4 | Money Conf – June 15-16
Belfast Telegraph | 12 June 2015
Contents 05 06 08 10 12
14 15 16 18 19
PUBLISHED BY Belfast Telegraph 124-144 Royal Avenue, Belfast, Co. Antrim BT1 1EB
CONTRIBUTORS Margaret Canning John Mulgrew
Key events
All about Belfast
Fintech
First Derivatives
Ulster Bank
ADVERTISING Jackie Reid – Senior Advertising Manager Tel: 028 90554685 j.reid@belfasttelegraph.co.uk EDITOR Yvette Shapiro business@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
ShopKeep
PayPal
Bitnet
Peter Devine
Ripple Labs
DESIGN Robert Armstrong INM Design Studio, Belfast PRINTING INM, Newry
M
oney makes the world go round. And the world of Fintech is coming to Belfast. Welcome to MoneyConf, a dedicated two-day conference featuring the world’s leading Fintech companies, along with a new wave of start-ups. Business is changing faster than ever. In particular how companies sell, buy, secure, transact, analyse and more, online and offline. We are aiming to make MoneyConf the place to learn and network with these disruptors, and to meet business leaders from forward thinking companies across Europe. In Dublin, we have grown Web Summit from 400 to 22,100 attendees from 110 countries in four years. It’s been described as “Davos for geeks”. And in 2014 we brought together leading companies and organisations like PayPal, Stripe and the Bitcoin Foundation to talk to our attendees about the future of money. More than 50 Fintech startups exhibited. The response was incredible and attendees asked for a standalone conference. So MoneyConf was born, based on the same principles that made Web Summit successful. We use data science to make conferences better – we have a different way of bringing people together which we sometimes call engineering serendipity. While conference companies typically hire experienced event planners, we hire computational physicists and applied statisticians. It turns out that manual approaches to creating and curating events begin to fail as conferences
scale because the permutations a curator needs to consider tend towards infinity. But complement them with technology and you can change the experiences you deliver. We wanted to bring that same formula of legendary networking to Belfast and focus on the fast-evolving vertical of digital payments and Fintech. MoneyConf is about learning from and networking with these companies and amongst peers. What’s more, we believe that conferences shouldn’t be 9 to 5. Networking by night is something we very much focus on. In Belfast there will be dinners, parties and pub crawls across three evenings and we hope attendees of all types, from investors to speakers to startups, will take the opportunity to enjoy the buzz and historic surroundings of Belfast. We hope to see you in Belfast and perhaps somewhere else soon.
Paddy Cosgrave, CEO Web Summit
12 June 2015 | Belfast Telegraph
Money Conf – June 15-16 | 5
THE KEY EVENTS
F
or two exciting, stimulating, knowledge-packed and challenging days in June, Belfast’s Titanic Quarter will be the centre of the FinTech world as MoneyConf makes its debut in the city. MoneyConf – the sister event of Web Summit, Collision, RISE and EnterConf – will blend the innovators, the tech leaders and the investors who are helping to build the money and payments technologies of the 21st century. How individuals, businesses and governments transact is undergoing a fundamental change with innovations transforming every aspect of commerce. The trends that matter and the people behind them will be in Belfast to share their knowledge, their experience and their predictions. It’s a unique opportunity for companies and entrepreneurs to network with thousands of others in the FinTech world and and to discover business-critical innovations. This is where you come to find out the latest intelligence on the future of payments, eCommerce, cryptocurrencies and financial services There’s no shortage of big name speakers at the T13 Hub. These are people whose knowledge, confidence, insights and leadership shape the future direction of the sector. Monday June 15 kicks off with the inspirational Irishman John Collison on
the Center Stage. The Limerick-born, San Francisco-based entrepreneur founded his first start-up as a teenager. Now aged 25, he’s the co-founder, along with his brother Patrick, of the payment processor Stripe. The company’s been valued at more than $1.75bn. Last week, it was announced that Stripe is teaming up with photo-sharing website Pinterest to power the firm’s new “buy” button. If your thing is capital markets, then Center Stage is also the place to be at 1pm. There’ll be perspectives from a three-man crew: Deepak Jain, Head of Operations and Technology at Citibank, will join First
Derivatives founder and CEO Brian Conlon, and Danny Corrigan, the CEO of CME Group. Ismail Ahmed’s fast-growing WorldRemit has taken the money transfer industry by storm, providing convenient, low cost online money transfer across continents. In the past year, WorldRemit’s received a total of $140m backing from top notch investors Accel Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV). Ismael’s speaking on Center Stage at 3.20pm on Monday. MoneyConf will hear much about digital currency, and the man who has the most to say about that is the journalist and
cryptocurrency activist Max Keiser, who’s taking to Center Stage on Tuesday 16 at 12.40pm. Max will be in excellent company on stage with the technology entrepreneur and investor Halsey Minor, CEO of Bitreserve. And Max is back on Center Stage at 4pm on Tuesday to discuss “Bubble Boom or Bubble Burst?” with Toby Coppel, partner in Mosaic Ventures; Kathryn Petralia, cofounder of the online financing and tech company Kabbage, and Bradley Leimer, Santander Bank’s Head of Innovation for North America. On Monday, MoneyConf is opening the doors for a night of learning at T13 Hub. Community Summit is an evening dedicated to showcasing the leading voices from the FinTech world and sharing the secrets of their success. It aims to give the community a first-hand experience of the event and a chance to learn from some of the brightest people in tech. And what about the networking? After all, conferences shouldn’t just be 9 to 5. Belfast’s historic Cathedral Quarter is where delegates will be hanging out, starting with the launch party on Sunday 14 at The Dark Horse in Hill Street. On Monday evening, the action moves to The Dirty Onion, also in Hill Street. This quirky bar started life in 1750 as a whiskey warehouse to store Jameson’s. A good excuse to try a glass or two of the famous tipple and make some new tech friends. Who says the FinTech crowd don’t know how to party?
