In this episode of the Connector Podcast, recorded live at the Digital Finance Summit in Brussels, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Philippe, CEO of Amendis, a software provider for asset managers and insurers. The conversation explores how ESG regulations such as the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), the Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment (PEI) directive, and the EU taxonomy are reshaping operational processes, data needs, and client communication. Philippe explains Amendis' response: an ESG module launched in 2018 built on a flexible architecture, featuring the "New ERR" framework that combines impact, risk, and return analysis, and a "Build‑not‑code" approach that lets clients adapt quickly to changing rules across jurisdictions. They discuss ESG as both a compliance challenge and a market opportunity, enabling asset managers to differentiate products and showcase ESG‑enhanced performance. The dialogue highlights persistent data‑standardization and comparability issues, the difficulty of translating regulatory demands to end‑investor expectations, and the future need for interoperable, comparable ESG metrics. Philippe emphasizes that flexible, evolutive software is essential for staying ahead of rapidly evolving ESG requirements. Contact information for Amendis is provided at the end.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen Vanderhoydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another podcast by the Connector and FinTech Belgium, live streaming from DFS, the Digital Finance Summit, right in Brussels, the middle of Europe. And it's my first one of the day. And today I've got with me Philippe from Amendis. Can you tell me, Philippe, what do you do and what is your role?
I have been with Amendis for more than 20 years now, and I serve as CEO leading the business development team.
And what does Amendis do?
Amendis provides software solutions for asset management companies and insurance companies. Focusing on investment management across various asset classes. Our key points are providing in-depth analysis and report, including ESG return and risk.
Ah, super interesting. It's so hot today talking about sustainability and ESG. So how do you see the ESG regulations impacting our financial industry?
Clearly, ESG has profoundly changed the financial industry. Regulation like SFDR, PEI, and taxonomy have required a lot of change in operational process in these companies and also increase in investment in new software and data source. It also requires a change in the communication with the customers Because the customers are waiting more explanation about the ESG strategy and the impact on the performance and risk. And it's quite complicated to organize due to the lack of standardization in the data.
That is very true. And lack of standard is not only a thing that is happening just in Europe, it's a global thing. So I was sort of wondering, how would you then align and how do you evolve with all these changing ESG regulatory frameworks?
Uh, Hemendis has decided to develop an ESG module already in 2018, and the flexibility of the software architecture that we have helped us to develop easily the new function to fit the new regulatory framework. With this solution, we introduce a new concept called New ERR, allowing to combine analysis around, along 3 different axes: impact, risk, and returns. And it helps the investors to understand or to view his portfolio in a more comprehensive way and to understand the impact on performance and risk of the ESG constraints. So you can more present your investment strategy. You can have a better investment strategy.
Well, very often in the market, regulations are viewed as a challenge. But what I hear is that this could be something that you bring to your customers. So how do you see ESG as potentially being an an opportunity for our market?
ESG can be a real opportunity for the asset manager to differentiate them. It's quite easy to allow them to showcase the quality of their investment, including ESG factor, and also to create a specific product that the competitors cannot offer. And clearly the regulation can also become a competitive advantage.
Is it because of regulation or is it because you guys are a very high-tech technology company?
Probably the two. Yes, the technology is key in our approach and we have a specific concept in our solution called Build not code, and it allows the investor or the company to easily answer the new regulation requirements and new business requirements, and not at very extensive cost because it's quite also a challenge to keep costs under control in this company. And we can say that the customers with our solution keeps ahead in the competition in business opportunity. But also minimize the risk of non-compliance. It's quite the major advantage we can bring to our customer.
So now you talk about the customer as being the B2B customer, but what about the customer of the customer? So you and I living in one street dealing with ESG, How do you see the behavior of the end customers changing or not because of these regulations?
I don't know. It's difficult to know if the ESG regulation impacts really the people on a daily basis. In practice today, it's more regulation of insurance companies and other company that push the ESG market in the asset management, because a lot of private people are not always ready to eventually lose a part of the performance for better ESG impact. How much are we ready to pay for less carbon emission in the management of our securities? It's the questions.
I think it's a very good question. And once I was talking to a professor and he said to me, how can you put a constraint and still expect something more as a return?
Yeah, it could sometimes, but as you know, it could be aligned, but in certain situations it could be different. And the last year, with the growth of the price in the fossil fuel sectors and so on, people that exclude this type of securities of their portfolio win less money than the other one. And you have to explain it. And it's why we try to do with our software, because we have a lot of functions in our software that can also show what you save as carbon, by example, and what is the impact on the performance you have. And we have a good combination between these two, and it's important also to explain because it's the only way to solve the problem for long term.
So you're talking about transparency. And if you talk about transparency, how do you deal with the fact that the framework that is set in Europe is different than the one in the US? It's different than the one in Globally, to be honest, how does Amendis work with that? How do you deal with that?
As I said, we have a concept called build not code, and it allows us to adapt easily the HGA framework across the different companies without a lot of effort. And so it's not so complicated for our customer to deal with the different framework for the different countries. And so you can easily navigate across the countries to set up the good regulation.
Makes sense. So technological flexibility.
Yeah.
Looking ahead, how do you anticipate ESG regulations to evolve and how could we or what should we do to prepare?
Clearly, I think the next challenge would be to make ESG more comparable, because even if we have today regulation like SFDR, PEI, and taxonomy, it's not enough for an investor to compare the business or the investment opportunities clearly. I'm quite sure that the next step would be to make the information more comparable between the different investments you decide.
So interoperability, as they call it so nicely. It's always the same words coming back in our industry, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, clearly. But before it was easy because you can compare the performance of a fund between different asset management companies. But today, if you would like to compare ESG criteria, it's not so easy because you have so many ESG indicators that are different. And at this moment, it's quite complicated to compare some indicator for this company with the indicator of the other company. You don't know if it's the same sense. Yeah, so the next step would be to to do this.
So you compare apples with pears?
Yeah, it could be. And probably with the highly dynamic regulation we have for the last 10 years, the crucial point for the company is to opt for a flexible and evolutive software to prepare for the new regulation change, because today you are never quite. You know that it will change in 1 year, 2 years, and it's the same for the different aspects: ESG, risk, and return.
Makes a lot of sense, and I'm glad that you brought these insights to our audience. We're almost at the end of our podcast. Time flies when you're having fun. Where can people contact you?
The easiest way is to reach Amendis at info@amendis.com, and my colleague Jean-Pierre Henguy will delight to help you to answer any questions you have.
Excellent. Philippe, thank you so much for participating to this podcast. I wish you all the lots of joy here at DFS. And thank you very much for the audience to tune in. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Koen.
Bye-bye.
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