IBS Journal August 2017


39


three floors in a new building that has recently gone up on Kingdom Street, Paddington. “We’ll focus on setting it up with the right branding and the right ambience.”


Is making London the global headquarters a sign of the city recovering from a Brexit shakeout? “Who knows how things are going to play out,” says Syed. “I try to stay as far away from politics as I can but there are so many variables out there right now that no one can reliably predict how things are going to go down.” Regardless, he adds, London will always be an important linchpin of the financial services world.


Even so, Finastra is a global company, says Syed. The firm does the vast majority of its business outside of the UK. London is an incredibly easy city to access, from both sides of the globe, and factors like that always make their way into the decision-making process. Had Misys not already been headquartered in London a move probably wouldn’t have been on the cards. “We were already here, though, so we doubled down.”


Banks don’t want a four-year project that takes six years to earn a profit


“


SIBOS is heading to Toronto this year, and the prospect is “very exciting” for Finastra. It gives the firm a chance to make an impact on its ‘home turf’ in front of the financial community.


“We are all set to make a big, big splash,” says Syed. Coincidentally, Misys and D+H were set to have their own booths at the show sited very close to one another, so that’s something the firm is now looking to take full advantage of as it presents itself as Finastra. “We truly want to make it a marquee event for Finastra.”


Since the merger announcement, Finastra has unveiled a hatful of deals. From Oman Arab Bank to the Jenius digital bank in Indonesia and Rabobank in the Netherlands. Surely business isn’t being conducted that quickly? Most of the deals were already in pipeline, says Syed, but it made sense to get them out there under the new name. “What is interesting is that there were many conversations out there which now are being tied together in our favour. They’re saying ‘we were already looking at you here and considering you here, and now you’re one company you can do both’.”


A major French bank, according to Syed, was in talks with Misys and D+H simultaneously and told them in no uncertain terms “we need you two to come together and show us your integrated proposition”. At the time the two firms were independent


Finastra plans to make an impact at SIBOS, which is taking place in Toronto


companies pre-merger and Syed says they had to curb the bank’s enthusiasm, asking it to wait. The bank did just that: “We had a workshop with them that on launch.”


As the interview ends Syed is keen to stress how things are looking bright: “I hope you can see the excitement on my face and in my voice.” Creating a financial “behemoth” has opened up the market and means that the coming years will be “exciting times” for all involved. It remains to be seen just how the new third-largest financial services firm can shake up the market. “Keep us on your radar,” says Syed. It’s hard to think of any in this industry who aren’t.


PER ARDUA, AD (FIN)ASTRA


Finastra went through a number of names before opting for its Latin- inspired moniker. “We knew we wanted the word “finance” in there, Syed says. Astra, which is Latin for “stars”, is meant to invoke the company’s lofty ambitions as well as its current capabilities.


Unfortunately, the CEO neglected to tell me some of the names that were thrown on the “rejected” pile, but remarked that it didn’t take them long to find and fall in love with the new name.


“Naming a company is harder than naming your child,” he says with a grin. “You need to look at it to see if it works in every language on the globe.” It’s no use having a cool name in English if it’s an innuendo in Chinese. “Finastra translates well across all of our tested languages and it sounds nice, right?”


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