6 | Money Conf – June 15-16
BELFAST WELCOMES
THE WORLD
Belfast Telegraph | 12 June 2015
T
he world is coming to Belfast and the city is providing a welcome that’s second to none. More than £1bn has been invested in Belfast over the last decade and it’s now one of the fastest growing destinations in Europe for tourism and business. International travel experts are hailing the city as a “must-see” place. Last month, the online travel forum, TripAdvisor, described the city as ‘a cosmopolitan destination’ which has ‘life pulsing through it’. And the influential Lonely Planet guide says Belfast is “a capital that is redefining itself in the eyes of the world”. It’s open for business, too. Last December, Belfast was named the world’s most Business Friendly City of its size by the fDi intelligence division of the FT. Not only that, but it was also named in the world’s top 10 cities for Business Friendliness of any size – beating locations like Dubai and Tokyo. The city is rich with history and culture, pulsating with nightlife and shopping
opportunities, and buzzing with business, innovation, enterprise and investment. Belfast is home to the Titanic story, and to the film set for Game of Thrones. It boasts not one, but two new, award-winning theatres. The rapidly-expanding food scene is attracting international plaudits. Two leading universities – Queen’s and Ulster – have put Belfast on the map for research and innovation. Naturally the tech sector is booming, with start-ups and expanding companies all across the city, but with a growing hub in Titanic Quarter. From the MTV Awards in 2011 to the hugely successful World Police and Fire Games in 2013, last year’s glamorous yet gruelling Giro d’Italia cycle race and its 2015 follow-up, the Gran Fondo, Belfast has proven time and time again that it can host some of the world’s biggest sporting and entertainment events. And when it comes to business events and conferences, Belfast is fast becoming the premier choice. In the past four years,the city has hosted 206 conferences attended by 81,000 delegates, generating £110m for the local economy. Net week, thousands of tech leaders,
investors, entrepreneurs and media will gather here for MoneyConf and EnterConf. Belfast was chosen from a long list of global cities which were vying to secure the landmark .The two events combined represent the largest ever conference programme to be held in Belfast and will be coordinated with similar tech gatherings in Las Vegas and Hong Kong. Visit Belfast hopes the events will be expanded in future years. Chief executive Gerry Lennon said: “Securing events such as MoneyConf and EnterConf don’t just simply bring delegate numbers and local economic impact –they bring new, powerful opportunities to showcase and reinforce Belfast’s winning welcome, its world class facilities and attractions, unique and diverse culture, and award-winning hospitality. “International conferences are vitally important for our tourism development – delegates tend to stay longer, explore and spend more when they are here, and their positive experiences are more widely felt.” Visit Belfast, is on course to more than double the number of leisure and business overnight stays from 290,000
12 June 2015 | Belfast Telegraph
to 690,000 within three years. Ambitious and sophisticated marketing campaigns – particularly targeting the business and international conference market – are expected to deliver a record return to the local economy. This effort will be boosted by the £30m expansion of the Waterfront Hall, due to open in 2016. Belfast Lord Mayor, councillor Arder Carson, said: “Belfast’s tourism economy has continued to grow over the years, propelled by millions of pounds of public and private investment in our tourism infrastructure, delivering world class attractions and events, award-winning restaurants, bars and accommodation, unique visitor experiences and independent shops and stores that few cities can
Money Conf – June 15-16 | 7
emulate. “Belfast City Council is only too aware of the importance of tourism to the city – it supports the economy directly and indirectly. From supporting 17,000 jobs within the tourism economy, to enabling investment in infrastructure, transport services and leisure and cultural facilities, a growing tourism industry ultimately benefit us all. “To build on the achievements made and the momentum we have achieved together, the priority now is to continue our focus and energy and raise Belfast’s tourism economy to a higher level. Working together, we have made great strides in both attracting and delivering visitors to Belfast and the outlook remains bright.”
Last year saw record levels of hotel occupancy in Belfast – now running at over 76% - which is testament to the partnerships in place to promote the city both in the UK, Ireland and overseas. And it’s expected that the number of conference visitors to the city will more than treble by 2020. Gerry Lennon of Visit Belfast said: “The global marketplace is getting tougher as cities and countries emerge. Belfast is outperforming others in terms of growth and we can continue to do that with the right focus, priorities, investment and activity.” Visit Belfast has picked up a host of top industry awards for its marketing campaigns, including , ‘Destination
Marketing Team of the Year’ 2014 and ‘Best UK Conference and Incentive City Destination’ “These awards are important as they not only put Belfast centre stage but position the city front of mind amongst industry leaders and key decision-makers looking for their next conference destination,” said Mr Lennon. “Visit Belfast continuously works closely with the public and private sectors to bring together the venues, the hotels, transport providers and event services that are required to win and deliver world class conference events for Belfast.” National Geographic sums it up best: “You look at where the energy spots are in the world and this is Belfast’s time.”
