NewTech Friday: audax – The building blocks of future finance
Kelvin Tan, CEO of audax, discusses the company's journey from powering Standard Chartered's banking-as-a-service offering to providing comprehensive digital banking solutions for banks and financial institutions, with a focus on redefining the future of banking globally.
Kelvin Tan, CEO of audax, discusses the company's journey from powering Standard Chartered's banking-as-a-service offering to providing comprehensive digital banking solutions for banks and financial institutions, with a focus on redefining the future of banking globally.
What led to the creation of audax?
We are at the beginning of a wave where incumbent banks are looking for alternative solutions to deliver scaled balance sheets without significant customer acquisition costs, such as digital banking, banking-as-a-service or embedded finance. This is aimed at shaping future business models for banking that will drive better returns on equity.
However, as these incumbents look to create these new digital business models and generate new revenue streams, legacy technology constraints remain a significant challenge to be solved.
The audax journey started by powering SC nexus, Standard Chartered’s global banking-as-a-service (BaaS) offering. audax’s solution allowed Standard Chartered to have a 24/7 scalable digital banking solution that can process millions of customers concurrently, which in turn allowed SC nexus to partner with large ecosystems with over 150 million users on their platforms, powering their digital banking offerings and driving scaled financial inclusion.
The vision was not merely to drive transformation within Standard Chartered but to rewire the DNA of banking. As a result, audax was spun out of Standard Chartered, with the aim of offering its capabilities to banks and financial institutions globally.
Could you present audax's offer?
audax is a comprehensive stack digital banking solutions provider empowering banks and financial institutions to scale and modernize at speed. We target banks and financial institutions looking to grow their retail banking and SME share, neobanks that want to launch but require a technology stack, and non-fintech entities looking to offer closed-loop services.
audax presents a solution catering to two primary distinct use cases: digital banking and BaaS. It boasts an end-to-end digital banking platform with modularized capabilities, designed to efficiently handle millions of customers concurrently. Through its plug-and-play digital banking solution, audax provides an end-to-end suite of banking capabilities and models for the entire client lifecycle, from client and staff interfaces to deposits and lending products to client servicing and data reporting.
Built to complement incumbent banks’ core systems where necessary, audax’s core banking and infrastructure-agnostic technology enables digital banking capabilities without the need for risky, costly and time-consuming in-house development or migration.
Using audax’s technology, Standard Chartered Bank was the first global bank to provide BaaS in Asia. The successful partnership between Standard Chartered and the Indonesian all-commerce company Bukalapak in launching BukaTabungan is an example of how audax has provided a truly paperless, digital banking access, serving Bukalapak’s ecosystem of more than 150 million users and 20 million business owners.
What's coming next for audax?
audax has powered Standard Chartered’s successful partnerships with Bukalapak and beauty e-commerce company Sociolla in Indonesia, and an upcoming third partner in the second market. We are now ready to scale it for other banks and financial institutions globally, helping everyone create better value for their business without risking their existing estate.
We have a lot of exciting developments in our pipeline, so stay tuned for our forthcoming announcements as we continue our journey to redefine the future of banking globally. Visit www.audax.io for more information.
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