Monica Millares: [00:00:00] Hi Hugh, it is an absolute pleasure having you in the show. I'm really looking forward for to our conversation. How are you today? And welcome.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): Hey, Monica. Yeah, all good. Thank you. And it's yeah, it's nice to see you again after well, after so many, many years.

Monica Millares: I know it's been like, Time flies. Let's not even count how many years, but it's like time flies.

So, well, I really appreciate your time and wisdom. Like we've worked together and basically I know your style. And I was like, Oh, that's why we also want to have you because like, I know you're right. But not everybody does. gritties of who you are and what you do, can you explain to us like what has been the role of purpose?

In your life and in the business.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): So honestly, this is perhaps the most difficult question because for large parts of my life, and [00:01:00] I'm kind of ashamed to say this, I don't think I've been particularly purpose driven at all, or if I have, it hasn't necessarily been some great big lofty purpose. I think the thing, if I look back, most of the decisions I've, I've made through my life around my first job and kind of career moves and things like that were mostly driven by a couple of things.

And it was, it was being with people. That I really liked and got energized by. So I always kind of got motivated by being part of great teams and doing things that were interesting. I kind of only realized this later on in my career when I look back and it's like, Oh, that's, that's the theme. So I, I bounced around and ended up kind of creating a bit of a niche.

Cause I spent a lot of time kind of developing and building new businesses. And with that new teams and, and, and the thing, as, as I thought about it, it was about being with people that really energized me and doing really [00:02:00] interesting new things. I get bored very quickly. Although now I'm, you know, I'm kind of getting a lot older now.

I've got like grown up kids and things like that. And you do think a lot more. So the business now, I think we're very thoughtful about purpose. And. It is about trying to kind of leverage technology to have a really positive impact on society and economies and solve hard problems. I mean, we can only play a small part, there's a really clear purpose.

And it's the first time in my life I've ever had a kind of a, a job where it is very purpose driven before it was more about actually. Being with great people and doing things that were fun, and even outside of work, it's always been the same thing. It's kind of being with people that give me energy.

Monica Millares: Yeah. But it seems like, well, even though you don't call it purpose, it was a little bit like what you loved was like people who [00:03:00] give you energy and it, it, it wasn't like, that's what gave you kind of that feeling of. Yeah. I don't know if the right word is purpose, but there was, it was maybe connection.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): That's right. So it wasn't. And I was thinking about it. Purpose is all about some great big sort of need to do well for the world and, and kind of now we're working sort of in that direction. But yeah, for a lot of my life, it was more about do things that just excite me and inspire me. And that was about.

Being with great people and doing with things, doing things that were really, really interesting. And maybe if you call that purpose, then yeah, that was, that that's been it. Yeah.

Monica Millares: Yeah. But I like that because like some people, I feel some people are like, especially, I don't know, I mean, like Nelson Yates said, it's like, Oh, purpose, purpose, purpose.

I'm on the first one, right? The podcast, it's like purpose, Ruben, Fintech, but still it's like, there is somehow a little bit of pressure that it's like, Oh, are you doing something for everyone? And you're like. [00:04:00] No, I'm just like, having fun with good people. And that gives me like, joy.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): But as part of that, you're kind of, so one thing I've always really...

Like enjoyed is one of the best feelings is if you build, build, you're building teams and you're working with teams and everyone feels a bit better as a, as a result of being part of that team you all making each other better, you're inspiring people. That's a great feeling. I guess that's purpose.

You're having a positive impact on, on, on those around you. So yeah, they're probably, there's probably far more purpose in it than I've ever, I've ever considered.

Monica Millares: I like that, yes, because it's like working with people, it's, yeah, it has impact when everyone around you, it's like having a good, it's just like work is like what we do all day.

