The LHoFT Foundation, Temenos, Cisco, Deloitte Luxembourg and Telindus come together to launch FIN5LAB: a platform to drive faster Fintech procurement
Today at the Paris Fintech Forum, Temenos, the world’s leading banking software vendor; Cisco, a worldwide leader in IT solutions; Deloitte Luxembourg, one of the Luxembourg’s largest professional services firms, Telindus, part of Proximus group, a leading ICT provider in Luxembourg as well as the LHoFT Foundation, together are launching the FIN5LAB: a due diligence, connectivity and testing platform to help the financial services industry in its’ efforts to work more effectively with Fintech firms.
FIN5LAB aims to create a trusted standard for pre-evaluation of solutions enabling financial institutions to skip or at least shortcut elements of their procurement process. The platform is designed to facilitate access, lower costs, deliver more efficiency, and lower risk for institutions, while expediting the implementation of solutions.
According to research from Temenos, the procurement process at financial institutions, particularly banks, can take up to 18 months with a further 18 months of integration effort before a Fintech solution can go live. The unwieldy processes and sales cycle creates significant issues for Fintech firms in relation to cash flow, resource allocation and growth, as well as putting financial institutions at a competitive disadvantage to others that are finding ways to speed to up their procurement process and are becoming more agile.
Ben Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer at Temenos states: “This joint certification service greatly boosts our MarketPlace value proposition by giving clients additional assurance over the curation and integration work we do and as such we hope that it will accelerate the exchange of value between banks and fintechs.”
“We are convinced that the development of a secure agile testing platform for start-ups and larger organizations will lead to a faster adoption of innovative solutions, thus generating a new dynamic in the financial sector“, says Jacques Ruckert, Director, Solutions & Innovation at Telindus.
FIN5LAB is a dedicated sandbox for Fintech solutions to connect to the Temenos core banking system. The infrastructure will soon be made available in a regulated and secure environment hosted by Telindus in Luxembourg utilizing Cisco servers’ technology to meet the specific outsourcing needs of financial institutions.
“We are proud to provide our technology and expertise to give fintech start-ups an easier take-off in Luxembourg. Cisco will provide highly secure systems and software to help them connect more easily to the financial market, accelerate deployment of their fintech software, all whilst reducing cyber risks. Fintech is one of the four pillars of our 3-year Country Digitization Programme that Cisco has undertaken to support Luxembourg”, says Romain Siebenaler, Country Manager Luxembourg for Cisco.
Deloitte Luxembourg will offer a variety of due diligence checks, which can be requested by the Fintech and / or institutional customers and deliver a report on the solution. The options can vary from a simple diligence questionnaire to full scale testing on the connectivity, robustness, scalability and security of the Fintech solution connected to the FIN5LAB environment.
“Deloitte is convinced that the Fin5Lab will benefit both Fintech startups and incumbent financial institutions. Our due diligence will allow Fintechs to demonstrate the technological validity of their solution and thus reduce the integration risk for financial institutions”, says Patrick Laurent, Technology & Innovation Leader at Deloitte Luxembourg.
“We have brought together a fantastic group of leading companies to help solve a critical issue in financial services; the inefficient and costly process of procuring new technology. We aim to help both Fintech firms and their institutional clients to optimise the process of implementing new Fintech services”, says Nasir Zubairi, CEO of the LHoFT.
The FIN5LAB is now operating its first pilot projects and it is expected to be fully operational by the start of March this year.