Financial services facing `tipping point,’ Snoop’s Gadhia says
By Jenny McCall
11:25, 28 May 2021
From CEO of Virgin Money to fintech startup founder, Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia has taken on many challenging roles in the world of financial services.
With over 35 years of financial expertise, she started her career as an accountant and years later ended up launching Virgin Direct and then heading Virgin Money. Gadhia worked on the acquisition of Virgin Money by Clydesdale Bank in 2019 and that is when she decided to start her own fintech business, Snoop, a personal finance app.
Capital.com caught up with Gadhia this week as she discussed her new endeavour and the broad changes taking place in financial services.
Tipping point
“There is no doubt in my mind that we are at a tipping point in financial services,'' Gadhia said in an interview. "For too long, financial services has been a complex world and in that complexity we have seen some of the problems of the past. So the 2008 crisis, for example, came out of the fact there were really complex products being developed that nobody really understood. The old systems and old ways of thinking and clumsy processes need to be improved.”
Banking is changing and one of the emerging trends is that of financial services becoming more digitised, especially as the world looks to emerge from the pandemic, she said. Monzo and Starling Bank are UK-based online banks that provide their services through digital platforms.
“Digital banks have made a leap forward, I think that Monzo and Starling are in the new generation,'' said Gadhia. “That said, the big banks such as Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays have got the depth of pocket, intellect and capital to make sure that they become equally digitally capable. So I don’t think this is the end of the old brand but they need to revise their business model.”
Crypto, Snoop
The cryptocurency's rise to prominence is another factor that is set to play a key role in the transformation of the financial landscape, according to her.
“I do believe that we will have cryptocurrency as the staple currency going forward,'' she said. "So all of that, the way currency works, the way we see our finances and how we interact with banks means that banking will be fundamentally transformed."
After leaving the corporate world, Gadhia has pursued her entrepreneurial spirit and focused on developing her own dream project -- Snoop, a consumer retail app launched last year that is aimed at helping users save money across a number of areas of personal finance. The project has the support of companies such as SalesForce and the Havisham Group.
“It was very clear that the entrepreneurial spirit would be in my DNA and the DNA of my friends and colleagues that I left Virgin money with," said Gadhia. ``We did a lot of work on how to deliver great fintech products. We think we can bring something to customers that will save them a lot of money and that really feels like something that is worthwhile doing."
Pandemic impact
As the UK looks to emerge from the pandemic, the opportunities for change are huge but no one can deny the impact it has had on people, on both business and personal levels. For Gadhia, it has made her realise that the amount of travelling she used to do is no longer needed, especially in light of the huge carbon foot print that comes with it. However, she does miss the buzz of the office and the creativity that comes with working in a team.
The pandemic has also been less than favourable on women. The European Commission has said in a report that employment rates for men rose by 1.4% between the second and the third quarters of 2020, but only by 0.8% for women. While workplaces have achieved improvements in terms of diversity and inclusion over the years, COVID-19 has has dealt a setback to such progress, according to Gadhia.
“I do fear that the pandemic has made us step back,'' she said. ``As people think about going back to work, it's possible that more women than men might stay at home and its possible that people that work at home are not going to progress up the career ladder."
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