S2E1 - Bridging Passion and Data in Finance – A Deep Dive with Andra Sonea
Hello, everyone, and welcome to a new season of Tales from the FinTech. We haven't announced the end of last season properly, and that's not ideal. But we have wrapped up the last season with the amazing episode you've heard where I had the pleasure of chatting to Brad King. This season already has amazing names that are in the can. We've had conversations around all things from digital assets to AI, obviously, and the evolution and involution of, Fintech from all points of view.
Duena Blomstrom:And, again, big, big names, your Matoresis, your Andrasoneas, your Jim Marozis. They're all going to be present in this, in this season of sales from the Fintech Crib along with our stories and along with a number of anecdotes from the road. So tune in for this season, and thank you so much for being there. Andra Sonaya, a name you will remember if you care about financial services and Fint. Andra is one of the best minds of our generation.
Duena Blomstrom:I firmly believe that, and I have said that to everyone who was willing to listen over the last 15 years that I have had the extreme pleasure of getting to know her. Andra has not only a mind that will endure in our industry, but one that's keenly curious about ways to improve financial lives of everyone, not only a few of us. Andra has worked in all kinds of big places, and she has been a part of SAP, IBM, Lloyds, FintechOS, and many other that that would ring a bell. But in her variety of the journey, she's learned so much, and she has ensured that she remains the most amazingly modest professional that she is, despite the fact that she has had so many accomplishments that she should be proud of, and the latest of them is her PhD. Listen to Andra telling us what she's learned along her very, very cynos road of wisdom and passion, and hopefully, see you back next week for another conversation with the Fintech Batteral.
Duena Blomstrom:Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Tales from The Fintech. I have someone with us today who is your card. In the intro, it's not only integral part of building Fintech, but I am very, very fortunate to be able to call practically my sister. So hi, Andre, and thank you so much for accepting my invitation. In the intro, I was saying this, but I don't know how clear it is to people, so I'm I'm happy to go over it a little bit again.
Duena Blomstrom:We met, Gods, I guess, 10, 12 years ago. And, when we did make, Fintech was just starting to rear its head, out of the out of the powers of technology. But yourself, you were were you a banker, I think?
Andra Sonea:I think I was working for IBM at the time, but, yes, I was working with financial technology.
Duena Blomstrom:I remember, like, yesterday I mean, we we connected on so many levels, of course, and I'm not gonna go the details of our lives over here. I don't know how interesting it is to people, but we we did meet at what was, essentially an an informal meetup or rather a lesser than big conferences meetup. They don't probably exist anymore like that anywhere, and this was somewhere in Germany, I think.
Andra Sonea:Yes. It was in, it was in Berlin, and it was, so called Right. Barghkamp Bank. So it was a an unconference focused on, on banking. And, it it it's a it's, yeah, it's a miracle that we've met there because I was coming from London and you were coming
Duena Blomstrom:from Yeah.
Andra Sonea:Yeah. Stockholm, Indonesia. Okay.
Duena Blomstrom:Isn't it? I don't know how many people now, but we're both Romanian.
Andra Sonea:So to meet somewhere in
Duena Blomstrom:the middle of Europe coming from 2 different other places and be in the same industry, it was quite a miracle. Because let's face it, we were, I don't know, 10 women in financial technology in those days, maybe 20?
Andra Sonea:Yeah. Very few, actually. I mean, I think in financial technology in general, there were others. I think the ones who kind of identified with with this small group were the ones who would have liked to do things differently or would see a a future in improving banking through technology and and and so on. So it was it was very fringe When when when we started, it was like, what what's wrong with you?
Andra Sonea:Why are you not happy with the state the status quo?
Duena Blomstrom:These events, it was fringe event as Andra said, her camp act, that's indeed the name of it. I had forgotten it. They if you look it up, you might be able to find some things, but probably not much. They were practically a meetup of people that were coming from all kinds of walks. They were either internal bankers or working for a technology provider and or professor, I've met quite a number of people that were in academia.
Duena Blomstrom:And we were all just there going like, right, but what is real what's money really? And what can we do to make this better faster? And, how, how many of those, I don't know, moments of thinking do you think translated into into real technology in the meantime?