8 | Money Conf – June 15-16
Belfast Telegraph | 12 June 2015
one Number
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BY Margaret CANNING
here are many very good reasons why MoneyConf has come to Belfast – not least of all because the city is now the number one destination globally for financial technology R&D investments. That’s helped by the UK’s position as the leading fintech hub in Europe, according to Accenture. In the UK and Ireland, fintech investment more than doubled to reach $623m in 2014 – and Belfast and Northern Ireland have been punching above their weight. Economic development agency Invest NI lists NYSE Euronext, Citi, CME Group, First Derivatives, Fidessa and others as having
12 June 2015 | Belfast Telegraph
Money Conf – June 15-16 | 9
Danny Moore
set up specialist software development centres in Northern Ireland to service bighitting financial services firms around the world. And Danny Moore, one of Northern Ireland’s pioneers in fintech, says the sky’s the limit in the future. Leading light First Derivatives is one indigenous fintech firm to have emerged, and the contribution of some significant foreign direct investors has been a major spur on growth. Importantly, all have been able to feed off each other’s successes when it comes to developing talent. One of the earliest fintech success stories for Northern Ireland was Wombat Financial Software in Belfast, which was later bought by NYSE Euronext – and Danny was its CEO and earlier, its COO. He led the sale
of Wombat Financial Software to NSYE Euronext for $200m aged 36 in 2008, and remained for two years, becoming a member of the founding executive team for NYSE Technologies. He points out that new companies are coming, including Hanweck Associates, which has seed support from the Wombat Belfast founding team, as well as Lucera, which sprung out of Cantor Fitzgerald and has ex-First Derivatives man Peter Durkan on its executive team. “That group of people in the likes of Wombat 10 years ago are just spinning off all the time.” Danny says: “I would say fintech is even more than exceptionally strong in Belfast - it’s reached critical mass, and will still be very strong in the long term.” He is now the chief operating officer
of Options, a London-based fintech firm which recently announced the acquisition of Jake Roy Pillar, a technology consultancy for hedge funds and the wider financial industry based in New York. He described that as a “boutique consultancy, in some ways analogous to where First Derivatives was in 1998”. Options currently supports over 50 asset managers and hedge funds, in addition to being industry-leading experts in Advent Geneva, Advent APX, Advent Axys, Tradar Insight, Sungard and VPM. And that acquisition bodes well for the Belfast operation of Options, which employs 23 people. “As that business gets traction we could start hiring software developers.” The emphasis placed on IP for fintech in Belfast has been crucial so that the province has been able to reach for better jobs in front
office functions, Danny says. That’s backed up by economic development agency Invest NI in its promotion material for the city as an investment destination, pinpointing its “smart people” and strong work ethic. Danny says: “Even in NYSE we made a point of having high-end, high quality functions to Belfast. We wanted it to be an important part and not a back office. That leaves the people in those places well-placed for the next thing that comes along.” The support of economic development agency Invest NI has been crucial in helping firms progress but Danny points out that the birth of a success story has to be unattended by a grant-aid midwife. “First Derivatives in the last few years have done huge deals with Invest NI but in the first six or seven years they did very little with them. Really the story was that Brian Conlon was originally from Newry and had worked in London, the US and the UK before starting it in Newry.” He is grateful for the opportunities First Derivatives gave him – and unlikely as it sounds, had been working on a building site after studying mechanical engineering before the golden moment came. “First Derivatives had a policy at the time of hiring smart graduates and dropping them into it and seeing whether they could sink or swim. They gave a lot of people opportunities to learn in the sector and that is the model we then used in Wombat and again in Options. For example, of the 23 staff in Options in Belfast, just three have come from the industry.” So fintech firms from Fidessa to First Derivatives and Options are always on the hunt for high-quality graduates, as Danny explains. “There are courses that are heavily targeted by recruiters for large firms, like computer science. So there’s quite a lot of competition for them, but then there’s also a lot of brilliant talent on business and technology courses that we would target but the larger firms wouldn’t.” There’s the potential for them to get out there and work, and ply their trade overseas – and then to come back home and help set up the Northern Ireland offices of their employers – just like Hanweck and Lucera. Danny says: “The people get experience in the sector and are bringing the firms back.” Here’s to more of our brilliant fintech minds coming back and giving it their all on home turf.
