Douwe Lycklama
Board Member
Douwe Lycklama
Founding Partner at Innopay and proposed Interim President of the Board
The Innopay founder talks collaboration, ecosystems, and why customer value is the key to start-ups securing funding.
I became a Holland FinTech board member because fintech is all about transactions. I’ve spent the last 20 years figuring out how everything links together, whether it’s payments, data sharing, or digital identity. The value in this growing complexity is finding the shortcuts, the links between the different parts. Holland FinTech is a place where that can happen across the entire fintech industry.
I am also active on the boards/industry associations of several fintech-related companies and have also founded a number of other initiatives. I’ve been active in fintech before it was even called “fintech”.
My strategic perspective on finance’s future for today’s young people is a bit of advice for those already working in finance: actively participate in the future by continuing to educate yourself and creating networks that deliver tangible results. Put your curiosity to action and if you need a place to do this, Holland FinTech is a great place to start.
Start-ups looking to raise funds should convince investors that their services are relevant to customers and businesses because money follows customer value.
The key to addressing issues like financial inclusion, financial literacy, and sustainability is aligning individual incentives, which can be anything from money to well-being, while at the same time considering the bigger picture. Any efforts taken towards financial inclusion and literacy and sustainability must also result in tangible benefits for people in their daily lives.
What is truly changing customer experience is real-time interactions, whether they’re payments or a self-service password reset. This experience is being fuelled by growing data centralisation, self-learning algorithms, and similar technological innovations. One day we’ll get to a point where it won’t even be enough to simply meet customer needs in real-time: companies will have to predict them.
The last time I spoke at an event was last week. I’ve been doing a lot of online events and webinars as of late, and I mainly speak on data and data sharing.
The most important part of digital transformation is taking into account what you’re doing is really building an ecosystem for your end users, whether they’re customers, suppliers, or employees. Most transformations tend to be inside-out, but in reality they should also be outside-in. That means you have to think about how every single one of your end users engages with your business and then make it easier for them to do so.
Organisations like Holland FinTech play a key role in society as they bring together people and companies, helping both grasp today’s complexity and accompanying opportunities.
My favourite aspect of the Netherlands’ fintech ecosystem is that we see the value of collaboration. You can see it in the way our payments systems work or the Netherlands, more broadly, being the only country where electric car charging infrastructure is interoperable—that can only happen with a collaborative mindset. There’s also a very low threshold for participation, making our ecosystem attractive for both start-ups and talent.