Andra Sonea:I don't know. But that what I know for sure is that the the discourse and the understanding has changed, and it was very much advanced through those, through those meetings. So the for me, the first bank and bank was was in London. And, it was on a Saturday in in in the basement of I don't know, a a technology company which graciously let us be there, you know. And I found the digital footprint of that meeting.
Andra Sonea:And if you look at the participants, you find people who, you know, later on did amazing things in in in fine what would take you of your own house or of your own, you know, nice schedule on a Saturday to discuss banking in the, you know, in a room without windows? On a Saturday. It was it was a particular group. For me, what was what was very interesting because, obviously, professionally, I was a technologist, and we were specialized in banking, and we were even specialized in particular type of systems. So, you would look at the risk systems of the bank.
Andra Sonea:You would look at the treasury systems of the bank, financial accounting, financial reporting, all the architecture of the back office of the bank. So for me, that was a bank at the time. And I was not alone. We we couldn't care less about who does what and how they use it. So you could have a perspective of the bank as an as an entity which acts on the market, and then you are focused on a particular type of system or particular types of systems and architecture.
Andra Sonea:And I remember that in Berlin, when I when I met you, you you were on the on the other side facing facing the client, understanding the client, what the client does. And for me, that was like, really? It might it might feel stupid, but but, really, I didn't I simply didn't cross path with people who who knew something about that. And you had a very good understanding and a very good way of explaining what what you what you saw. And they were also in that meeting in in in Berlin.
Andra Sonea:What amazed me, there were people who had nothing to do with with banking. They were from gaming industry or nothing. No. Not a particular profession or angle which would link them to banking. They simply cared about how they do banking, and I never encountered this perspective.
Andra Sonea:You know? So it was very impactful for me. Even even you could say, what? Saturday changes your perspective? And, yes, it does.
Andra Sonea:Because the perspective was so different from, you know, my financial services, technology expertise. I think this is a
Duena Blomstrom:really good point, and I'd like to, like I always try to, like, land it for people who are listening for educational purposes as well. And that is because over the years, I have you know, we have both been mentors and teachers to 100 of start ups and people starting in financial service. So we know that the perspective that they get of the industry is very much dependent on the moment that they've entered it and how much more mature the market was. So for for the sake of kind of the the the reason why I come back to this history all the time is because it does give you this clear perspective as to what sites were. And as Andra will point out, just the way that the front end and the client experience was, was, was a shock to, to some people on the back end.
Duena Blomstrom:The reverse was also true. There were loads of propositions that were only focused on how do we pay, what's the payment, and to them, it was shocking that there's a Spaghetti system that will not let them do so. The the two sides were very kind of separate to a degree at at at the time. They are not anymore necessarily, but still for anyone in the industry thinking in terms of what is back end and what is the, experience side of things is super important, I think, because it it offers you a much broader perspective as to what all the technology that needs to change is. And speaking of ways, I think the degree to which you see change on the front front end is very, very different to the amount of change that has existed ever in the back end.
Duena Blomstrom:So this is 10, 12 years ago. The systems you were working on then, are they still in banks then?
Andra Sonea:Many systems are still there. The the way I experienced it, let's say, because may maybe there are other perspectives out out there. But the way I saw it when people started talking about Fintech or doing things in Fintech, they started from the visible part of banking and slowly, going down. You know? But it was very often in complete ignorance with what is underneath.
Andra Sonea:As an as an architect, you always or that does my my my, let's say, professional, mind, which I think formed very much in IBM. Because in IBM, this was a profession. And you think in terms of terms of constraints, and you see always around the problem, you see the bigger picture and the context. You you and you constantly move between detail and bigger picture. You try to make sure that you don't break one or the other.
Andra Sonea:You know, by fixing the detail, you don't break the big thing. And and if if you if you remember, I I was always almost coming, like, for the proper creep even then. Because they were saying, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Andra Sonea:But you cannot do this. I mean, I understand you want this pretty thing on top, but I tell you where this data live lives, and you cannot you cannot bring it in in this form. You we do not have this information. And it was not out of I don't want to do this. No.