10 | Money Conf – June 15-16
Belfast Telegraph | 12 June 2015
I
t’s one of Northern Ireland’s biggest success stories in business, never mind fintech. In an economy like Northern Ireland with a high public sector dependency, First Derivatives has blazed a trail and is now one of just two listed companies to our name. But its ambitions have always been global and its client list is a who’s who of big-hitting investment banks and hedge funds. But hard as it is to believe, First Derivatives wasn’t always a household name, and its founder Brian Conlon wasn’t always a routine gather-upper of accolades like Ernst & Young Ireland Entrepreneur of the Year, 2010 and Belfast Telegraph Business Personality of the Year, 2015. Brian will lend his insights to a panel discussion, The Capital Markets Story, on June 15. His firm, which now employs 1200 people, had remarkably humble beginnings, still evident in Brian’s low-key personal style. His hopes of becoming a Down county footballer were dashed by injury, but he has achieved his goals in the business world instead. High-powered jobs in financial markets of the sort he was used to were thin on the ground in Newry when he came home in the mid-1990s after working in London and travelling wherever his work brought him. So he decided to start his own business called First Derivatives from a spare bedroom in the family home with his mum acting as his secretary. “You can’t talk to Brian. He’s in the bath,” one Dutch banking client was told by Mrs Conlon in one of those early days. Or so legend has it. The 48-year-old seldom gives interviews – though he is known to be a passionate fan of Co Down’s Gaelic football team. He even had a place on the team in the late 1980s but a knee injury put paid to his personal Gaelic football ambitions, and he took up cycling with the Newry Wheelers instead. Mr Conlon studied at the Abbey Grammar School in Newry, and went on to read accountancy at Queen’s University. He trained in accountancy at KPMG, but revealed in a rare interview that he was underwhelmed by the bread and butter of auditing in Northern Ireland. “I spent the first year counting concrete and pickup trucks and wanted something more challenging,” he had said. The truck and concrete world’s loss was
SUCCESS STORY
12 June 2015 | Belfast Telegraph
BY Margaret CANNING the gain of Morgan Stanley, for which the young Conlon ending up running a fixedincome trading desk in London. From there he progressed to writing trading systems as a financial engineer for software company SunGard, and travelling between Silicon Valley, Germany, France and other parts of Europe. Then it was back home to the Fullerton Road in Newry, where First Derivatives was born with the help of a £3,000 Credit Union loan. He reminisced about those days when I met him in Monte Carlo in 2011, where he represented Ireland in the world final of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. (he didn’t win – well, not that competition, but he’s been winning in every other way ever since.) Brian said in 2011: “In 1996 the banks didn’t understand what I wanted to do,
Money Conf – June 15-16 | 11
so I started the company with a credit union loan and other capital.” He said the company had grown by “bootstrapping”, with the second recruit training the third and so on, and many departing to work on site for clients around the world. Six years later and with just 27 employees, it was listed on the Alternative Investment Market and has grown in revenue and profits every year since. The software and consultancy firm saw profit before tax rise by 120%, from £7.9m in 2014 to £17.5m this year. Revenue increased 19% from £69.9m to £83.2m in the financial year ending February 28, 2015. The company’s headquarters remain in Canal Quay in the city, reflecting Brian’s close personal links to Newry and his loyalty to a place, which in turn knows it owes him their gratitude for bringing hundreds of high-paid posts to their doors. But its overall empire extends to 13 offices, from Dubai to Philadelphia and
Singapore. And many First Derivatives alumnae have gone on to great things in fintech, from Danny Moore, now at Options by way of Wombat and NYSE, and Peter Durkan, now at Lucera by way of Cantor Fitzgerald and – you’ve guessed it – First Derivatives. It put its most recent stunning year down to a number of fruitful acquisitions, in particular an increased investment in Kx Systems. Last October FD increased its stake in the Silicon Valley-based big fast data firm from 20% to 65%, and in February bought software company Prelytix LLC for an initial fee of £4.9m. In March FD made two more acquisitions, Ontario-based software development consultancy Affinity Systems Ltd for an initial £3.8m, and Dublin-based software business ActivateClients Ltd for an initial £3.3m. Speaking this month when its latest results came out, chairman Seamus Keating said the acquisitions had strengthened
its position in the market of big fast data, which allows firms to process information at a much faster rate. “This was a very successful year for FD, with the purchase of a majority stake in Kx Systems enabling the group to broaden its strategy,” he said. “The subsequent investment across the business, including three strategic acquisitions in 2015, positions FD as a leading player in big fast data across multiple vertical markets.” Mr Keating added the success had continued into this financial year. “This has been achieved while maintaining a strong focus on current trading, with a strong second-half performance from both our consulting and software activities enabling the group to report record results for the 2015 financial year and upgrade expectations for the current financial year. “We will continue to invest to maximise the growth potential of the business and view the future with confidence.” As it happens, so do we.
