for granted.

In the next chapter of fintech, we believe these kinds of digital bridge builders will enable cutting edge product and UX innovations to be distributed globally much more rapidly and at lower cost.

A lot of what happened during what we at QED refer to as “Chapter 1 of Fintech” was dominated by a narrative that saw banks as old fashioned, slow, legacy institutions that were having their lunches eaten by faster, nimbler and more innovative fintechs.

Of course, there was a lot of validity to this storyline. The aftershocks of the 2008 financial crisis were reverberating violently, and banks were suffering under a series of painful, and sometimes existential, body blows. Their capital was eroded by losses taken during the financial crisis. Their brands were tarnished by the subprime mortgage meltdown. Regulators were all over them, and new rules around affordability, KYC and onboarding had created additional layers of red tape that were hampering innovation and agility.

Into this environment came the Apple iPhone launch, and before long, billions of consumers started shifting their gaze and attention to their mobile devices. Newly sprung-up and hungry fintechs were quick to adapt to this emerging matrix, and before long, banks were now also seeing their distribution channels move from branches to on-the-go mobile phones. The new game was to capture eyeballs, not footfall.  

We all know some of the epic companies that came out of this chapter, and QED helped shape many of these household names – NuBank, Credit Karma and Klarna are just a few examples where QED invested, sat on the boards and guided transformative strategies.

At the same time, fintech will never succeed as a separate industry from traditional finance. As fintech’s have scaled they have partnered with incumbent banks or sought their own regulatory licenses and charters. The good news is that banks are moving toward fintech experiences at the same time.

Now, as we enter Chapter 2, banks have now shaken off the worst aftershocks of the global financial crisis and with higher rates are actually seeing their profit pools increase. As they look around to deploy their increasing earnings, we see them being increasingly ready to adapt innovative solutions such as Plumery that provide the best of both worlds in the “buy” vs. “build” decision.

Ben Goldin knows both sides of this ledger from his time building the tech and product stack at Mambu where he was the CPO/CTO.  The core insight of Plumery is that building like a fintech doesn’t just mean updated colors and mobile forms, it also means a nimble and responsive approach to data. Plumery enables their partners to understand customer behavior in real time, allowing them to deliver better experiences as well as more modern approaches to fraud and risk.

And the nature of the Plumery platform means that it is cross-border from day one, and can be deployed in a bank in the Phillipines or UAE just as easily as a bank in Germany.  

At QED, we also take pride in being able to speak both “bank” and “fintech” and have strong relationships with not just the biggest global fintechs, but also the biggest global banks across many continents.

We are therefore very excited to help Plumery on its journey to combine the best both of these worlds have to offer under one roof, as we help write the next chapter of global fintech innovation together.