Right. I

Huw Davies (Ozone API): mean, that's it. It's so much of your time, but it's also so much of kind of. It's one of the biggest things that influences your kind of well [00:05:00] being and your development and all that. Now, of course you get all of that from time with family and friends and all of these sorts of things. But when it's good, it has a massively positive impact on kind of your well being, your confidence, your development, all of those things.

When it's going badly, yeah, it's a complete counter. So yeah, now we're having this conversation, I'm feeling much more purposeful. Yes, yes.

Monica Millares: Good, good, good, good. Okay. We've gone like seven minutes into what's purpose or not purpose. Can you tell us about like you and it's like, what does Ozone API and you do?

Huw Davies (Ozone API): Yeah, sure. So, I mean, my background, I've been in, in banking and financial services for a long time now, nearly 27 years. The last six years or so, I've been involved in kind of driving this open banking, open finance movement. And number of years ago, I was part of the so the UK created this implementation entity the [00:06:00] regulator created it to design and deliver open banking.

I was part of that and led the development of the ecosystem. And that's where I met Chris and Freddie, the other two co founders of Ozone API. And that's where we started our journey. And they're probably. kind of two drivers around the journey. One is I think we all had a view that this shift towards open finance and open data could be massively transformational for economies and societies and, and, and, and really drive a positive impact.

But at the same time, we were seeing firsthand how difficult the banks were finding it to do this. So a lot of the banks had invested huge amounts in digital transformation and they were building all these internal APIs and connecting systems. And the view was, well, this is just more APIs. We can do this.

And without fail, I think every single one of them found it much more complex than they expected. Took far longer, cost an awful lot more. Some of them honestly struggled to do a really good job. So we [00:07:00] saw that there was a real need for technology. To take away the complexity of delivering great APIs.

So that's what we set out to do. So we built a technology platform and we help banks and financial institutions around the world, deliver their, their open APIs to meet regulation where it exists, but also to give them the tools. So they can really turn it into a channel that works for them. And we also work with central banks and regulators to help them Deliver open banking and open finance initiatives at a country level.

Monica Millares: That is very, I guess, like broad and specific at the same time. Can you expand, let's say if I'm a bank and I know you work in Brazil. So if I'm a bank, well, if I work in a bank in Brazil and I'm like, we have a mandate from the seed levels and it's like, yes, yes, yes. This open banking project, but it's just.

That line, right? It's like [00:08:00] open banking project. We need to do open banking because that's the thing of the future, of the present. What, what does it mean? Like, why should I go to Huw and it's like, you helped me with open banking APIs, what does that mean? Like for the people who are not that close to it?

Huw Davies (Ozone API): Yeah. So I mean, in a number of markets like Brazil, this is being driven by regulation in, in a number of markets it's happening anyway. Without regulation, but but take Brazil as an example. Yeah, the, the central bank had a really clear vision. They defined a set of regulations in a framework and all of the banks are having to implement open banking.

That means they're having to deliver API's that allow Access to a customer's accounts to get information or to make payments, but with that customer's consent now for a bank, that means all of a sudden they have to deliver APIs that are open to the outside world, a [00:09:00] set of trusted. Parties, but open to the outside world now.

Traditionally, the banking model is very much a sort of vertical supply chain where the banks own all of the channels. If you go into a bank branch, it's the bank's branch. The bank's mobile app is the bank's mobile app. So delivering. Open APIs that others can connect to and build on top of is a, is a real departure from the traditional model of kind of being a real closed vault or walled garden or, or, or whatever you want to say and it brings some real complexity.

So, so what banks have to do, they have to implement these APIs and usually. They have to meet regulation. They might have to be in line with specific standards and security protocols. There's a huge amount of complexity. So they've got to expose these APIs that meet the standards, meet the regulations.

They've got to deal with the security considerations. The complexity of handling all of this consent between [00:10:00] a customer and a third party. They've, they've got to deal with all these third parties that they don't necessarily, they don't have a relationship with them. So there's a huge amount of complexity.