Andra Sonea:I was the first one who would have liked to do this, but I knew where the constraints were. The changes and the mindset didn't penetrate so much as to change the whole tower, you know, the whole stack of the bank. And it's not a matter of will. It's rather a matter of it's a result of our lack of action for decades. You know you know very well that for for many years, there was such a gap between the so called business in banking and and technology.
Andra Sonea:And very often, the the the gap would be wider or narrower depending on the culture of the of the bank, but the gap was always there. And instead of of of finding a way to, you know, align this is a problem that they're trying to solve, how to solve it better. It was always a battle for, okay, who takes the decision? The business people. Who who are we selling to these guys?
Andra Sonea:They buy a system which they don't really know how to fit into technology, or the technology guys buy a system which doesn't properly solve the business needs. And it it was only this this crazy, crazy battle, But business usually, business has has a budget for for for for big investment or this type of strategic change which takes years. It was like technology. We can do what we need to do. We can do what you need to do.
Andra Sonea:But they don't see the technical debt accumulating, and this nordian knot of systems growing and growing to the point that you not only that you don't understand it, but you cannot touch it anymore because you cannot untangle Gordian knots. You look at them and you either take a sword or you know, the fact that we ignored the evolution of technology outside banking, and we let this mess, be created limited a lot what you can do, how much in-depth you can do with the with the proper changes.
Duena Blomstrom:I love it. But then there's so much
Andra Sonea:we think we need
Duena Blomstrom:to unpack for people there. So the first thing that Andre is referring to and it's so prevalent. I've written about it in in the people before tech. I've written about it again in tech culture. Is this push and pull that some organizations have between some non generative organizations, I should say, have between understanding or or having this extreme separation between business and IT.
Duena Blomstrom:And in some places, it might be between proposition and IT. It might be between, you know, the customer facing side and and technology. But however you put it, as long as you have these two parts, you're never gonna get less technical debt, and you're not gonna get less human debt, either. So both of those things, the Andresis, are gonna just grow and grow, exoskeletons on top of them that will make them encapsulate to a point that it will be impossible to move forward. But we were at the time, I think, when we're talking about 10, 12 years ago, where that, the dose knots weren't quite as tangled yet, and there would have been ways to penetrate them in in some shape and form.
Duena Blomstrom:And part of the thinking we were doing at the time was always kind of being able to to to think of of of of of direct path to to go from the consumer to to to the data or to the to the the movement you needed behind the scene. Obviously, without the help of amazing minds like yours that understood the architecture, it would have never happened to on the front end either. So that's why I'm saying you are absolutely similar to the industry. I've seen your your your mind in action so many times explaining the incredible fast forest of dependencies that can exist behind what looks like just a layer of data that it would have been impossible to move without your knowledge. So I'm really grateful, and I hope that more people know how no.
Duena Blomstrom:Genuinely, like, this is not even me. I'm I'm very proud of Andra, obviously, but I'm also I know that there would be 20 people that I could think of right now that could think of instances where your capability of seeing the underneath of the system is the only difference between them making a successful front end proposition and not. So genuinely, the the capability of understanding where what was happening in the belly of the beast, to put it that way, was not as common as that. And the and there was also and I think that's worth remembering, and I think it's happening again. There was this big difference also between the people that were inside the bank and had knowledge of these things, and the people that were trying to make the positions and were outside of it.
Duena Blomstrom:And that kind of difference wasn't helping on top of the IT versus business, on top of the front end versus back end. So there were just so many different planes of differentiation instead of togetherness that it it you are an absolute bridge at the time. And I was I remember just as you were shocked that I had the clarity on the front end. I remember multiple systems you would quote that it would have never occurred to me that they exist or they should exist, or that they should or shouldn't. It's the thing I would advise no one thinks of.
Duena Blomstrom:In banking, you should never worry whether something should exist because that will drive you insane. Just look at what you have and see how you can do better. But, yeah, I really love that you've you've put that perspective to people. And I love that going back to what was then the situation, what is now the situation, do you think, is this it's an awkward question. I don't it's not leading.
