RateSetter CEO warns of ‘risk’ of collaboration over competition

RATESETTER chief executive and co-founder Rhydian Lewis (pictured) has underlined the importance of competition – and not just collaboration – between fintechs and banks for true innovation to occur.

At the Innovate Finance Global Summit at London’s Guildhall, Lewis warned that if the two cohorts solely collaborate, there would be little visible change from the viewpoint of the consumer.

“The technological advances being made are unstoppable; the question is who is going to take them to market,” he said on Monday.

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“Unless a company emerges that is new and becomes a success story rather than just technologies that get embraced…the risk is that the landscape looks the same to the person walking down the high street in 10 years’ time,” he went on to say.

“In other countries, companies grow very quickly and take over the customer relationship in five to 10 years.”

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There have been an increasing number of partnerships between fintech firms and the very incumbents that they are trying to disrupt. US investment bank Goldman Sachs has acquired a number of innovative start-ups through its online lending platform Marcus.

A report released last month from consulting firm Capgemini and corporate networking website LinkedIn found that more than 75 per cent of fintech firms cite collaborating with incumbent firms as their primary business objective.