So what we do is we effectively bring all that in a box. We built a thin, but very specialist technology layer that can sit on top of any banking technology stack and take away all of the hard bits. So the bank just exposes kind of, here's an API that. Does the kind of provides the information in, in our core banking platform, and we just plug on top and do all of the hard stuff and help them deliver their, their open APIs.

And we're doing that with banks and financial institutions all around the world.

Monica Millares: Yes, I loved how you explained that because it's kind of like the simplest explanation in internet right now. Like it is, it is like, because I think the term, and I'll, I'll ask that next, that it's like the term open APIs.

It's like, it's all over the internet, well, in our industry. Right. But it's like, if you're not working in an [00:11:00] open API project, you just hear about it. But you don't really know what that means in detail. And you explained it like beautifully, basically, as a financial institution, we used to be like closed ecosystems, let's say with our technology stack and our branches and our customer, and that's it.

It was very closed. And now by definition, we're opening up the doors to work with other financial institutions. And so we need to do it with like. Specific protocols, taking into account technology risks, security, this, the other, and it can be very complex. And basically you help with that complexity. So we're like, Oh, forget about that complexity.

Let's use this solution in a box. It makes it easy for you as a bank or a fintech. Yeah. And that's beautiful, beautiful explanation. But then if we go deeper, like the industry has grown a lot in terms when it comes to the word open and we have like open banking, open finance, open [00:12:00] data. Can you expand on what are the differences between these terms?

Huw Davies (Ozone API): Yeah, sure. And it, I mean, there's, there's a huge amount of. Like any part of our industry, almost industries, there's a huge amount of acronyms and terminology and, and often it's unintentionally, but it's designed to confuse. Now the reality is the, the, the, the core constructs is the same. This is about as a customer I have.

Information here and my life becomes better if I can share that with this platform over here. So for example, my, my company we, we have a number of different bank accounts with different banks and we use Xero as an accounting platform. Our, our life becomes a lot better if we can get all of our financial information into, into Xero and manage all of our finances in one place.

It's kind of a simple concept. Now in the open banking landscape. That's really [00:13:00] about, it's, that's, that's focused on specific bank products. So opening up access to transactional bank accounts and transactional savings accounts. And it's a, it's a scope of products. And this is where the, the regulation in, in Europe, almost kind of set some initial definitions with the UK and PSD too, that was all about.

bank accounts. But if, if you think about yourself as a customer, yeah, you have bank accounts, you might have credit cards, mortgage, pension, investments. To understand your total position, you want to see all of those. Now, open finance typically refers to all financial products. So in Brazil right now, open finances is, is rolling ahead and we're in the open insurance phase at the moment.

And, and there'll be other phases covering investment and pensions and things like that. So that's kind of open banking to open finance, but more broadly, there's a whole load of other useful [00:14:00] data. In other parts of my life, whether I'm a person or a business that can kind of help link things together.

So a broader open data economy creates sort of secure consent based access to drive value from, from, from sharing information and doing things differently. So as a, as a different example, you imagine if you were able to share your health data and health records when you're setting up a health insurance policy.

All of a sudden things become a lot easier. You're not having to list out every, every medical intervention you've ever had. Things just get easier and they get more accurate. So open data really across sort of multiple sectors and we're seeing that already in Australia with the consumer data, right? Is, is covering multiple sectors, not just banking and financial services.

So it's the same concept, secure, consent [00:15:00] based authorization to do something, but it's really about the scope of what it's covering. Yes.

Monica Millares: And I love that you use these two words that it's like basically consent based and authorization of usage of my data. Because one of the, the key questions that comes to my mind as I listen, and I'm a customer.

It's like, Ooh, especially in the open data scenario, that it's like, Oh, now in the insurance, you have access to all my previous data. It's scary. Right. It's more of a, how do we bring that part of like, yes, you as a customer, you're giving. Consent to share your personal data across different parts of your life.