Duena Blomstrom:I don't know what you have seen of late. I have lost somewhat contact with the Fintech industry for a few years. I've seen other industries. I have been I'm part of all that how much less of debt that they've got them for themselves as compared to banking. In these other industries that I've looked at such as, you know, automotive, logistics, pharma, the back end technical debt was a much more present notion and a lot less of a taboo and a lot more attack in in, agile way.
Duena Blomstrom:So they started chipping away from some of their technical debt. Would you say the banking does less of that? And if so, why do they do that?
Andra Sonea:So when I when I worked in in technology for for other industries, what was obvious to me is that that matter what they were doing, they were doing with less money than banking. As a consequence, from the beginning, they couldn't afford the inefficiencies that I could see in banking, and the banking world was, very tolerant of. I remember, for example, that at some point, I worked for, as a consultant for, Alcatel. Yeah.
Duena Blomstrom:I was gonna say that's the thing to be the way it was.
Andra Sonea:Exist anymore, but it was a great company, what? Yeah. Telecom, Telecom Equipment. They would produce, sell, install telecom equipment in faraway countries. They would run projects which would be years with components which were produced, modified, blah blah blah around the world.
Andra Sonea:In the team I was working on, because I was a very, hands on consultant, but hands on, consultant, We're doing third line support for, the financial systems of this company for many countries, like, from Brazil to, I don't know, all the European countries, whatever you want. Yeah? So complex stuff. We're 5 people. When third line support means things broke badly, no one knows what it is.
Andra Sonea:So complex problems where you you you you kind of have to go across all directions, and you have to fix it fast. The equivalent for a bank would have been 100 of people. 100. The systems would be poorer quality in terms of process and technology. There was lots of Excel, lots of Excel, lots of manual manipulation.
Andra Sonea:I just couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this, and I was wondering, how can you afford this? So that company doing, let's say, necessary stuff, real stuff, they cut the cost to the minimum, but they also knew that that that was the thing. They were able to calculate their cost for all all these things all the time, every month. Are they above? Are they below?
Andra Sonea:And and in the banking world, around the same time, you wouldn't know where you are, probably with the with the balance sheet of the bank, you know. You or you would know probably 1 month later. And to me, this was absolutely unbelievable. So you you you moved across in the industries, and it was a massive massive gap. Now things are better, but not not necessarily much better, basically, because it's also in the in the industry, manufacturing or selling, whatever, people are linked somehow to the logistic part of it.
Andra Sonea:So they kind of it's tangible, see if things are moving, are delivered, are invoiced, are blah blah blah. In banking, things are a bit more abstract. And especially with if you work with more complex products in investment banking and so on. But even with the basic ones, there's little understanding and of profitability of things by product, by customer. This view completely it didn't didn't even exist, you know.
Andra Sonea:That there was just the accounting the accounting view, which would be, by definition, something that you do at the end of the month and, you know, it it the mentality is very different. How you how do you think about your business operations in in these different worlds? And because for a long time, banking enjoyed, a good profit margin, they could afford, inefficiencies which killed entire companies and industry.
Duena Blomstrom:That's a really good question. So in a in a sense, they were a victim of, of being too flushed for for from many points of view. And I think that's reflected in the bloat as well and the fact that you could probably do the same amount of technology in banking with 10% of the people that they have these days employed. I know that that would not be a pleasant categorization that I'm I'm throwing out there. I don't know the exact number, but most of technology is bloated.
Duena Blomstrom:Banking technology, I think, is so in other words, you could probably do the exact same job as an as as, like, a quarter of the people. And you you would come up with more efficient and more data driven solutions, which is the crux of the issue. There was no reason to be forensic to the data level because there was no real driver to be super efficient. So, yeah, we threw people at the problem and we threw other systems at the problem instead of kind of figuring out what the most optimal, configure have been.
Andra Sonea:Yeah. And and another thing would be it it it the the other industry other industry in general, very often still cared about the customer to a level that banking didn't have to. Because if you think what do you do as a customer? You you spend your own money. So what the bank does?
Andra Sonea:Oh, they send you a a list, a log of your transaction. They did. In any other industries, they they sell things. So the their invoices, their payments, which have to match their goods being delivered. So this granularity almost never disappear.
Andra Sonea:You cannot say, oh, I don't care about this type of customer. No. No. You do because you invoice them. You have to see that you got the payment.