12 | Money Conf – June 15-16
Belfast Telegraph | 12 June 2015
Support for start-up ambition RICHARD DONNAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, RETAIL BANKING AND NI SME & CIB
A
n event like this week’s MoneyConf is a great opportunity to hear from inspirational people who have turned their ideas and passion into business success. It’s also a welcome chance to engage with some of the world’s leading fintech and start up companies who are bringing fresh thinking to business. At Ulster Bank, we want to ensure that our support reaches the many great SMEs that make up the bulk of private sector companies in Northern Ireland. As a bank that first ‘started-up’ almost 180 years Northern Ireland, support for entrepreneurship is in our DNA. Whether it’s through our branch-based business development managers, or our continued investment and innovation in online channels and digital tools, such as fingerprint login for our app, we continue to adapt for our customers. It’s important that we do this, because it’s by having a culture of innovation at the heart of our organisation that we can
better understand the needs of our start-up customers. Good businesses don’t spring out fully formed – they start out as a seed of an idea that changes and grows organically. As such, they need their banking support to be flexible and responsive at all stages. Good products are of course important – and we offer two-years of transaction feefree banking for start-ups – but our belief is that we need to take a holistic approach to supporting start-ups – providing practical help and expertise as well as finance. That’s why we invest significantly in supporting Small Business Can, an online and offline network which provides an extensive range of insights from businesspeople, so that SMEs can learn from other SMEs. With approximately 50,000 visitors, 1.5 million hits per month, 20,000 members and around 45 new helpful posts each month as well as multiple offline local networking events, it’s proving to be a vibrant resource. We’ve also introduced specialist training for our staff including, for example, agricertification which meant that members of our business banking team were the first in Ireland to receive a Certificate in
Agricultural Finance, awarded by Chartered Banker as part of an industry-accredited programme. We have a team of leaders with expertise across many sectors, so that business applications are being assessed by people with the know-how in their field. We’re also planning to participate in the RBS Entrepreneurial Spark initiative – this will provide an accelerator hub for local entrepreneurs: offering them workspace, a chance to collaborate with others starting out and access to the experience of a new entrepreneur in residence. They will also have the opportunity to go on to pitch to potential investors and we plan to introduce ‘Growth awards’ for businesses, offering cash injections to companies when they need it most. Promoting this kind of success, and showing our support, means that the “Business Start Up Award” category in the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Awards is one of our most hotly-contested categories. This award, for businesses that have been in existence for less than three years, was won most recently by Arklu, from Donegal, a children’s entertainment company. Having launched their doll brand ‘Lottie’ in August 2012 they are now selling in 30 countries via a network of 16 distribution partners. It’s a great example of how a simple but strong idea, married to sheer determination, can succeed on
an international scale. At Ulster Bank, we want to help even more customers achieve similar success by capitalising on innovation. It’s one of the reasons that earlier this year, we hosted the first banking Hackathon in Northern Ireland, bringing together coders, designers, mentors and investors for an intensive period of peer-to-peer idea generation and programming. Their brainstorming and software building was a way to marry creativity with technology, to challenge ourselves and the participants to think differently about how banking can work and should work for customers. By rewarding the best ideas, we wanted to send a signal of our support for fintech and for those people who want their ideas to make the world faster, better and more intuitive. Banking, like many other sectors, has gone through tremendous change – but our culture means that we see this as an opportunity for ourselves and for our customers. With £1.5bn available to lend to businesses this year, Ulster Bank has the capability and the appetite to get behind your ambitions. We’re really pleased to partner with MoneyConf for the opening night speaker’s dinner. Our ambition is to become the number one bank for customer service, trust and advocacy so we’re very open to new ideas and new thinking.
14 | Money Conf – June 15-16
Belfast Telegraph | 12 June 2015
SHOPKEEP
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ften, the best products are developed out of need. And Jason Richelson really needed a new point of sale system. The New York shopkeeper started business with one wine store in Brooklyn in 2004. Within four years, Jason had a seven million dollar business, 70 staff and an increasingly complicated and unreliable sales and inventory system, based on Windows software. When a server crash in 2008 forced him to close his stores, Jason tried to find a cloud-based point of sale system but he couldn’t find anything. ShopKeep was born. It’s an iPad point of sale system for retail shops, bars and restaurants.The software can turn a tablet computer into a till, barcode scanner, chip and pin machine, contactless payment receiver and receipt printer and enable it to take orders before sending them wirelessly to the bar or kitchen printer. It also helps keeps records of sales and manages and tracks incomings and outgoings, acting as a cloud-based bookkeeping system. “As a small business owner I recognized the lack of access independent merchants have to the tools and support needed to stay competitive in today’s marketplace,” said Jason. “This sparked my passion for finding ways to help other entrepreneurs and small business owners run their businesses more efficiently. “I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved at ShopKeep and excited about the impact we will continue to have on the future successes of independent merchants and entrepreneurs.” It’s not surprising that Jason is a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2015 Award in the New York region. The awards recognise entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.. ShopKeep is now used by more than 15,000 retailers across North America and it’s forging a path in Europe now, too. “We are currently in the early stages of exploring the international markets, and we’re excited by the vibrancy and size of the independent business scene in the UK and
BY Yvette SHAPIRO Ireland,” said Jason. “We’ll be looking to make announcements in the coming weeks. “ShopKeep’s mission is to be an advocate for independent businesses and to make it simpler for them to run and grow a successful business,” said Jason. “It is our job to make getting a new store up and running as simple as possible.” In February last year, the company opened its first office outside the United States, here in Belfast city centre. It’s an investment worth nearly £3m and will create up to 35 jobs. “Belfast, compared to Dublin or London, is a small town with a smaller culture and a tighter community. I fell in love with the town, it’s an exciting place, I love the universities and the work that they are doing, I love the buzz in the software development sector, I love the fact that there are so many good engineers being produced and I love the entrepreneurial spirit. “We continue to expand our engineering team here in Belfast, as we’ve been
Jason Richelson
consistently impressed by the talent on offer. We currently have 32 people in the UK, with a focus on building a strong development team. “As part of our broader vision, we believe that this office will eventually serve as a fantastic launchpad for an expansion into Europe.” Among the retailers who’ve signed up with ShopKeep is Studio Souk, a unique retail space in Belfast featuring the work of local artists and designers. Fraser Brice explains why he chose the system. “Because we sell the work of many individual artists, we need correct reporting. With ShopKeep, I can break down all the sales and get an accurate back office report at any time. The iPad is familiar and easy to use and I can also access reports on my iPhone. “I wanted the technology be proven, but it’s at the forefront of technology and that was also an attraction. The fact that there are Northern Ireland software designers working on the ShopKeep system is also important for us. We’re all about local and the fact that they have a major Belfast team is great.”