If we talk about open data in this case, like, yes, my financial life, but also my medical life. And in theory, it should help me. get better service and get better access. But at the same time, it makes me a bit quote unquote scared that my [00:16:00] data will be

Huw Davies (Ozone API): misused. Yeah. And this is, this is such an important part of it because it has to be built.

So there's some really, really fundamental foundations of this. Cause I mean, as, as, as individuals, as consumers right now, we probably share far more about ourselves than we realize we do. We do it blindly with kind of lining up to T's and C's and cookies and all sorts of stuff. Fundamental kind of foundations of this move towards open banking and open finance, open data are a few sort of core principles.

So. Based on consent, and that needs to be very sort of fine grained and granular. So for example if I'm giving, I'm going through a mortgage application at the moment, if it makes the process much quicker and easier to give one time access to my account information. rather than send all of these statements and lists of all my income and outgoings.

Right. That [00:17:00] adds a huge amount of value for me, but that consent needs to be very sort of fine grained. It's these bits of information on this one time. Whereas in the other scenario I talked about, we want the access between the bank, the company bank accounts. And our accounting platform to be always on.

So we get all that transactional balance information and we can manage our, our business better. So really fine grained consent that the customer's in control of. They, they give the consent initially, but they can revoke the consent at any point. So consent is key, but it also needs to be built on trust.

So you need real trust that, so in this, this, this three party model, there's, there's, there's me, there's the account provider, that might be my bank, and there's the service I'm using. There needs to be really, really clear trust so that everybody knows that the other party are who they say they are.

And they have the [00:18:00] authorization to play the role. So a core part of the design of all of the API standards and the security model is about establishing that trust, making sure that before any access is given, it's a hundred percent certain that third party is who they say they are. Through digital certificates, and they have the right to play the role they're playing.

Access my account information, for example so you need you need the consent. You need it to be built on a platform of trust, and the regulation forms a big part of that by sort of authorizing who can play which roles. But then you need it to be built on really strong technical foundations, which means.

Really strong standards and security protocols. But implemented really well through the technology but yeah, you, you're right. Cause this isn't just a, I mean, we've all seen the previous sort of Cambridge analytics scandals around Facebook data and, and I don't [00:19:00] know how a lot of data about myself is being used.

What I can be absolutely certain of though, is in an open banking scenario. I have complete control. I don't have that anywhere else in, in, in how my data is being used. In any media platforms and all of these things.

Monica Millares: Yes. Because like, I guess like the three key points that you raised are like, there's different use cases.

One that it's like, I give you access to check my data once in the case of the mortgage application, you can look at my data once. Or I give you access, I give you consent to use my data multiple times until I say like no, I don't want to share my data anymore. And I can basically can withdraw the consent anytime and on top of that, it's like what you're worth.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): I was going to say there's actually, sorry, there's there's, there's sort of 3 big blocks of capability that enable all of these use cases. So, [00:20:00] yeah, 1 is around access to information. So that might be 1 time, for example, in that mortgage application or ongoing for financial management. So, but it could also be beyond just simple transaction data.

It could be banks have invested a whole load of time validating my identity. They could help me with things like address, validation or identity validation. These are great sort of value adding services, but that's about access to information. There's then the sort of foundations around getting this consent and authorization.

To move money on my behalf. So payment initiation, that might be a one time payment. That might be an ongoing payment relationship. That might be a future payment. It might be approving a bulk set of payments for payroll. Kind of an API powered way of embedding payments in, in, in, in different journeys.

And again, it's the one time, it's ongoing, but it's always kind of based on consent and clear rules around what can and [00:21:00] can't happen. There's actually a third set, which kind of one of the other phrases that's constantly used in our industry at the moment is embedded finance. So these APIs are a key tool for how banks can leverage their balance sheet and their products and get them embedded.

In third party journeys in the right place at the right time. Embedded finance today is largely about specialist embedded finance players with APIs and they're competing against the banks. If banks can expose APIs that allow things like, so payment initiation is, is giving permission to do something on my behalf, make a payment.

