In this episode of the Connector Podcast, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Jean‑Baptiste Beaud, commercial lead for the French and Benelux markets at Comarch. Beaud outlines Comarch’s evolution from a Polish IT firm founded in 1993 to a global software provider with over 7,000 employees, and introduces the Comarch Wealth Management platform that leverages cloud and AI to support advisors and relationship managers. The conversation focuses on how AI is reshaping wealth management: accelerating decision‑making, enhancing portfolio construction and optimization, automating rebalancing to reduce errors and emotional bias, and improving risk management. Beaud stresses that AI augments—not replaces—human advisors, preserving the essential relationship. He then discusses how regulatory frameworks such as MiFID II, the SFDR, and the upcoming EU AI Act create valuable data (KYC, AML, suitability, ESG) that can feed AI models, turning compliance into a competitive advantage. European supervisory guidance from ESMA and emerging standards on AI governance, data handling, ESG, cybersecurity, and operational resilience are highlighted as future drivers. A concrete product example is the newly launched AI‑generated personalized video feature, which creates short, advisor‑specific videos within a client’s mobile app using personal data to boost engagement. The interview concludes with Beaud’s contact details (LinkedIn and email) for listeners interested in learning more.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Cohen van der Huydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another podcast in collaboration between Fintech Belgium and ourselves, the Connector. And today I've got Jean-Baptiste with me from Comarc. Jean-Baptiste, can you please introduce yourself and the company Comarch?
All right. Good morning, Koen. Thanks a lot for inviting me on your podcast.
You're welcome.
It's a real pleasure to be here today. So yeah, as you mentioned, I'm Jean-Baptiste Debeau. I'm working for Comarch for almost 3 years now. Comarch has been officially founded in 1993 by Professor Filipiak, back when he was teaching IT engineering at the University of Kraków in Poland. So nowadays, we grew into a global software company along with 7 1,000 colleagues worldwide across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia.
That's quite an impressive growth, isn't it?
Indeed, that's quite impressive. We're no longer a fintech, I would say, at the group level. But if you change the point of view to a more granular approach, I would say we kind of behave like a fintech. We are very agile, flexible, you innovative, disruptive. And yeah, we are going to talk about stuff we are doing today. But my role more specifically within Comarch consists of managing commercial activities for the French and Benelux markets. I'm based in Brussels and yeah, the daily activities consist of expanding the development of our softwares for financial institutions. So I'm personally responsible for our platform called Comarch Wealth Management, which is designed to support advisors, relationship managers in delivering personalized investment advice to their customers using the latest technologies like cloud computing, like artificial intelligence, for example.
And today we agreed that we would indeed talk about wealth management, but more particularly on AI. And I was wondering, what do you see as the most innovative things that are happening within the space of wealth management combined with AI?
And there's a very important point to start with. I would say that the industry of wealth management, investment services, portfolio management is undergoing a huge technological transformation at the moment. And of course, the shiny innovation everyone is talking about today is AI. Because AI is a real game changer in this wealth management industry, in how advisors interact with their customers, how they can optimize investment strategies and deliver a hyper-personalized customer experience. So not only does it help improve advisors' productivity, but it also significantly helps to engage customers more and more and more effectively. I would say the AI here today is not there to replace human, because that's also a topic nowadays. That's also a very important point. And that's the idea while integrating AI within our softwares within Comarch. The machine is here to support the advisors and not to replace them. And because at the end of the day, especially in this specific sector, the human relationships still remain important.
It's what we often call as the augmentation of the relationship.
It is.
I think. No, interesting. But where does AI then come in? Is it to increase accuracy? Is it to create more efficient portfolios? Is it to find insights? Where exactly in the chain does it come in?
Indeed. So we found a couple of important use cases while using AI for portfolio management. For example, yeah, let's break it down into some key examples here. First of all, AI enhances the decision-making by processing vast amounts of data at incredible speeds, providing deeper insights, better forecasts, and far beyond what the human being is capable of. When it comes to portfolio construction, portfolio optimizations, AI-driven models are used to balance risk-return more effectively and nonstop adjusting as new data comes in. But also, AI is improving automated portfolio rebalancing. It helps to reduce human errors. It helps to get rid of, I would say, emotion-driven decisions.
Interesting.
