Banking as a Service - With Dr. Jorg Howein, Chief Product Officer, Solarisbank

Invisible FinTech - Open Banking & APIs

In this episode, MEDICI talks to Dr. Jorg Howein, Chief Product Officer, and a member of the management board at Solarisbank.

Solarisbank is the first Banking-as-a-Service platform with a full banking license that enables companies to offer their own financial products. In this conversation, Jorg talks about some of the early decisions that made them the defacto B2B2X option in Europe, architectural considerations in evolving the platform, the role of FinLeap in their success, and more.

Please bear with us for the brief audio quality issue between 20:00 and 23:35

01:13 - Brief introduction of Dr. Jorg Howein and Solarisbank

04:25 - How different is the life of a CPO in a BaaS company

08:28 - How do partners influence business strategy and platform roadmap

12:30 - The choice to be a licensed banking platform Vs partnering with banks

16:10 - Why not a direct to consumer/business neobanking service?

21:45 - How is the product strategy and roadmap for a BaaS company different from that of a challenger bank or a neobank

23:35 - Challenges faced in scaling to new verticals and geographies

27:54 - (Listener question from Nikhil Kurhe, Founder, Finarkein Analytics) Drivers behind offering digital asset custodial services

31:07 - Choice to built the core platform Vs buy or rent off the shelf

35:42 - What role did FinLeap play in the setup and success of Solarisbank

38:26 - Future outlook and trends in BaaS

41:33 - What percentage of partners are non-financial services companies