It could also be giving permission. To take other actions on my behalf. That might be requesting a credit line. It might be creating a letter of guarantee. It could be any service you can do through a bank could be exposed through an API. And all of a sudden that allows all of the traditional banks through a great set of APIs.

to [00:22:00] embed what they do in, in digital journeys in the right place at the right time with the right context. So you've got those three constructs, access to information, the ability to initiate a payment and the ability to initiate other stuff.

Monica Millares: Yes. I love that, that you've raised the word embedded finance because exactly that is, that it's everywhere right now.

But it's true. It's because like open banking is enabling all this set of journeys that if I let's say a retail shop, I wouldn't be able to give you credit just like that because I'm not a bank, but I kind of. Can partner with financial institutions, whether that's a bank or a fintech, whomever is using this technology to then make the journey seamless to my customer, that it's a retail customer.

And then just like make the experience easier so that then they can exactly have the credit checked on, get the savings, [00:23:00] get a mix of savings and lending together. Like we can start being more creative on how we create better experiences. Outside of the thinking process of, Oh, I need to apply for a loan.

Oh, I need to open a bank. It's more of a, I'm out and about doing my life. And then the solution is just there for me. Yeah. Rather than me thinking about a financial product.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): Yeah. It's the, it's about right place, right time, right context. So I get back to that accounting platform. If, if all of that information's in there and it becomes really visible that there's I don't know, there's a cash crunch coming up.

Cause there's a bunch of planned. Payables, some of the invoices are coming in late, actually, if the bank's able to, with the accounting platform in bed there there's a, there's an opportunity to provide a, an additional credit line for a period of time. Well, that's so much easier than noticing the problem, going away to my bank, having a conversation coming.

So, [00:24:00] yeah, it provides the tools, I think, for the banks to really thrive in a. world of digital platforms. So yeah, we're, we're, we're really passionate about that stuff. Often open banking, open finance. It's seen as a compliance project. So I have to do this to tick the compliance. Well, when you've got regulation particularly but there's such an opportunity, get this channel right.

It becomes NetWest have done a good job of this in the UK. And I remember seeing one of the NetWest exec and he, he, he didn't pull his punches. He just said, we're having to invest in this cause this is the future of our bank. It won't be all about going into a branch or going into your bank's mobile app.

It's about making sure the products and services can be where your customer needs them in the right place at the right time. And that's about having a really good API platform. Yes.

Monica Millares: Definitely. And then I guess like you've [00:25:00] raised two topics, well, not two topics, two countries, UK and have like clients in different parts of the world and a team across the world.

What was your journey? Like how did you move from just UK centric to from basically one geography to multiple geographies and what have been the regulatory challenges?

Huw Davies (Ozone API): Yeah, it's so it's a good, it's a good question and it's always much easier to sort of post event kind of paint the picture. But the reality is this, this, this sort of open banking, open finance, open data thing is happening right across the world.

It's inevitable. It's happening in many, many geographies. And there are differences. The regulation in UK looks a little bit different than the regulation right across Europe that looks a bit different than the regulation in Brazil and in Bahrain. And however, the fundamental foundations and principles are pretty similar.

And what we've done is we've built. We had a very clear view at the beginning. If we've built [00:26:00] the core platform, right, all these different standards and regulations, then just become a different set of market facing APIs on top. The core capabilities you need are in concept management, dealing with third parties and creating great developer experience and all of these things.

Those needs are consistent across every market that this is happening. So what we needed to do was look at how do we become. The best and fastest at supporting all of these different standards that are emerging around the world. But also piecing together the best of what all of those standards enabled so that we can give banks and FIs the tools to do more than just comply and deliver value adding APIs that help their business.

But we were, I mean, yeah, all of our initial customers were in the UK myself and Chris. Did quite a lot of talking around the world because of the roles that we've been in sort of designing open banking in the UK. And we were fortunate. We met a great [00:27:00] partner in Brazil, and that created a route.

