Exclusive Interview with Slava Ivashkin – CEO, Velmie on “Top App Firms”

In this exclusive interview, He shared his experiences in IT and several more things. Let’s check his success story and thoughts.

1.Tell Us about yourself how you start your career in the IT Sector?

Velmie was founded as a software development company in 2010. At that time, we were delivering software solutions and apps in various industries, including banking and fintech.

During the journey, we’ve got a deep understanding of the current state of technology in finance and the biggest problems organizations are facing with pursuing the customers' demand and competition. With this in mind, we decided to put our efforts into building the products to help the financial companies to innovate, stay agile and customer-centric. So, since 2018 we have been 100% focused on fintech.

2.Tell us in brief about your company and the leadership.

Velmie is a banking technology provider with its own white-label platform. We are a team of technology experts with profound expertise in finance and regional markets knowledge.

We make a perfect combination with mature professionals with 10+ years of experience and deep knowledge and younger teammates who bring in the unique desire for constant improvements, innovations and the modern view on banking and technology.

Together we are driven by the idea of digital transformation in the financial industry and we set up our clients with sophisticated fintech products, combining experience and innovative approach.

3.What is your outlook for 2021?

We see how the financial industry is evolving and this process is extremely fast. Among the biggest trends that are going to be dominant this year, I’d name the increasing demand for a smooth banking experience, contactless payment methods, crypto wallets, and tokens.

We are constantly improving our platform and service offering. This year we plan to extend it with more modules and functions like instalment loans, salary advance, and payroll, investments solutions. Besides, we are set to share our expertise and insights in digital banking, so expect webinars, ebooks, and other content.

4.How do you assess the role of research agencies like TopappFirms in bridging the gap between clients and service providers?

The process of finding a suitable service provider is usually very time-consuming. You’re likely to spend from 1 to 4 weeks on the investigation, even prior to comparing the search results and discussing them with your team.

Research agencies and listings help to remove this step or at least narrow the pool of potential partners to the most relevant ones. So you can spend less time and effort on preliminary research and get down to more detailed communication.

5.Any particular technology or industry you would be targeting? How do you plan to prepare your workforce for the upcoming technology upgrade?

There are multiple emerging technologies disrupting the financial services industry at this moment in time. Our mission is to keep clients up-to-date with technology so they can effectively deal with all the challenges. Right now we consider blockchain and AI to bring the most influence, this is a top priority for us as well.

6.What all services do you think you would add to your offerings in 2021?

We’re heading to augment our software offerings with some business services as well. The first step is to provide a Banking-as-a-Service platform where non-financial companies can launch fintech products without having to deal with regulatory and compliance.

7.What are the challenges you see in the outsourcing industry and how much you’re prepared to face those challenges?

The most common challenges of outsourcing are related to communication between a client and a contractor. Luckily, Velmie has been practising the approach of outsourcing services and remote for many years which made us well-prepared for most issues.

To make our communication transparent we provide regular project updates, reports, consultations, and workshops.

8.How helpful are the Web and mobile apps developed by your team, for enhancing your clients’ business?

Our technology is actually the foundation of our client's businesses. Velmie effectively solves the buy-vs-build dilemma by providing a core banking system that includes must-have features of any financial technology solution and customization services to deliver fully crafted products.

The white-label solution allows us to deliver production-ready banking solutions that meet compliance requirements. We also perform all the necessary integrations and configurations to provide clients with fully operational products.

9.What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?

Transparent continuous communication, high quality of the service and technology, meeting expectations, and going beyond.

10.Tell me about your successful project?

We’re passionate about implementing the emerging technology to established financial institutions, the recent outstanding project was in this space as well.

Together with a consulting company from the UK we’ve delivered a comprehensive clearing platform for digital assets and cryptocurrencies. It is being used now by a conglomerate of banks in Brazil.

11.How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for Web Development?

Choosing the right software platform and technology stack is critical for all new projects. The right technology can help you succeed, at the same time you will struggle if the technology choice was wrong. With our expertise in the financial sector, we built our own modular software platform that is proven to be effective in terms of “cost to build” and “cost to own” metrics.

12.What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2021 after COVID 19?

As we have quite a lot of prebuilt solutions, clients can save a significant portion of costs compared to other financial technology vendors. There were cases when we launched custom banking and payments solutions with CAPEX as low as USD 100K.

13.Please describe the operational structure of your company- from the moment a client walks in, to the product deployment.

Once the client is onboarded, Velmie delivers the platform and applies the required settings to make it up and running. Afterwards, we perform a gap analysis to determine whether the platform meets business requirements and, if not, what steps should be taken to ensure they are met successfully.

During the custom development stage, Velmie handles all steps and levels of the custom functionality development: development, review and testing, internal and client releases, project management, and UI/UX design if applicable.

When the product is ready, Velmie prepares a release checklist and the product for public release. After the public product release, we proceed with ongoing maintenance including bug fixing, new features development upon the client’s request based on the agreed development methodology and delivery terms. The client may choose an appropriate support package provided by Velmie to ensure smooth operations and product uptime.

14.After service is a necessary part of development. How do you provide customer support to your client?

Velmie provides support services based on various packages to fit different budgets and requirements. With our SLA support, clients benefit from using a system that is secure, agile and constantly evolving. Moreover, there are options for ongoing platform maintenance and on-demand custom development.

15.Android or iOS, Native or Hybrid — which platform is best to use to build your app? What are your recommendations?

Our white-label mobile banking is built on a Hybrid platform. We did this because most of our clients prefer fast time-to-market and agility of the software.

Their most common approach is to enter the market with an MVP, scale and extend it over time with the features that would be better in terms of ROI and bring more value to users. Another very important advantage of Hybrid platforms is that their development and maintenance is almost 4x cheaper than the development of two native platforms.