FinTech Interview with Glendy Kam, Chief Product Officer at Tassat

Explore how seamless collaboration fuels product success from start to finish. Every aspect of our business is vital in achieving design goals.

Glendy, can you tell us about your background and how you came to be the Chief Product Officer at Tassat?
I have spent the majority of my career transforming traditional banking institutions into cutting-edge technological frontrunners, equipped to compete with the latest innovations in the financial technology market. Before joining Tassat, I was a product solutionist and architect at J.P Morgan’s Onyx on Open Banking for some of its first customers. I also launched the first US Real-Time Payment (RTP) Application Programming Interface (API) for B2B and B2C customers in the United States as an Executive Director at J.P. Morgan, which continued to grow and cover an additional five international faster payment rails.

What are your key responsibilities as the Chief Product Officer at Tassat and how do you approach them?
As Chief Product Officer of Tassat, my main focus is to execute the product strategy to align with Tassat’s mission and to deploy that throughout the organization. I am responsible for leading the development and execution of the company’s product strategy and overseeing the product development process: from ideation and prototyping to product release. I lead a team of product managers and designers to provide product research, conceptualization, design, development, and the launch of new products and services that meet the needs of the company’s target market and align with its business objectives.

Could you describe your methodology for product development at Tassat and shed light on how you decide which features and enhancements to prioritize?
Our holistic product development methodology is anchored on four key pillars. Firstly, we prioritize aligning our product development strategy with the overarching vision and mission of the company. Secondly, we conduct comprehensive market research to gain insights into current market conditions, trends, and the competitive landscape. Thirdly, we prioritize understanding and meeting client demands through feedback and support analysis. Regulatory compliance always takes precedence, guiding our feature prioritization to ensure alignment with the regulatory framework of our clients and partners. These pillars may see varying priorities at different stages of product development to adapt to evolving market dynamics and ensure overall success.

What are some of the biggest challenges you face as a CPO, and how do you address them?
After years of working at one of the largest banks in the world, I was ready for my next challenge. I’m drawn to the fast-paced, innovative culture of the fintech industry. When contemplating this change, I was cautioned by a senior leader, one whom I have great respect for, that I would face a learning curve when entering the fintech industry. Despite these warnings, I was determined to switch and transition away from the banking industry, where I spent my whole career. For the first time, I was no longer building innovative products at a bank, but I was building technology for outside organizations. Breaking through the traditional mentality of, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” challenged me to truly shift the way I approach the technology I have spent years developing. In doing so, I adapted my thought process towards the future and vision that Tassat provides our clients to update age-old payment technology.

Can you talk about a particularly successful product launch you led at Tassat, and what made it successful?
In 2023, I led the launch of Tassat’s new multiple fiat currency functionality within its flagship intra-bank payments platform, TassatPay, to facilitate transactions for corporations that service and interact with clients around the globe. With this product, Tassat’s clients can create and hold wallets to execute non-USD transactions on the Tassat platform, beginning with the G7 currencies. This added global applications to the company’s robust suite of actively deployed real-time payment solutions and empowers more business verticals to discover global use cases and solutions within their bank. This was especially relevant considering the increasingly global nature of commercial banking, as clients in the U.S. demand the capability to conduct their business across currencies and build global use cases for their B2B customers.

How do you work with other departments, such as engineering, marketing, and sales, to ensure successful product development and launches?
Ultimately, product development is a result of close collaboration and integration across multiple facets of the business. From ideation to launch, each business segment has a critical role to play to ensure our products meet their design goals and are prepared for their go-to-market capabilities. Communication is key throughout this process, and I work to ensure our teams are well-supported in the organization to a degree where we can meet our timelines, and deliver for our core customers.

What do you believe sets Tassat’s products apart from those of its competitors?
Tassat is a first adopter in the industry and the most proven B2B real-time payments platform. With existing payments solutions, financial institutions are limited by high transfer fees, size limits, and restricted hours (9-5 during the weekdays) to complete their transactions. They also face consistent fraud issues that hinder their ability to ensure the safety of their corporate clients’ transactions.

Tassat’s flagship product, TassatPay® solves these core issues through technology. Since its inception in 2019, TassatPay has powered over $1.4 trillion in safe, real-time transactions. Through our platform, Tassat’s partners and their corporate clients are empowered with payments technology that enables them to transact instantaneously, 24/7/365, and with greater confidence in the security of their platform.

To date, Tassat has worked with its partners to develop more than 20 use cases, including logistics, mortgage warehousing, commercial construction, private equity capital calls, as well as broader working capital applications. The results effectively created deeper and longer-lasting relationships, increased deposits, and increased revenue opportunities to provide other profitable financial services.

Can you speak to Tassat’s product roadmap and what the company is focused on in the coming years?
The payments industry is ripe for disruption in the next five years. The total volume of B2B payments in 2022 was estimated at $88 trillion, and projected to grow to $111 trillion in 2027. In the short term, we plan to increase the adoption of TassatPay and expand our suite of use cases into new verticals, such as healthcare. Long term, we’re focused on continuing to position Tassat as an industry leader for financial institutions seeking to enhance their client services.

What role does user feedback play in Tassat’s product development process, and how do you gather and incorporate it?
Similar to working with other departments in the product development process, we work closely with our product teams to ensure each client’s unique specifications are incorporated thoroughly throughout product integrations. This is a collaborative and iterative process, with significant resources invested into ensuring user and client feedback plays a role in executing our product rollouts seamlessly, and consistently.

How do you see the fintech industry evolving in the coming years, and how is Tassat positioning itself to stay ahead of the curve?
In a difficult macroeconomic environment, we’re seeing fintechs once touted as surefire winners struggle to operate at the same capacity as in previous years. Many are relying on investment funding to stay afloat in these trying times. With challenging interest rates, plummeting valuations, and a flood of new entrants into the market, differentiation is proving to be an obstacle for financial technology companies with more competitors than ever before. That being said, the next 6 – 18 months represent a tremendous opportunity for companies with genuine value propositions to capture the right market and emerge even stronger. Fintech will be a “winner take all” space over the coming months.

Can you discuss any upcoming partnerships or collaborations that Tassat is working on?
As we look ahead to 2024, we plan on expanding our user base and other financial institutions into new verticals by building new product offerings. Fundamentally, real-time payments strengthen corporate relationships across verticals, and our private permissioned blockchain-based payments technology will continue to be a key differentiator for our partners as real-time adoption continues to become the industry standard.

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