Andra Sonea:So the the the granularity of the business, it's carried through for a long while in the in the operation. While in banking, you spend your own money. Good luck to you. We aggregate it all the data according to the financial accounting or treasury or risk regulation, and we work from here on, and we run our institution because we we, as an entity, our job is to manage risk, and this is what we do. Okay.
Andra Sonea:I'm talking here about, retail banking, but, of course, things are a bit more complicated for for commercial or investment. But Right.
Duena Blomstrom:So by that, it's this is yet another differentiation that's that's super useful. And, we're not trying to make this into a master class, but there are, structural differences and structural similarities between investment banking versus banking versus commercial banking and so on. And kind of understanding what the similarities are, I think, has always been a lot more important than understanding the differences. But equally, I think the way that the presentation has landed these days and the the reality we have these days has rested on getting that understanding fast. Back end was front end, what's technical and what's business and why is there a gap between them because of the cultural issues.
Duena Blomstrom:And then kind of understanding that the the the the back end systems were existing in a certain fashion and and that, what that transport was like. But equally, I think one similar and change moment that I know you were integral part of has been, the idea of open banking. And each of us going forward, this is what could think, 7 years of us being in the industry into it. We were already a veteran when PSD 2 was kicked off. I remember, like, it's still new to to us, but, but to other people coming into the industry, these were rails already placed where the, the the openness to the experience has forced a lot of the change you see on the back end of banks and on the proposition of banks.
Duena Blomstrom:This is all kind of a reaction to the fact that there were so many more players such as the challenger, such as to all the other types of companies that were now invited to also offer some type of financial experience, which hasn't happened before. So when it comes to open banking, would you say that on the retail kind of side, one can see the effects, I would say. It's quite clear to anyone listening to this that cares about financial technology. If it hadn't been for open banking, that the access to the data that the consumer had would have been impossible. And I'm pleased for no one that has no one had had to go through what we had to go through to get to that data.
Duena Blomstrom:And now it's a different world. But does that make that difference on the other sides of banking as well? Has it made meant bigger openness in in allowing new layers of experience for, I don't know, commercial or investment or any of the other drier bits? Not to the degree that we hope for.
Andra Sonea:Oh, I yeah. I remember very well, the times that you mentioned where the the the the just the idea of having access to customer data, you know, maybe was absolutely impossible. Needless to say, open APIs, that are free for use, but if you are a regulated third party, that that was absolutely unconscievable. We had high hopes, super high hopes about this. There are many there I don't even know what what to what to where to start with this.
Andra Sonea:As it happened, I I did
Duena Blomstrom:some research together in research on
Andra Sonea:on on this. Yeah. It it was just it was just for a for a year, but, I I was lucky enough to have a fellowship with docile which which, you know, gave me time time for this. And I have selected the 10 countries to look at where something happens, which looks like open banking and open finance. And I have selected a particular niche of companies that I wanted to observe because I thought banking responds fully out of all possibilities.
Andra Sonea:And is this is this section of small and medium enterprises, which are neither here nor there, so depending, what bank are we talking with, they I would say that they are usually handled in the retail technology stack, not in the commercial stack. But they are yeah. So normally, you would say business has a need for the specific financial product, which don't exist in technology stack. You don't do factoring as an individual, you know. But but as a small business would be something that you would need, and it would help you a lot if it can help you your cash flow.
Andra Sonea:You don't have any rapid arrangements for working capital and things like that. So I thought okay. Okay. So the the fact that Open Banking, Open Finance comes with the idea that the financial transactions, which are the gold, you know, the the type of data which is the the most powerful data. So it it's what you do.
Andra Sonea:It's not what you say. It's not what you Google. It's what you buy. Yeah? So that that's gold.
Andra Sonea:So the fact that all of a sudden, this data can be consumed and combined with others, for sure, can improve this space. So we're looking okay. Let's look across countries. What's happening? So in the UK, the regulatory regime, and especially when UK was part of European Union, and it was easy to, you know, be regulated here and gain a financial passport for the whole world.
Andra Sonea:All the people interested in Fintech were clustered here more than anywhere else in Europe. So, obviously, UK had the highest number of these companies, more than all the other European companies countries put together. It was such a striking contrast based on the same regulation. Same things. It's like, okay.
