Friday interview: Q&A with David Webber, Intelligent Environments

Rating: Financial sector heavyweight joins the mobile industry

Last month [July 2012], Intelligent Environments (IE), which is a leading provider of digital banking software to the mobile industry, announced the appointment of David Webber as its new managing director (md). David is obviously a financial industry heavyweight – bringing with him nearly 20 years of experience in financial services software and managing global operations. GoMobile News managed to steal probably the first ever interview with David in his new role and asked him for his perspective on marrying his expertise in the financial sector with the mobile industry.GoMobile News: Intelligent Environments provides mobile banking and payments capabilities to the top tier of British banks and mobile operators.

Current customers include O2 – can you expand on this? For example, what O2 products are we talking about?

David Webber: Intelligent Environments has been providing digital banking services for nearly 15 years, initially concentrating on secure self service and apply solutions for online channels which expanded over time to mobile banking services.

Today we support banks seeking to provide their customers with secure access to balances, recent transaction lists as well as with the capability to make payments via their mobiles.

We currently work with O2 as one of its core technology partners on the O2 Wallet offering.

This service, as the name suggests, enables O2 customers to use their phone as they would their wallet, to send money messages to any UK mobile number and undertake mobile shopping from over 100 online retailers.

GMN: A new era for the company – one which is set to be characterised by international expansion. What territories are you targeting? Developed or developing markets?

DW: As the mobile payment sector continues to grow globally, it is only natural that Intelligent Environments will look at options abroad as it seeks to drive forward its strategic plans in new territories as well as the UK.

At this current time, the company is analysing a number of different opportunities, in both developing and developed nations.

GMN: What previous mobile products have you worked on?

DW: I have nearly 20 years of experience in the financial services software sector, including managing global operations. Immediately prior to joining IE I spent six years with Patsystems Group, an electronic trading, risk and exchange provider.

They pioneered trading on handheld devices and enabled trading solutions via iPad, iPhone and Android.

This, along with my time spent as chief executive and managing director at Attentiv Systems (a provider of financial software systems to the retail financial sector), provides me with a strong platform of experience with which to lead IE’s leadership team in delivering growth.

GMN: Who do you see as your competitors? Google with its Wallet or specialists like mPowa?

DW: As the buzz around mobile financial services continues to grow, there are many indirect competitors looking to exploit the opportunities in this space.

I believe that IE is uniquely placed to exploit the opportunity in mobile however because of our strong digital banking heritage and the pedigree in banking innovation and integration that the company has built its reputation on.

While mobile is a significant channel for IE, we cater for all digital channels and aim to provide digital financial services with an intuitive and secure user experience.