12 June 2015 | Belfast Telegraph
Money Conf – June 15-16 | 15
The Payment Wars, Chapter One
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et me start by saying I’m a bit of dinosaur in this industry. I have been working in online payments pretty much since it started all those years ago in 1997-ish. I started at CyberSource, and we were probably the first to create systems that allowed people to pay for stuff online. It wasn’t pretty and involved lots of interns with sore fingers, typing endless numbers into credit card machines. Of course that wasn’t going to scale, so we began building systems that did all the hard work of sending card numbers to banks. All was well, until bad guys turned up online and started tricking the systems, using stolen card numbers and fake addresses. So we invented anti-fraud tools and the banks created systems for verifying the card was from the same address as the person who was using it to pay. The banks went one step further by adding codes on the back of cards and going through security checks. This created tedious checkout experiences where we had to enter endless data just to pay. Then PayPal was born and simplified the whole thing. But then everything changed with the smartphone. However, paying on smartphones had its challenges. Basically the screen was too small and our fingers were too fat. Nobody wanted to enter in all that data especially when you might go through a tunnel, lose reception and have to start again. It was just too much trouble. We needed a way to store our info and payment details so that we could just click a button and be done. Welcome Braintree. Companies like Uber and Airbnb could create beautiful experiences with invisible checkouts. But there are so many apps and
BY John LUNN Senior Global Director of Developer & Startup Relations, Paypal & Braintree not everyone uses them every day, so how could this seamless checkout experience be available everywhere? In the last year, we’ve seen PayPal’s One Touch, followed by Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and most recently, Android Pay. These used a new way of doing things called tokenisation that allowed seamless checkout experiences with a high level of security. Basically tokenisation is a way of taking a piece of sensitive information, storing it and giving the user a token that they can use instead of that sensitive data. If
the token is stolen or lost it’s no big deal as the real information is safe and secure. With payment information this is typically your card number, but at Braintree we can tokenise PayPal and other payment types. Apple Pay, Samsung and Android all use the card networks tokenisation systems directly so that you can pay using a token provided by the network to Apple (for example). Apple then passes it to the retailer who processes that token to make the payment. This technology creates easy user experiences for a mobile device, but why not on the desktop too? Come to think of it, why do I need to carry a wallet? Well it’s already begun, with PayPal One Touch you can pay in a single touch on any device whether it’s a tablet, mobile or desktop
without needing to enter a username and password. In some parts of the world, you can pay in-store using your phone and NFC. Taking it even further, you can already pay with PayPal without even needing to join a queue. New technologies allow you to pay based on proximity; and let’s not even talk about QR codes, please. The invisible payment is moving into everything we do and more importantly into everything we own. Already our things are starting to pay for us. We have the technology to allow your fridge to buy you milk, and buttons that order a refresh of your products by simply being pressed. So is the payments war over? Not a chance. We just finished Chapter One. John Lunn is a speaker at MoneyConf.
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B
itcoin is literally taking off. And it’s thanks to a Belfast company. Bitnet, started in January 2014 by former executives from Visa and CyberSource, is a digital commerce platform that enables companies to accept digital currencies like bitcoin. In February, Bitnet announced a major
Belfast Telegraph | 12 June 2015 BY Yvette SHAPIRO deal with UATP, (Universal Air Travel Plan), the privately-owned payment system used by some of the world’s leading airlines. Among the 260 airlines associated with UATP are Delta, Etihad, Lufthansa, Qantas, US Airways, United Airlines and American Airlines. “We’re actively targeting more than a
hundred airlines at the moment,” says Stephen McNamara, co-founder and chief technology officer at Bitnet. “We’re working to bring as many as we can on board with bitcoin payment.We’re starting to see traction in that market and I predict that we’ll take off with our first UATP airline later this year, no pun intended!” Here’s why the airline sector is so important to Bitnet: “This market alone is worth more than US$400m,” says Stephen.