Andra Sonea:How do you explain this? You know, there are no variation in the, in the in the regulation adoption. Some countries didn't have one company recorded as a registered as a third party. So huge variation across Europe and quite interesting things in in the UK. But then we looked at US, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Pakistan, Kenya, night, Nigeria.
Andra Sonea:And, it will take ages to to talk about this, but what I what I what I liked and what surprised me nicely surprised me in a pleasant way. Not nice. The way the technical standards have been developed for for this in the UK, I think was an example of good practice. Because European regulation very often delegates the, execution of the technical standards. And for such a regulation, which should make easier the interconnectivity between an ecosystem or the startups and the big players, the standardization of the connectivity and data, it's essential for adoption.
Andra Sonea:You can kill all the startups on the market if you present them with, 70 types of APIs which give you
Duena Blomstrom:shit. No problem at all. It's not kind of a podcast.
Andra Sonea:Anyway and and what I what I what I realized was that these standards, the orchestration of the API, the authentication, the authorization, you find them all over the world. The ones from the UK, they are taken, lifted, and you find them in Brazil, in Greece. And and my surprise was to find them in Kenya. And I was like, how Doesn't because it doesn't come from the regulator. Startups embraced these things.
Andra Sonea:You know? You see them there. You see you see the this is how the API should look like. This is the import. This is output.
Andra Sonea:This is your orchestration. Okay. We can execute that. So, basically, the effect of open banking to go with, you know, a long while. Okay.
Andra Sonea:What they see in the UK, we see in the UK. We can consume this information. It's predictable. It's not so much as we wanted, not so much change. But what they found this globally on other countries, which don't have infrastructure for this.
Andra Sonea:We have a banking system which is not which is open and as free as ours is here in the UK. To have startups building the infrastructure for creating the financial data, for consuming the financial data, for producing financial, decision. I thought this is a success. Although, from bank, which they should, which they should, process more and, other organizations should take less than 150 in in my view.
Duena Blomstrom:Carry through of it has been standard as a practice, not standard as a regulation process, which is quite amazing. And, I mean, just having that model be replicated organically, it must have been quite a surprising finding. I I wish UK was smart enough to put it in a in a in a newsletter or a or a or a diploma on some mayor's wall, but, I doubt that has happened. That is very cool. I didn't realize that.
Duena Blomstrom:That's funny. Speaking of your research, not to take away from from the story, this was only a drop in the ocean, but, you you went from being a practitioner and someone who was, building technology in and out of banks to, then becoming an an academic. So talk to us a little bit more about that and kind of what what sprung you there? What was the what was the the core of passion that brought you there, and where are you today?
Andra Sonea:Yeah. I didn't see I didn't see this coming. So I didn't play I didn't plan to become an academic or a researcher, but, I was I was, obsessed about what doesn't work in, why we don't we cannot execute the type of change we're talking about. At the time, for me, it was obvious that we have to do something about core banking. And until it changes and until we can change that in a fundamental way, that will block, you know, transformation even if it comes from the top or from the back end.
Andra Sonea:And I had a a fellowship with Anthemis at the time, and it was 6 months. And you're supposed to build the idea to build the company, but I thought, you know, I don't know if I'll ever have 6 months again in this way to think. I want to think how this thing should look like. And I discussed with 100 of people. I reached some conclusion where I described, what I saw or what or what I think in a paper which at the time was called, the repulse of core banking.
Andra Sonea:My move to academia was based was based on that. I thought this is this is not a problem which is solved well now. So this is, I don't know, 7 years ago. With, technology, we we need we need we need to think differently about it, and we don't have that type of thinking in the industry. And I thought, okay.
Andra Sonea:Banking, as I see it, is a is a network, a global network, but we are not the only global network in the world. We are not the only type of service which needs to be available 247. We are not the only essential service. Who who else does this? Who else, you know, have to manage this type of thing?
