Bitpanda Keynote: What it takes to run a compliant, scalable trading platform in Europe | EBC11

Transcript

Thanks everyone. Um my name is Mer. You see it there. I'm the COO at Bit Panda. Um again, thanks for joining today or staying. Um for the ones who don't know Bit Panda yet, uh we're a leading investment platform, the European investment platform. uh we provide retail services through our broker platform. We have our BTS solution where we offer white label um custody and investment services. Um we have uh over 12 partners across the world the world and uh we have big names like Deutsche Bank recently on Finance

in Brazil. So quite spreading a lot. Uh last but not least, we also have our web 3 solution for our retail users to make their first uh steps into the web 3 world. So uh talking about today, I heard a lot not only in this event but in general, right? We talk a lot about tokenization, traditional finance, the evolution of uh portfolios and we focus less on running a business right like this in such an environment. Therefore today I'm going to be speaking about what it takes to run a compliant scalable and leading investment platform in Europe.

when I think about uh building and running a compliant platform and I have some years there um I think of of strong foundations right um if you don't have a strong foundation you can fail and failing in this industry means sometimes disappearing um so we have to be careful with that uh in my opinion there's three pillars that are super important to build that foundation The first one is scaling through markets, bare markets, bull markets, it doesn't matter. Spikes. Uh second, you need to know how to spend uh across

borders. Um because if you don't expand, you won't grow. And third, uh compliance meeting customer experience. We know that in Europe, um we might not lead in adoption, but we do lead in compliance. And this means playing by the by the rules and therefore certain topics that we need to take into account. When we talk about scaling through market cycles, the the thing is that when you go through cycles um there's uh obvious topics that come out, right? And your weaknesses as a platform pop up really easily, whether it's a bull market or a bare market.

And uh there are certain aspects that you can certainly take into account to make it easier. The first one is smart automation. This is not automating for automating, right? You have to focus on the flows that are volume sensitive that come uh and can explode everything and and make sure that that works right. You don't want to hire one hire 100 people and fire 100 people or more. uh you want to make sure that when the volumes comes um it gets absorbed by the right automation and then um the right teams and those critical teams can focus on critical topics that will for sure uh

pop up. If we go to another important topic adaptable infrastructure, I think we all saw what happened last week uh with Trump news um these things when all platforms are down or many platforms some are down it affects uh user confidence and trust and not only that right it can cause a massive financial impact that we all need to avoid. So it is important to have that solid infrastructure. On the other hand and for me the most important one is resilient teams. Um you can have the technology but when you go through anything like this the teams are

the ones who make the difference. You need to have crossrain teams, resilient teams and compromised high performance teams that um make sure that everything is all right uh and are able to shift priorities from one minute to another without uh raising the boys. Right? Making sure that you uh rely on them. If we move on to the next pillar that we talked about um this is basically expanding uh easily across borders, right?

Uh we all know how much it costs to expand um across borders. Uh how much not only resources, money and time we spend into it. And when you make that step as a platform, you want to make sure that it is successful, then that it pays off right? So, um I always think that there needs to be a centralized strength that serves all markets that you can rely on and um you know that it will work, right? And then of course whenever you expand to a market, they have their local attributes. So it's like having a backbone and then certain models um that are uh specific to the country. This can

be language, way of communication, can be anything, right? And it's very specific when it comes to different areas, countries. Uh if you get the the first one and the second one right, you will reach that speed to market. Um speed to market is again super important um because um with all that resources and uh effort money put into it, you need to make sure that you go to market within a few weeks and a few and not a few months. How do you do this? You make sure that you have a proper playbook that you have already uh made sure that it works and you

follow it throughout the markets making sure uh that it is still effective. Right? If we move on uh to the third pillar we talk about compliance. Again we certainly don't lead in adoption in Europe, but we lead in compliance. um this sometimes can be as a constraint. Uh I think it's a very positive topic. Um and we need to make sure that we do it successfully, right?

That it doesn't become a failure for any of us. So um the first thing that we need to take into account is guided compliance. This means when you build a flow, you have to already take into account that the user needs to feel like it's a natural way uh into the into the compliance regulatory space. It feels natural and they feel okay and smooth to go through it. Um and of course if the user for whatever reason needs to be guided hand in hand needs to be done as well right with as part of the process.

Uh second, tailored experience. Um just like we talked about local markets and their very specific attributes, you have the same uh the same issue with compliance, right? Uh documents are gathered in a different way. They're called uh in a different manner. Um so you you really need to make sure that the user feels that um they're within their local uh playground. Um and last but not least uh this is a very extended problem and it's uh not having an intelligent risk approach.

Yes, we want to be compliant and yes uh we want to attack risk but we're not aiming to kill a bee with a gun, right? uh you need to make sure that when you tackle uh those risk populations they're the right ones and then you can have the right teams uh properly clear it if for whatever reason indeed uh there needs to be further actions make sure that the users feel accompaned uh into the process. So uh to recap, I talked about um expanding across borders.

Um I talked about compliance, meeting customer experience and market cycles and how important they are. So uh thanks for listening. I will be at the booth uh together with the team if you want to have a quick chat and yeah, thank you. Enjoy.