Bankloch

As a founder launching a Fintech startup, it’s unlikely you’ll build it into a multi-generational family business. Most tech startups rely heavily on external investor funding, where investors, without emotional ties to the company, typically plan for an eventual exit aligned with their investment timeline. This reliance on external capital often means founders lose full control, and an exit becomes a future necessity. If your Fintech startup succeeds, an exit is likely within 5-10 years, but it could extend up to 20 years. Such an exit marks a significant milestone, as it’s when the theoretical valuation can finally be realized for founders, employees (if they hold shares or options), and investors. However, it’s important to remember that many startups also face liquidation or are forced into a sale due to liquidity challenges. The journey to an exit - and the exit itself—can be challenging. In the early stages, founders might be bought out by investors or co-founders, replaced by so...

For a fintech start-up or scale-up, valuation is crucial. It plays a significant role in major financial events such as sales, mergers, funding rounds, or employee stock option plans. Essentially, valuation determines the price assigned to a business at a specific point in time. For instance, during a funding round, it dictates how many shares an investor receives for their capital and thus the dilution percentage for existing shareholders. Similarly, in the event of a sale, it defines the price the acquirer will pay for the company. Valuing a private business is not an exact science. As with publicly traded companies, a company’s total valuation (i.e., share price multiplied by the total number of shares) depends on investors’ perception of future cash flows. Since no one can predict the future, valuation always involves some degree of estimation. However, established frameworks exist for evaluating companies. For more mature financial services companies, valuation typically relies on...

The rise of AI in software engineering is generating a lot of excitement. One of the most hyped developments is the potential for non-technical users — those without deep coding expertise — to write requirements in AI-powered chatbots and have AI generate code in response. This is the ultimate vision of the No-code movement. Such an approach promises to make software development more accessible, reducing the need for specialized software engineers to handle every detail of the process. While this is an exciting evolution and some results are already visible, the idea of AI fully replacing software engineers remains a distant reality (although, with the current pace of innovation, it may come faster than we expect). The reason? Too many nuanced decisions are made by software engineers throughout development—decisions that functional users are often unaware of, but which deeply affect the quality, performance, and reliability of the code. However, what seems to be missing in the current ...

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to attend the Digital Finance Summit in Brussels, an annual fintech conference organized by Fintech Belgium. It was a packed day of networking, reconnecting with old acquaintances, and attending insightful keynotes and thought-provoking debates. Clearly, the Belgian fintech scene remains vibrant, delivering exciting new innovations. The dominant themes of the conference were the upcoming payment revolutions and the buzz around AI, which sparked significant discussions. Below are some key takeaways: Payment Revolutions Instant Payments : Domestic and cross-border real-time payments are gaining momentum, with over 70 real-time payment networks launched globally in the past decade. SEPA Request-to-Pay : This rollout offers exciting opportunities for Fintechs, banks, and merchants. PSD3/PSR Regulation : This upcoming regulation aims to address shortcomings in the current PSD2 directive. A2A (Account-to-Account) Payments : In 2023, A2A payments represented...

In software development, we often find ourselves reinventing the wheel—particularly when dealing with higher-level abstractions. As I mentioned in my blog " Unlocking Business Value: Moving Beyond Low-Level Programming ", while open source has reduced redundancy at the technical level, user interfaces continue to see many foundational patterns being rebuilt repeatedly. A classic example is the   "Overview" screen , where users search for and interact with a set of data, performing actions like viewing or editing specific results. Each application tends to design this screen differently, often after much debate. To avoid reinventing the wheel every time, it is helpful to develop a reusable checklist of essential features. Although cost constraints may lead to the exclusion of some items, this list ensures conscious decisions are made for each feature. A typical overview screen is divided into   three main parts : Header Section : This includes navigation options (e.g...