Blanco Services defines itself as the “invisible engine of the asset manager’’. We sat down with Bernadette Wijnings, Co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of Blanco Services to find out more.
Blanco Services was founded in 2015 by a group of professionals who met through their work for BinckBank. “We noticed that software products and services available in the market were not really aimed at asset managers, so asset managers had to put in a lot of manual work,” explained Bernadette Wijnings when asked about the motive behind the company. This led the founders to realise the demand for a cost-efficient solution for professionals within the financial sector, particularly for investment firms, banks and asset managers.
The products of Blanco Services are beneficial from both regulatory and administrative perspectives, with features including client on-boarding, Know Your Customer, portfolio management and administration security. The so-called “KYC tool” is based on a scientific model to determine the risk appetite of a customer. The tool provides a digital questionnaire that calculates a risk score with a matching investment proposal and three different scenarios of expected returns.
Bernadette claims that Blanco Services is making the financial industry more cooperative, independent, and enhanced, while also acknowledging that there is a human factor embedded in the quality of the products delivered by Blanco Services, beyond the software. “It’s not only the software that does the trick; but also the knowledge,” she says.
When inquired about the Dutch financial landscape, Bernadette begins her answer by stating her belief for a strong fintech ecosystem, where fintech companies help each other make useful and necessary connections, and to stand together when there is a need for lobbying, or when there is a decision required to be made. This is also one of the reasons why Blanco Services has decided to join Holland Fintech.
Bernadette is of the opinion that a female viewpoint really helps to set-up and shape an ideal company to work for. When building Blanco Services, her adopted method has been setting a number of pillars, being: responsibility, diversity and freedom. According to her, diversity contributes to making good decisions within a company, and the fact that Blanco Services consists of people from 15 countries, adds to that claim. Bernadette is cautious on how to achieve diversity, however she adds ‘’When you want to create a diverse company, you should create a company where people can be themselves.” Also, she doesn’t believe in the 9 to 5 work structure, as everyone in the team may have different lifestyles and backgrounds, and therefore different needs. Setting a healthy life- work balance makes people happier, both at home and in the work place. “I believe in structure, not hierarchy. Blanco Services is a holacracy organization,” she adds before finishing, “That’s how we are able attract the best talent from all over the world.”
