Over the last decade, Festina Finance and SDC have collaborated to develop a customer advisory system that is not only equipped to handle today’s tasks but is also constantly evolving to meet new demands from both customers and regulators.
What can a fintech company and an experienced IT provider learn from each other? Quite a lot, if you ask Festina Finance and SDC, which serve financial institutions in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Faroe Islands. Currently, SDC uses Advisor from Festina Finance in Denmark and the Faroe Islands as the daily foundation for customer advisory services in 21 Danish and 3 Faroese financial institutions.
“This journey brought together two cultures, allowing us to learn a great deal from one another. It’s valuable for a young fintech company to gain from maturity, just as it’s refreshing for an established company like ours, with a long history in financial IT services, to embrace fresh thinking and agility. This is probably one of the reasons why we have had a fruitful partnership for 10 years,” says Hilde Seljom, Area and Development Director at SDC.
“SDC’s goal is to deliver modern IT solutions that support the work of bank advisers. This is crucial for us, and we ally ourselves with the best partners in the market to ensure we remain at the forefront, nurturing innovation and new ideas that can help our customers in their work.”
Hilde Seljom
Trusted a young company as a partner
Today, SDC’s systems are built on a modern and open platform aimed at ensuring a great customer experience for both advisers and end users. Today’s financial landscape offers a vast array of options, placing high demands on customer advisory systems. These systems must balance security, compliance, agility, and flexibility.
“To rise to this challenge, we sought a partner who could help us innovate and keep us competitive. We saw interesting opportunities with Festina, even though at the time it was a young and relatively untested company. It was a strategic decision to ensure our continued growth,” Hilde Seljom elaborates. For completeness, she adds that it was also the right decision for Festina Finance to accept the task.
Advisor has become an essential tool
Now, 10 years later, both SDC and Festina Finance look back on a process that has evolved from being mainly ad hoc from project to project to filling a framework agreement that continually develops as banks face increased customer demands and, as a result, bring new requirements for the functionality in Advisor.
“Ten years ago, we were just a small development house, but we have grown with the task together with SDC. There is confidence in our ability to deliver the required services, as Advisor has become a central part of daily banking operations, with SDC continuing to invest in the platform,” says Peter Norsker, Chief Business Development Officer at Festina Finance, who is responsible for Advisor.
“We constantly look for ways to improve Advisor through our own efforts and inputs from the fintech environment. One of the things we are considering is artificial intelligence, as we must continuously improve customer advisory and meet the bank customers’ needs, not just with numbers but with solutions based on specific desires.”
Peter Norsker
Focus on quality customer advisory
Peter Norsker adds that both SDC and Festina Finance have their own roadmaps, but they work methodically to align them as closely as possible. This way, Festina Finance can deliver the desired
functionality when SDC needs it while also occasionally pushing for new functionality when good ideas surface. In daily operations, it is essential to understand each other’s business strategies.
Practically speaking, this means some of SDC’s staff physically work one day a week at Festina Finance. Video meetings are fine, but personal contact is indispensable in a collaboration like this, explains Maria Kirketerp, a business developer at SDC.
“The collaboration with Festina is a testament to a strong partnership that has evolved over the years. From a small calculation engine initially capable of calculating disposable income to today, a complex advisory engine covering everything from credit to mortgage, investment, and pension. We continue to refine and develop the tool together with Festina Finance for the benefit of the advisers in our partner banks.”
Maria Kirketerp
Regular meetings for joint idea exchange
“One of my tasks is to ensure that the requests for Advisor are in sync with the tool’s capabilities. Financial institutions regularly request new functionality, but the industry also faces growing demands from authorities and regulators. Therefore, the system must handle these to make advisers’ work as efficient and simple as possible,” explains Maria Kirketerp.
To create the best possible foundation for development work benefiting financial institutions, SDC, and Festina Finance, one or two events are held yearly where representatives from all sides meet for informal discussions and idea development. According to Maria Kirketerp, this ensures that individual banks are heard and can help shape Advisor’s continued development.
“At Sparekassen Danmark, we’ve been using Advisor since its launch, and today it’s an essential tool for 700 to 800 of our employees. We’re very satisfied with the solution, and we especially value our close relationship with Festina Finance. Having direct access to the SDC and Festina developers gives us a significant advantage in our day-to-day operations, ensuring quick and precise responses to our needs.”
Kristian Dahl Johnsen, Head of Advisor at Sparekassen Danmark
Customer advisory around the clock
“Our goal is to create solutions in close collaboration that help and provide value for advisers, making them easy, modern, and intuitive, with automated solutions so advisers can focus on customers rather than administrative tasks. This also demands that the customer advisory system we offer is stable,” says Hilde Seljom, Development Director at SDC.
She adds that despite challenges over the 10-year collaboration, we never doubted the decision to work with Festina Finance.
A Critical Tool for Decision Support
“As consumers, we expect things to work smoothly, and the speed of customer advisory has significantly increased. We can no longer shuffle customers between areas like housing, investment, and pension, so there’s pressure on individual advisers. With Advisor, we have helped SDC’s banks, and their advisers have a more efficient day,” continues Peter Norsker from Festina Finance.
He believes that today’s consumers, instead of initially contacting the bank, often shop around and explore different options, such as investments. Today, sustainability and the desire to invest green are significant factors, and this is also an agenda the customer adviser must handle. The financial ecosystem has become complex, and the ability to provide effective decision support has become the most significant demand for an efficient customer advisory system.
“Our collaboration with customers has been a key factor in securing our position as a leading supplier to the financial sector. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the skill and adaptability of our clients. Additionally, we’ve been fortunate to develop solutions in a region where digitalization is essential. This has placed us in a unique position, enabling us to create world-class financial solutions that succeed not only locally but also internationally.”
Mikael Braagaard, CEO of Festina Finance
