Wasim Mushtaq – CFIT

FF News had the opportunity to meet with Wasim Mushtaq, Interim COO at CFIT, to delve into an intriguing discussion about his views into topics such as embedded finance and his involvement within the financial industry.

CFIT was set up following the Kalifa Review of Fintech (2021) to position the United Kingdom as a global leader in financial innovation. CFIT’s purpose is to unblock barriers to growth for financial technology by bringing together the best minds from across the UK in order to drive better outcomes for consumers and SMEs.

“I like to think of embedded finance as being for banks or fintechs to be able to offer existing customers other products and other solutions via an existing customer journey for a product. It could be a pivot point, and then it can go to another product or another service, and that is quite seamless and less frictional because you’ve already done your AML, KYC, you’ve already got the information, you don’t have to double input anything. From there, you can provide other use cases or opportunities to upsell or provide other products.”

“We have a complex regulated structure, and it’s there for a reason. Whilst innovation is great, there is governance to slow down innovation to make sure it’s the right type of innovation. For me, it’s not regulatory led or market led, it’s a spectrum … There’s various levels where you should think more on the regulatory side or on the market side.”