And he has more exciting figures to conjure with. As he told Silicon Republic: “The B2C (business to customer) e-commerce market is worth US$1.5 trillion and the B2B (business to business) sector is more than four times as large.” Bitnet is founded and staffed by payment processing and financial technology domain experts. Downpatrick-born Stephen McNamara and co-founder John McDonnell have 40 years of combined experience as
We have LIFT-OFF
12 June 2015 | Belfast Telegraph members of the senior executive team at CyberSource, a payments gateway acquired by Visa in 2010. “Our team is the same one that built the Visa and Cybersource products,” says Bitnet’s chief commercial officer Dr. Akif Khan, in an interview for Finextra. “We have a very good understanding of creating a secure, reliable and distributed platform. Our team has built some of the highest volume processing payment gateways that already exist in the world.” This solid track record in the payments industry is helping to win over the more cautious retail giants who’ve yet to embrace bitcoin. John McDonnell, chief executive of Bitnet, adds: “Like many new technologies that end up playing an everyday role in our lives (think credit cards, iPads, etc.), bitcoin is rapidly advancing along the path from curiosity to novelty to commonplace. “News stories following bitcoin’s current rise are a bit like those following which companies had just added a web presence in the 1990s, or which brands had just officially launched a Facebook or Twitter page in the last decade. “Any critics should remember that bitcoin is a rambunctious six-year-old, and big for its age; it may not be so long before it develops the ubiquity enjoyed by the likes of its 225-year-old cousin, the U.S. Dollar.” It’s a complicated technology but that’s where Bitnet steps in, aiming to shield merchants from complexity and provide a simple set of APIs and interfaces for them to use. “I think it’s important for people to see bitcoin first as a technology, then as a network and payment system, and finally as a currency,” Stephen McNamara told Silicon Republic. “Our goal is to be the market leader in digital currency acceptance: to enable the vast majority of the world’s merchants to transact safely and quickly with bitcoin.” Bitnet has had an exciting first year and a half since its launch. Last October it raised $14.5m in funding, including cash from Rakuten, the largest e-commerce site in Japan and one of the world’s largest by sales. In March, Rakuten became Bitnet’s first customer. “Rakuten now operates in the United States, having acquired Buy.com and we’re processing payments for them,” explains Stephen. “Next, we’ll be rolling out with Rakuten to Germany, Austria and other European countries. “Our strategy has always been to focus on larger merchants. It makes sense because of the scale of trade, there is, of course, a significant savings benefit for cross-border traders.
Money Conf – June 15-16 | 17
Stephen McNamara
John McDonnell
“2015 has been all about getting into the market and building the sales pipeline. It’s a very healthy pipeline but you have to work according to the schedule of these major retailers. They’ve a lot of demand on their IT and we’re fitting in with their needs and timescales. What’s hugely encouraging is that Bitnet and bitcoin have been very well received. “What helps in building those relationships is the team we have. We’re known as the payments people, with a long track record in this sector, and that gives real comfort to some of the bigger
Dr. Akif Khan
merchants, they know that we really understand what they need.” Bitnet employs around 30 people in Belfast and San Francisco, a team of ambitious individuals who work together in what the company calls “a collaborative agile environment”. The company’s future success is based on its people, says Stephen. “It was a very conscious decision to locate our engineering and product teams here because of the talent available. There’s proven ability and world class levels of engineering. Customers who’ve analysed us against other competitors are impressed
with our team and that gives them confidence in us as a company. “It’s great for Northern Ireland to have the demand for high quality engineers, it pushes everyone forward. There’s an old saying: if you want people to do good work, you have to give them good work to do. “We’re a start-up and there are very few opportunities for people to work for an indigenous company like ours where you have the chance to put together a crack team to build a brand new platform in a brand new space and that’s very exciting and challenging for our staff.”
18 | Money Conf – June 15-16
Belfast Telegraph | 12 June 2015
From right, First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness with Mark Bennett, executive director of CME Group, at the official opening of the company’s Belfast office in 2012
“There’s a real story to be told here.”
P
eter Devine is excited about a project that’s bringing together academia and the financial technology industry in a way that’s unprecedented anywhere else in the world. “Capital Markets Collaborative Network
(CMCN) is a new initiative that aims to bring the best innovative research and technology to the capital markets sector,” explains Peter, Network Director at CMCN. The network has been formed by five key partner companies: Citi; SR Labs; CME Group; First Derivatives and Fidessa, as well as Ulster University and Queen’s University Belfast. In recent years Northern Ireland has seen continued investments and expansions by international firms and indigenous companies, all providing technology solutions and consulting services to the capital markets industry. In addition, Northern Ireland has 11 globally recognised ICT-related research centres including the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) at Queen’s University and the Intelligent Systems Research Centre (ISRC) at Ulster University. With support from Invest Northern Ireland, these five companies, along with the two university research centres, have come together to create the Capital Markets Collaborative Network. This is a key initiative working in partnership to strengthen the research base and graduate skills within Northern Ireland. Each of the companies involved in the network has previously worked individually with one or both universities, but this is the first time they have collectively used their combined effort in an organised programme.