So as a technology company. We were never going to be able to put people on the ground everywhere in the world where this is happening. So core part of our strategy is to develop strategic partnerships with players who are much better position than we could ever be to, to get to market. We can bring a depth of expertise and a technology platform that, that no one else has but we can't have the reach and the influence that.

All these, all of these, these potential and current partners have. So yeah, for getting into Brazil with one, we needed the right partner. We got in very early. So we were, we were there way ahead of the regulation coming in. And we worked together with, with our partner to develop the market strategy and drive engagement around a technical proof of concept and all of this sort of stuff.

But we then had to work really hard to support the Brazilian standards within our platform with our background [00:28:00] in designing standards and building reference implementation to the standards. So we're really good at adding new standards quickly. And we've done that all around the world. But yeah, I mean, the reason we've been able to do it, we've built core platform where most of it.

It doesn't change wherever you are in the world. It's just the top layer sort of market facing standards bit that changes. And for us, they're just more API sets. We've every, every sort of week, every month, we're adding more API sets on the top, but the core is the same. So that's helped us along with having kind of a partner centric go to market strategy.

That's allowed us to serve banks in a whole series of different countries whilst. As you pertain in a fairly small and capital efficient organization.

Monica Millares: Yes. And that, that leads me like to two questions, but let's start with a capital efficient [00:29:00] organization. You, well, you mentioned the other day that it's like, you're good on your way to profitability.

If not, you're already profitable. That's impressive.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): We're not quite there yet. We're

Monica Millares: not quite there yet, but you're in the path.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): Yes. Yeah, we've, we've been really thoughtful about this. So, I mean, there are a few ways you can grow a startup. You can have an idea, go and get loads of investment and, and, and, and pray you're going to find revenue.

And, and there are a lot in, in our industry that have taken that approach and it really works for, for some, we started with a. A real expertise and a product that we knew was working. So the first thing we built was a reference implementation banking in the UK. And that became the market sandbox because we saw the banks were struggling.

We built a reference implementation kind of as a bit of a side project to show how it should be done that became the official sandbox, but we realized we'd built this thin technology layer that [00:30:00] it was set on a model bank, but you could sit it on any bank's technology stack to help them deliver this.

So. We start with a, we, we knew how to depth of expertise. We had a product that was really working and a revenue model that's based on licensed revenues, not based on some future usage. There's, there's a bit of that, but but a lot of the businesses in the open banking space are based on. So particularly on the.

The, the third party side, the consumption side, connecting to banks, APIs to power, things like payment initiation. A lot of the revenue is future promise, not current. Our business model, we're providing a technology platform that solves a real problem now and therefore generates licensed revenue. So we're able to create a model where there's kind of defined a very clear revenue and we've been pretty efficient because we've had a small number of.

Very, very [00:31:00] expert engineers, people who were involved in designing this from, from the outset. So, yeah, we've been, we've been fortunate. We've also been very considered in and not going crazy with spending. We've been. Exceptionally tight in some areas. I'd love to spend more money in certain areas, but we've, we've intentionally not done that because we wanted to, to build organically in a, in a sensible way.

And now we've, yeah, I think now we've, I mean, this is a global market. I think we've proven the product market fit in multiple geographies and jurisdictions and supporting all these different standards. So now we're really excited about just continuing to scale as this gets ever more global.

Monica Millares: Yeah, exactly.

And you just said like, Hey, we have product market fit. Now it's time to grow, which leads me then like your product team. I was going to ask, what do they do? But let me, let me have a guess on what did they do? You have a core [00:32:00] functionality. And then basically you are adding more and more functionality on top of the.

Or basically the functionality to adapt to certain markets or certain use cases. And that's what the product team, well, product and tech team is going to be doing. Yeah,

Huw Davies (Ozone API): no, that's pretty much,

Monica Millares: yeah, no, that's a really, that,

Huw Davies (Ozone API): that's a really insightful kind of articulation of, of, of what we do. So yeah, there's the core.