Andra Sonea:So I was thinking of other in infrastructure, electricity grid, transportation, and, telecoms. And, I wanted to learn more how how these industries manage, how they understand, how they even model, how they even describe what they do, what they have, how they want to grow, what they want to solve. So this is how I enrolled in an urban science PhD, you know. And I took myself way out my comfort zone, you know, because I didn't go there as an expert to write my little thing. I went there knowing nothing, having colleagues who were 24, 25, super, super smart, just out of the university, the best out of them.
Andra Sonea:And I was like, okay. Let me let me try. I didn't know that I will finish this PhD. I I just wanted to learn, you know, and to learn from this industry and and bringing back to to banking. So I I did a lot of that.
Andra Sonea:I I learned a lot, and my thesis will be soon public, hopefully. But and I I worked on 2 problems actually. 1 was looking the architecture of the of the mega banks. How do we disentangle that Gordian node node in terms of understanding? And my example, or I learned also from how neuroscientists describe what the brain does.
Andra Sonea:Because nowadays, they can do that, and they they model it, and they describe it, and they analyze it. So I went on that path learning from neuroscientists how do you describe model a complex system, and how do you find out what it does, and so on. And another another problem I looked at was what I called everyday banking, which is, to me, a subset of retail banking. We are talking about basic banking services as essential services that everybody should have access to. And it's an industry which to me functions or should be specifically classified as critical national infrastructure.
Andra Sonea:That thing, it needs to function 247, needs to function across the whole space. Everybody should have access to it and should not be penalized in terms of costs, like it cost you an arm and a leg to have access to your own money. You'd say this is basic, but it's not defined like that. Banking is a self regulated industry. They are not part of Critical National Infrastructure Commission.
Andra Sonea:They don't do inter infrastructure modeling. So if telecom fails, guess what? Your banking is down. If electricity grid fails, guess what? Your banking is down.
Andra Sonea:We don't do this type of thing. And and to me, it's it's ridiculous as we move more towards, you know, digital banking, which has fewer points of failure and total failure. Because when digital banking is done, everything is done. You know, 3 customers or 20 customers. And I'm and I modeled, spatially what I called access to banking.
Andra Sonea:So I went into learning lots of stuff I had no idea about, from spatial analysis, from geographer, from people who are focused on mobility and transportation just in order to show the state of basic banking in the UK that can be modeled by a PhD student in her fifties. And, the we don't have the regulator who does that. Nobody put these things all together, and they should because there's a lot of suffering actually, around this in the UK. So on one side, we are Fintech all over and on the other side, basic banking, it's,
Duena Blomstrom:That's amazing. That is an amazing journey, and I am beyond proud of your journey. I know for a while, you know, kind of we had a bit of of, parallelism there where I went off to kind of figure out what is the holdup with the change. Why can't they move any faster? And my answer was the that it's, you know, it's human that your answer is that it's fake debt, and why is the fake debt happening?
Duena Blomstrom:But the kind of looking into the the the cultural holdups in banking have a little bit of that nowhere near the kind of, time and detail you've put into your thesis. I'm very envious of that one day. When when I grow up, I'd like to be a vegetarian as well. I think I really hope that by the time this is out, I'm not sure if it if it, lands into the 1st season or the 2nd season. But whenever it's out, I'd really love for people to go look up your thesis.
Duena Blomstrom:There's a lot to be learned from it. There's a lot to be considered from it. There's a lot to to, to to kind of put in perspective. And I think this is important for both bankers and and and other parts of the industry, not only because you have this exceptional perspective, like I said, number of times before, what or what's you the view that other people don't have, but also that you've spent all of this time to to to look at the intersectionality, which I think is the key that the the the reason we have such issues in society is because we tend to think of things in in very singular fashion or with the light to one topic at a time. And it's it's not until we figure out how the information, what effects they have that we get far.
Duena Blomstrom:So thank you for your work there. And I don't know if your, your your plan is to continue to focus on something else that's theoretical or to come back to the practical side of things. But if anyone will be so lucky as to pull you back from the fun research, then then, indeed, they they would be winning. So thanks a lot for talking to us, Sandra. I have a lot more questions, but I know that people barely have, the 40 minutes for for the podcast in general.
Duena Blomstrom:So, hopefully, you'll come back and talk to us some other time, and thank you so much for today.
Andra Sonea:Thank you so much for having me. Bye.