Major Players Make Waves in FinTech

The digital evolution continues, as not one but three major financial players make moves toward a more FinTech-driven future. In a two-day span, Morgan Stanley, Misys, and D+H all announced initiatives that could shape the trajectory of the industry.

First up to bat was Morgan Stanley, a financial services, wealth management, and investment firm with offices worldwide. Though the company hasn’t been big on the mortgage scene, it seems that’s all poised to change:  the company announced it will launch a digital mortgage platform in 2018.

Though Morgan Stanley does currently offer mortgage loans, according to a presentation by Naureen Hassan, the company’s Chief Digital Officer, 98 percent of the firm’s customers don’t have a Morgan Stanley mortgage. The new digitized platform is designed to change all that.

According to Hassan’s presentation, which was part of Tuesday’s Morgan Stanley U.S. Financials Conference in San Diego, the platform will allow borrowers to apply, get dynamic rate estimates, and submit application documents completely online. The firm will also digitize its branch system, enabling eAuthorization for wires, mobile equity trading, online debit card and check ordering, digital person-to-person payments, and more.

The goal, Hassan’s presentation stated, is to “maximize time spent on advice, versus client servicing.”

On the heels of Morgan Stanley’s news, two other players—Misys, a financial software provider, and D+H, a financial technology distributor—announced a merger. As a press release stated, the two “have joined forces to create a diversified global financial software provider, unmatched in terms of depth and breadth of solutions.”

The merged companies will operate under the name Finastra and, by combining the workforce and clientele of both D+H and Misys, will boast more than 10,000 employees and 9,000 customers, creating “the third largest financial services technology company in the world,” according to the press release. The company will offer retail banking, transaction banking, lending, treasury, and capital markets software.

"We firmly believe that Finastra is greater than the sum of its parts,” said Robert Smith, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partner. “The combination of scale, efficiency, and market leading service and technology will create a powerhouse in the FinTech sector and uniquely position the company to meet the demands of its global customers and their clients.”