So the core handles all of the kind of complexity around the consent management and things like that. A lot of the roadmap is in a, in a few areas. So obviously continuing to improve the core and create more efficient sort of deployments and architecture and things like that, but the, the stuff that's more apparent so one is continuing to add more and more API sets that's driven by an ever increasing number of global standards and new versions of them and delivering premium and value adding API sets, [00:33:00] some of the things I talked about earlier.

But then we've got, there's, there's all of the admin portal and capabilities. So the tools that the bank needs to actually manage this channel, do their reporting to the regulator, oversee and manage the performance of the channel potentially authorize new third parties and all of this sort of stuff.

So there's the administration layer and then there's the, the developer facing platform as well, because each bank. We help them deliver a great developer experience with the right documentation and kind of how to guides and sample code. So there's, there's, there's all those API sets that continually growing, but then there's making sure that they, the end user facing, and that's.

Admin on the bank side, developers on there, the outside world, all of the tools that they need are continuing to to improve and, and it's a big agenda because I'd say this is happening all around the world. There are already well over [00:34:00] 20 different global open banking standards. There are multiple versions of each of them.

I think 30 odd different versions in the UK, including all of the minor minor versions. So it's, I mean, you need, there's, there's, there's kind of power in knowledge and power in expertise. And I think that's one of the things we, we bring, we know this space better than anyone else. So we can kind of deal with all that complexity, hopefully quicker than anyone else.

So the, the product team and the product organization, it's a very engineering heavy business and we've kind of broken it up into. Yes. Callback and the infrastructure and kind of engineering around that. And then the kind of the, the admin portal, the developer portal, and all of the UX components. So, but then we have a product and we've got a great head of product that we, we brought in last year.

And that's given us an amount of discipline in terms of product roadmap that we desperately [00:35:00] needed. And so we got really good discipline in terms of planning what we're delivering and prioritizing all of the different demands. So, and, and he, the If any in the delivery and the product team play a great role in acting as that bridge between what the market's demanding, which is coming from our partners, coming from kind of the commercial team and the engineering team who are building and delivering.

So that they, they act as a really important bridge. To understand, to translate, to prioritize, to coordinate, and that kind of constant feedback. And it's really important, I think, for that role. So, again, he's our product head, he's doing an amazing job is really hands on. Into the engineering side of the business and he's really hands on into the client face side of the business.

To an extent I've never seen before, actually. He brings them together. Yeah. Yeah. But, but exceptionally hands on in both sides, [00:36:00] client facing and internal engineering facing. And it's yeah, it's quite a talent. Yeah,

Monica Millares: that is cool. Because he's got like both, both hats in a very strong, strong suit it seems.

Exactly. So what are your biggest challenges then when it comes to product and tech?

Huw Davies (Ozone API): So that's a really good question. So the, the biggest challenges in terms of product and tech, I think are just the amount of. and complexity. So, cause we're operating in so many different markets with so many different partners and clients and across all these different standards, there's a, there's constant change.

So just managing and coordinating and prioritizing that. But to do that, I think you have to have a constant focus on getting more efficient and growing up. So running the business as a. As a product and a platform, not as series of sequential projects so that we've, we've spent a lot over the last, a lot of time and [00:37:00] sort of intellectual focus over the last year or so looking at how do we make the platform ever more efficient.

So each change. Requires less change. And that's been a sort of joint effort between kind of the CTO, the engineering team products. And it's, it's been a, it's been a big focus for the business, but also kind of growing up and going from that startup to a scale up and going through, I mean, going through all of the.

ISO certification and getting all of the policies and processes and everything robust. So there's a lot of growing up do as you start to really scale globally, which is so that the ongoing challenge though is just the amount of activity, but, but it's not just dealing with that. It's how do we become ever more efficient at dealing with it?