“This level of collaboration is unprecedented worldwide and sets Northern Ireland apart,” says Peter Devine. “It’s highly unusual for such companies to work together. That’s one of the reasons why Northern Ireland stands out globally in this sector.” CME Group is one of the companies involved in the network. It began life as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, trading in commodities. It is now the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace. Alison Hamilton, executive director and Head of the CME Group Belfast office says: “As a leader in Northern Ireland’s flourishing FinTech sector, CME Group Belfast decided to become involved in the Capital Markets Collaborative Network. It demonstrates a true partnership between the industry leaders in the sector in NI. This creates opportunities to showcase and develop the alternate and progressive skill sets from industry and academia.” Invest NI has played a leading role in the development of the network and has provided financial support through the collaborative network programme. This has allowed the network to appoint a facilitator to focus on building the network. “The partners have provided support and resources for PhD studentships at Ulster and Queen’s, support that highlights the Network’s commitment to research,” says Peter. “The complex challenges of capital markets engineering are articulated by the company partners who provide the students
with domain expertise as well as historical data, real time market data and access to facilities. The application of expertise from the students and their supervisors, aligned with the support provided by the company partners, is leading to world class applied research.” According to recent figures from Invest NI, the financial services industry in Northern Ireland employs around 33,000 people in more than 1,200 firms. A recent article in the Financial Times reported that Belfast is globally the top destination city for financial technology investment projects. “Capital markets technology companies are an important and significant cluster and we want to facilitate the continued growth of the sector,” says Peter. “We work together on collaborative R&D, skills development through the Capital Markets Academy, marketing of the sector, engaging with diaspora and promoting entrepreneurship. Our vision is to position Northern Ireland as a global centre of excellence for R&D in capital markets engineering.” CMCN will have a dedicated session at MoneyConf with keynote speakers, panel discussions and an opportunity to meet some of the industry sponsored PhD students carrying out cutting edge research on algorithmic development, semantic analysis and hardware acceleration. For further information please visit cmcn.net or email p.devine@ulster.ac.uk
12 June 2015 | Belfast Telegraph
Money Conf – June 15-16 | 19 Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen
H
e’s the boss of a tech firm helping to re-imagine the global payment network. And US businessman and Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen is one of dozens of top industry experts speaking at MoneyConf on June 16. The angel investor – known for cofounding several Silicon Valley tech start-ups – is set to discuss a range of topics during his time here, including the story of the firm he helped kickstart back in 2012. It’s developed a payment network called Ripple, which can be used to transfer any currency. Essentially, it provides a simple and fast way to transfer cash around the world. Mr Larsen said that while the global financial markets are already flooded with payment systems such as Visa and PayPal, his Ripple system improves the payments infrastructure to enable systems like Visa and others “to work together for free, instant and secure exchange of any currency”. “The world’s financial system is made up of individual payment systems like that of Visa, Wells Fargo, PayPal and others. It works fine within each system, but when money has to move between systems it becomes expensive and time consuming. “Bitcoin showed that it was possible to achieve a more seamless interoperability, but the limitations of bitcoin – namely that it was slow, required a lot of energy to mine, and could only be used with bitcoin – held it back from serving that purpose. “Inspired by bitcoin but built with distinct technology, Ripple improves payments infrastructure to enable systems like Visa and others to work together for free, instant and secure exchange of any currency. “This interoperability creates the ‘internet of value’. And because Ripple is infrastructure technology that enables financial institutions to maintain their own compliance, messaging, and rule sets, it fits nicely within the existing payments ecosystem.” Speaking to us ahead of the event, he said he would be covering a number of areas in his keynote speech, including the background about his firm Ripple Labs and the ‘internet of value’. “I am keynoting and participating in a fireside chat at the event and will likely cover a range of topics, including the limitations of today’s payments infrastructure and how distributed payments technologies like Ripple offer an alternative to the current correspondent banking or intra-bank transfer infrastructure,” he said. “However, I will devote most of my keynote to discussing the ‘internet of value’ and how it will fuel innovation in payments. “Similar to the ‘internet of knowledge’, this means that value and currency can move as freely, instantly and securely as
The Ripple effect BY John MULGREW information. It will enable you to send money as easily you send email. “Momentum is building with many banks and financial institutions around the world already supporting this concept, creating a more modern and inclusive global financial system in the process.” Ripple Labs first began life as OpenCoin, when Jed McCaleb hired Chris Larsen, before approaching the creator of the digital currency ripple with their idea. Aside from his current role as chief executive of Ripple, Mr Larsen also cofounded and served as chief of Prosper, a peer to peer lending marketplace. He also co-founded mortgage lender
E-Loan. During his time there, he helped pioneer the open access to credit scores movement, making the firm the first to show consumers their financial scores. And the experienced investor, entrepreneur and investor said he’s looking forward to his first visit to these shores. “I’m very much looking forward to visiting Northern Ireland, as well as the opportunity to learn more from European fintech companies about new innovations in the payments space,” he said. Mr Larsen played a pivotal role in the passage of the strongest consumer financial privacy law in the US, and was hailed by congresswoman Jackie Speier as being “critical to the success of the bill”. Aside from his business roles, he also serves at board and advisory levels at
numerous companies and organisations including Progreso Financiero, Betable and Credit Karma. Mr Larsen is a Stanford University graduate, where he attained an MBA. He also attended San Francisco State University, where he got his bachelor’s degree. Chris Larsen has already been involved in a lot of major events over the years, appearing as a speaker or panelist, and is well regarded among many within his field. He’s also written articles on banking systems and other technical topics for publications including American Banker. And he also set up the Chris Larsen Scholarship Fund at San Francisco State University – the school which named him Alumni of the Year in 2004.