MX Digital Banking Framework Disrupts the Banking Industry
At Fall Finovate 2014, MX/MoneyDesktop’s founder and CEO Ryan Caldwell presented Helios, the new cross-platform digital banking framework that is deployable on any device from any plan. At The New York Hilton Midtown, a record-setting crowd of 1500 attendees joined the conference to watch as 70 companies unveiled their latest and greatest financial technology. It might seem easy to create disruption in banking, an industry that has been around for decades but only recently started using technology. But technologists need to go further to create game-changing services and products. Caldwell’s framework is decisively disruptive in that it enables financial institutions, credit unions and other partners to code only once –and still deploy to every single platform. It is not HTML5 but is a fully immersive native code that cuts 90% of development costs out of creating a real rich mobile tablet, phablet, desktop, laptop experiences.
He believes the banking industry never evolved in the modern age, and instead continues to follow several paradigms that are not optimal for a modern economy. He uses companies that grew up in the modern world as examples of how banking should be. “Take Google, they deliver things for users in a highly proactive anticipatory advocate-like attitude. I believe at the core they feel responsibility — almost a moral imperative — to deliver an incredible search experience for those users, and the world is fundamentally better as a result of that.”
His mission is to show banks, software providers and credit unions that they ought to have the same attitude of responsibility and dedication towards providing omnichannel experiences. “We don’t view banking from the same way that a lot of people do,” he continued. “It’s much more customer centric. As a result we’ve come up with concepts that are completely foreign to banking — like a whole idea of having a banking framework that really helps you to manage all of your money, not just show your account balances.”
He thinks what really knocked the socks off conference attendees was his company’s WideNet Technology that helps financial institutions expand their market reach. And it did – he was rewarded by being crowned a Best of Show Winner. His hard work paid off, since this is his fifth Best of Show award. But how does he deal with difficulties? “When you are frustrated you have to take breaks, you got to walk away from problems, and you’ve got to make sure not to get yourself burned out. If you just get frustrated take a 10 minute walk. Take the night off if you need. But the reality is all of these problems are solvable, you just have to breath, keep breathing, surround yourself with good people. Then you find that all of the little things that seem like nuances that you can’t quite get around are solvable—they just need a longer time.
He gives advice to entrepreneurs that are just starting out, “Do something that you absolutely love and feel passionate about. But look for where you can introduce efficiency. Honestly, the real great companies that build things that make the world better do make a lot of money. But making money is a byproduct of making the world better. Google is such a great business because it’s efficient. Facebook has worked, because it’s efficient. It makes my life easier. So anything that introduces efficiency to the world makes the world better, and I think those of the opportunities for huge disruptive technologies and disruptive innovations.”