The other challenge is just this is more a business rather than the product level is just, so we've got, I think. a unique position. But this is a global market. So how do we make sure [00:38:00] that we continue to move fast enough that there are lots of new players that have come doing something similar to us?

I think we've got a very unique position, but how do we continue to stay ahead? Yes, do that in a way that doesn't involve just spending huge amounts of money. So we have a clear view of where we want to differentiate. And it's about, yeah, just make, making sure we're in the right places with the right partners and focusing our efforts on staying ahead in the areas that we want to be differentiated.

Not it. There are so many opportunities come along. It's really easy to get distracted and diverted. And I think kind of that clear focus is, is really important.

Monica Millares: It's important. Oh, Hugh, I'm loving this conversation. I think I could talk for another hour. We may need to have a part two but very conscious of time.

Like we've gone. Into a lot of depth into the business and open banking and the challenges, how [00:39:00] differentiate if we step back a little bit and we are as a very last question, you, I guess, like you as a fintech company with the work that you do, that you have clients across the world, you can have a lot of impact.

So what can be, what could be the one thing? That you're like, Hey, we as an industry, or I as also know API, if we were to do this, the industry could be better.

Huw Davies (Ozone API): Yeah. And it's almost kind of full circle back to the whole purpose question. So so I, I genuinely believe this shift towards open banking, open finance, open data can have a dramatically positive effect on society and economies.

So, I mean, right now there's still a huge part of the world that is unbanked or underbanked. Creating the right foundations that remove the big cost barriers of the banking industry of today remove the data barriers and all of [00:40:00] these things, I think, can, can genuinely tackle financial inclusion in, in, in many different places.

So, but also I think. I mean, we're seeing some central banks and regulators viewing open finance as a central pillar of societal transformation, the the the, the, the government and the authorities in Saudi Arabia have a really ambitious vision for 2030. To transform society in the economy and open finance is a really important part of that.

It's a driver of economic growth. It's a driver of wealth creation. It's something that can remove barriers and unlock challenges around financial inclusion. So what we want to do is we, we want to accelerate and enable that and see all of those good things happening. We're kind of at the foundational infrastructure layer but that's the end outcome.

And as an industry, there's a, there's a whole bunch of players who all have a, a similar vision and [00:41:00] a similar aim accelerating innovation based around these, these foundations of sort of secure consent based access via APIs. And the end goal, it's not about individual fintechs doing well or, or, PFM propositions, it's about laying the foundations for a genuinely better society where customers have much more control over how they engage with their data, their money, their kind of aspects of their life, but it's laid the foundations to tackle real issues in, in society.

So that's sort of the lofty sort of vision we want to, we want to see happen. We'll play a, we'll play a skit. No, but I genuinely, I genuinely believe it has that potential.

Monica Millares: I love it. And I totally agree with you. Probably that's in line with my vision, not, not as a company, but Monica as a fintecher, that it's like, Hey, [00:42:00] yeah.

What's the vision of the world? It's like, yeah, it's a world where. People except it's, I don't want to use the word financial inclusion, but it's more like people have like good quality of life. Like they can live life with dignity regardless of how much income you have. But it's because we have used finance and technology in a way that enables people to have that better quality of life.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think like as a, as a FinTech community, we're all kind of like going towards that, which is awesome. That's why I love it. That's why I love the FinTech space. Yeah. It has

Huw Davies (Ozone API): impact. Yeah. No, absolutely. I could not agree more. Thank you Hugh. No, it's been my pleasure. I've loved the

Monica Millares: chat, Monica.

Thank you. It's been a fascinating, it's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you. Where can we find more about you?

Huw Davies (Ozone API): So our website, ozoneapi. com anyone can look me up on LinkedIn as well. Always, always keen to continue the conversation, but no, thank you.

Monica Millares: Thank you. It's been [00:43:00] fascinating. Thank you everyone.

And we'll see you next week. Ciao, ciao.