This automation, thanks to AI, also helps to save time, to reduce operational costs, making the portfolio management process more efficient. And last but not least, as you mentioned, for risk management, AI offers advanced tools for this kind of specific work. It helps identify, it helps to assess, mitigate risks more effectively than using traditional methods or tools.
We also said that we would also bring in regulation into the mix. And it's an interesting mix when you bring AI and regulations. What's your view on that and how does that translate to financial institutions and their investment proposals?
And that's also, I think, a very important topic because recent regulations like MiFID II, the SFDR, they present significant opportunities for innovation and they bring additional value for financial institutions in this industry. Because these rules, like I mentioned, they require to perform KYC, AML checks, to conduct suitability questionnaires, to examine customer ESG preferences. And yes, while these tasks may seem like a burden at first, they really help to collect valuable customer data, which is crucial for feeding AI and machine learning models. In order to, at the end of the day, deliver personalized and suitable investment advice.
No, that's an interesting take. So what you're saying is that you use regulation as a sort of competitive advantage in terms of being on par with AI and even be maybe a front of the pack. Is that correct?
Indeed. typically the strategy that financial institutions have to adapt. They have to stay ahead of innovation. They should lead regulations, not follow it. So that's typically the goal here.
And is that something that Comarch can help with?
Indeed. That's also the core of our solutions, to embed KYC, AML suitability checks in order to feed our core engine and in order to deliver this personalized advice. So it's, I would say it's the starting line of every relationship in this sector to get this data and to feed it into AI machine learning models.
Well, it's interesting that you bring in the future here because I do think that a lot of things are happening. But what else do you see on the level of regulations, AI, and anything else?
Yeah, of course, we all have in mind the prime example of the AI Act at the European level, which basically aims to balance innovation coming from AI with risk management, ensuring that AI and data-driven solutions are transparent, they are fair, they are secure, while supporting also tech advancements and at the end of the day, protecting investor interests. But also, we can see some guidelines taking shape. We have the ESMA, so the European Securities and Markets Authority. They recently issued a statement which emphasized the benefits of leveraging AI in the investment industry. But they also highlighted the need for proper staff training on how AI is used within the specific organizations.
Mm-hmm.
The importance of understanding the associated risks in order to ensure a safe and effective usage. So looking ahead, I would expect regulations to become more precise, more protective for the customers, including data handling practices, increased AI governance, maybe with internationalizations of standards, with a continuous focus on ESG and sustainable investing. And also we see cybersecurity and operational resilience, which is highlighted by TOHA recently. So I think it definitely won't be an easy task given the rapid pace of AI advancement. But that could be a complete new topic for our next episode.
What has changed in our industry, right? It has been like that for ages.
Indeed.
Is there any examples that you can share that is coming from From your end, from the Comarch end?
Yes, indeed. Regarding the use of AI within Comarch, the development team of the platform Comarch Wealth Management, they recently implemented a new feature. I would say a very shiny feature for the years to come, thanks to augmented artificial intelligence. This new feature is called the concept of personalized videos, which are basically short movies embedded in the customer's mobile app, leveraging their personal information like their name, their birthday, their last investment activity, etc. And the customers, they can see their real own advisor talking to them via their banking app, suggesting some investment ideas. And these are not pre-recorded videos, but video created Thanks to AI. And it's really impressive.
Wow.
Yeah. And I think the aim behind this is to attract and drive customers' interest and make them engage, make them invest more and more. But I'm sure you'll see this new feature in your banking app within a couple of months.
Oh, nice, nice. And, you know, these are the times that I sometimes regret we're running a podcast and not a vlog, because then I could say to you, hey, please share your screen and show us. Hey, we already at the end of this podcast, but what a blast at the end. So I guess everyone would like to know more about this new example. How can they contact you and how can they contact Comarch?
The easiest way to contact me is via my LinkedIn profile by searching my name, Jean-Baptiste Beaud. But you can also use my email address, which is jean-baptiste.beaud@comarch.com. So of course, I'll be very eager to hear some feedback, some suggestions. Continue the discussion on this topic and maybe show you as well this last shiny feature that I just talked about.
Oh, great. Thank you very much, Jean-Baptiste.
Thank you all.
Thank you also. Yeah, so thank you also to the audience, and we'll stay tuned for more news out of the fintech area. Thank you so much.
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