Alexander Vityaz of Corezoid
Today I’m joined by Alexander Vityaz from Corezoid.
Corezoid provides a platform-as-a-service cloud operating system that enables companies – including many banks – to build agile business processes triggered by real-time events.
Our questions are in bold.
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Who are you and what’s your background?
I’m Alexander Vityaz, and I’m the founder and CEO of Corezoid. Corezoid provides a platform-as-a-service cloud operating system that enables companies – including banks – to build agile business processes triggered by real-time events. Since 2000, I’ve also served as the head of E-Business for Ukraine-based PrivatBank (R&D), which is the 8th largest bank in Eastern Europe with 25 million clients.
Aside from Corezoid, I helped launch the first P2P money transfer service in the world in partnership with Visa, and have created and patented dozens of other innovations in finance, including SiteHeart business-chat service, Cloud NFC, Liqpay payment system, Mobile POS, Smart contactless fuel-up, Topless ATM, and the Deepmemo cloud expert system. I also created Sender mobile business messenger as a front-end for businesses like PrivatBank to talk to customers and to let customers talk to businesses. Sender messenger has had 1.5 million downloads, used Corezoid for its back-end and is designed for a mobile lifestyle. I have a degree in Applied Mathematics from Donetsk National Technical University.
What is your job title and what are your general responsibilities?
My titles include Deputy CEO and Head of Center of E-business at PrivatBank, and CEO of Corezoid. My general daily responsibilities center around thinking about and executing technological innovations that improve processes for banks and other businesses. A good example of this is how we replaced PrivatBank’s core banking systems with the agile, cloud-based Corezoid back-end.
Can you give us an overview of your business?
Corezoid Process Engine emerged as a continuation of an internal project within PrivatBank, which we choose to expand once I realized that everyone needs this technology, and not only banks.
We sell a Platform-as-a-Service Process Engine with wide-ranging applications, able to help businesses of all sizes and in just about all industries create and support digital cores which serve as powerful cloud-based backends. The business model is that clients pay for the computing power they use. And the market reaction has been overwhelmingly positive thus far. The reach and variety of industries where Corezoid can thrive as a solution is something we’re still exploring, but we’re experiencing tremendous interest everywhere we’ve come to play, from banks to online stores to agribusiness, the Internet of Things, chatbots and beyond.
Tell us how you are funded.
As Corezoid was born out of PrivatBank, the bank is our first and primary investor. It’s an internal venture model.
Why did you start the company? To solve what problems?
We created this company because we knew what the technology could accomplish beyond just PrivatBank. Banking business is local by nature, and technology is global. Realizing the results that a Corezoid digital core delivered for PrivatBank gave us the confidence – the evidence really – to believe that everyone needs our technology. When we saw that Corezoid’s technology was mature and ready to deliver awesome results, we decided to expand. From there we began focusing on how to offer Corezoid and how to best to make the advantages clear for our clients.
The whole technology market has a huge and hidden problem. On the one hand, so many companies are diving headlong into opening APIs. That’s a definite good thing – it promotes global openness, accessibility, and equal opportunities. On the other hand, for these companies to be able interact effectively at the API level, they really need to become highly proficient IT professionals. Most companies will never overcome this barrier – it’s very difficult to maintain on a high level of both business and IT competencies, and many companies aren’t a natural fit to be involved with IT in the first place. However, with Corezoid we can solve this problem by transitioning the focus from APIs to a process layer.
Let me give you an example from the banking industry. There are 30,000 banks in the world. Those 30,000 banks each function as little IT companies as well, creating 30,000 online interfaces, 30,000 mobile banking apps, etc. Imagine that a best-of-class version of each of these standard products could be offered as a ready-made process, available via the cloud from companies like Visa and MasterCard, and that any bank could tailor these processes to their specific needs and launch them in their own cloud. In this scenario, one which Corezoid makes possible, banks no longer need to invest in IT – they get any solution they need from Visa/MasterCard as ready product, and always of the latest version. I’m sure that bankers will be happy to live in such a world and again focus wholeheartedly on the actual business of banking.
With Corezoid, companies in every industry have the opportunity to horizontally exchange processes and leverage the best solutions available. I could write 100 pages on the bonuses businesses stand to gain from implementation of a process-cloud.
Who are your target customers? What’s your revenue model?
Our strategy is to become an operating system for business. Today is the best day to become a smart company and create a true “digital core” based on Corezoid.
We’re currently most focused on targeting:
– Visa, MasterCard, Western Union.
– Messengers (Corezoid can be a bot-platform for messengers).
We have a very simple revenue model – we charge for the hosting of processes. And already we’ve seen some success with these targets – Corezoid is the basis of Western Union’s recently launched online money transfer service in Ukraine, which was implemented in collaboration with PrivatBank. PrivatBank also uses Corezoid as a digital core. In a recent interview to International Finance Magazine, PrivatBank CEO Alexander Dubilet said, “Today, our technological achievements have allowed us to seriously change the mechanism for the management of our internal business processes, make it digital and rapidly expand the transformation of business processes using the Corezoid Process Engine.”
If you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change in the banking and/or FinTech sector?
It’s a great question, because in my mind Corezoid absolutely IS that magic wand 🙂 As I’ve said, freeing banks from the fragmentation and inefficiency of needing to compete on the basis of largely redundant IT solutions, and instead making high quality, customizable solutions available to all as processes, will lead to financial industry that competes on the proper grounds and operates in ways more beneficial for all.
What is your message for the larger players in the Finance industry?
Push Visa and MasterCard as hard as possible to create a process layer, and help you to focus on your natural competencies.
What phone are you carrying and why?
An iPhone 6 and Huawei P9, in order to test various versions and make my brain work – switching quickly between iOS and Android is a helluva quest 🙂
Where do you get your industry news from?
Facebook is doing an increasingly good job integrating and filtering news, I use it in the way I previously used RSS reader.
Can you list 3 people you rate from the FinTech sector that we should be following on Twitter?
Honestly, I don’t use Twitter very much as a source for reading about FinTech, but more so for interacting with clients and getting their feedback.
What’s the best FinTech product or service you’ve seen recently?
I’ll say Bitcoin. It’s a big subject, but you can read some more about my thoughts on Bitcoin’s potential here: http://forklog.net/visa-and-bitcoin-will-change-banking-together/.
Finally, let’s talk predictions. What trends do you think are going to define the next few years in the FinTech sector?
Visa will open a marketplace for FinTech solutions and end up vertically integrating the whole of banking business. They’ve already begun with their developer.visa.com portal for open API solutions, and they’re not going to slow down
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Thanks to Alexander for answering our questions today. You can find out more about Corezoid on their website, twitter and facebook.
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