In this episode of the Connector Podcast recorded live at the Singapore FinTech Festival, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Mark, co‑founder and CEO of Intix. Mark explains how Intix was created to solve the fragmented, multi‑system access to bank transaction data, positioning the firm as the "Google for banks". He describes the company’s growth trajectory, including a 2021 partial exit to private‑equity that funded rapid expansion and the recent opening of a Singapore office to serve Asian markets. The conversation moves to Intix’s product evolution: from reporting dashboards on completed transactions to a real‑time track‑and‑trace solution that follows transactions in‑flight, enabling banks to assess value‑at‑risk and operational efficiency. Mark emphasizes that Intix is a compliance facilitator rather than a screening tool, leveraging Know‑Your‑Transaction (KYT) to aggregate KYC, AML, beneficiary and account data via AI‑driven correlation. He also reflects on the company’s low domestic visibility in Belgium, noting that 97 % of revenue now comes from abroad, and shares his positive impressions of the FinTech Festival’s senior‑level, open networking environment. The interview closes with a brief pitch for the festival as a strategic platform for Asian market discovery.
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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 again, straight away live from the FinTech Festival here in Singapore. And I'm so pleased because I have so many nice people already in front of me today in my podcast, but I also have the pleasure and joy to have Mark with me. Mark, can you tell me a little bit about you and who do you work for?
Yes, well, thank you for the invitation, Koen, to participate in this podcast. Yeah, so for myself, let's say, my background, I would say, is I've been active in the financial industry on the technology side, I would say, since 25 years, having a, let's say, a rather long career at Swift for, let's say, until the mid-2009, and then actually made a step into entrepreneurship by launching—
Congratulations.
Thank you very much. And co-founding the company where I'm still active today, which is Intix.
Okay. And maybe you can already explain us a little bit more about Intix before we go into further details.
Yeah. So Intix is a company that we founded out of the Let's say the challenge that we discovered in the industry regarding access, easy access to transaction data, which sounds like an obvious thing that banks should be able to do. But we realized actually that getting access to transactions which are spread over a multitude of systems and also format standards is something that is not easy, not obvious for banks to realize. And they do need that. functionality for many different, let's say, use cases they, they work on. And so with my partner, who's more the IT brain of the company, we looked into the opportunity of addressing that challenge and, and we came up with, with, let's say, a set of solutions. And yeah, that's how Intix was born.
Oh, nice. Super nice story. But we'll come back to Intix later in this podcast. What has led you to join the Singapore FinTech Festival?
Yeah, well, that's already like jumping a few years, let's say, further since the incorporation of the company. But we— well, I have maybe to start with the beginning of the year. It was an important moment for us in '21 where we decided that we saw a lot of opportunities in the industry in Europe, which is our home market today, for the technology that we deliver and the challenges that reside in the market. And then we had the— we were fortunate, let's say, to, in terms of our growth plans that we had, to do a partial exit to private equity beginning of this year, which then gives us a lot of means to, to really go into exponential growth scenario. And that actually allows us today to scale fast and to make sure that we can, you know, we can create or I would say local, local agencies or branches of Intix around the world to really make sure that we have customer proximity. And so we recently opened the office in Singapore, no longer than 2 months ago, with the first people on board. And so we felt it was important to be here to really make sure that Intix also gets seen on the market in Asia. And also from the other side, also to understand whether indeed, how should we approach the market in Asia different than we do in Europe or in North America?
Yeah, and I think that's, that's a very healthy attitude that you just want to understand first. So what has been your biggest discovery at this festival?
Well, first of all, it was a discovery in total because it's the first time we, and I personally, attend this festival. I must say I'm very positively surprised by the event in its entirety. It's— we are used to conferences like Cybus and things, so here it's a broader scope, but it's I have the impression that conversations go easily in a more detailed and senior level and much more to the point compared to previous conferences. So I appreciate a lot the openness of the people that we've spoken to.
Mm-hmm.
What I'm also surprised of is that I think when you see the technology, let's say initiatives or ideas that are, you know, present here all over the exhibition, I think it's amazing. It's like, I think this should be a wake-up call for Europe for many people. Things are going very fast here. And so it's— we hope to be part of that, let's say, that growth in Asia together with the rest of the community.
Well, talking about fast growing, you have been also fast growing in your home country, Belgium, yet you're not so known by the market. And I thought that was interesting when we first spoke earlier this week. You mentioned to me like, but we have been a fintech or we're still a little bit of a fintech, but not so known by anyone. So what has happened there, Bart?
Well, yeah, indeed, we were always like flying under the radar, as I called it. And I think it's— not sure exactly why. We have been focusing, of course, on building our product, not too much distracted, let's say, from what we, for example, did not do in the beginning was really participating in all these startup competitions and these things where you spend a lot of time and in the end, It takes you away from your focus of what you're really trying to do. So maybe that is one of the reasons. On the other hand also, as we are focusing on the banks, you know, the market in Belgium is also pretty limited. You have a number of banks left with Belgian authority, I would say. And well, most of them became a customer over time, but still, if you look today, only 97% or something like that of our total revenue is from abroad. The minority of what we do actually is Belgian activities, also because of Belgium, of course, being geographically a very small, small market. But it shows for us that the importance for Intix was abroad.
In our earlier conversation, you also talked about operational resilience. And somehow this is also a topic that is close to my heart, at least some of the things I've done in the past. So if we talk operational, we talk about what's happening within the bank. It's happening on the core systems. It's happening to improve how they work. Is that a domain where you're then active at?
Our technology, as I explained it at the beginning, the access to transaction data, it all started there. And again, from there we took kind of the marketing phrase, you know, we're the Google for the banks.
That sounds sexy.
Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what we tried at least. So, but again, it expresses what we want to be at the source, let's say, making sure that the data is accessible as easy as information is accessible over Google. At the same time, also for us, this was an important foundation on the way we were doing that. I mean, really getting access to the data is one thing, but then also getting access to systems, to infrastructures of banks. And so we gradually actually were able to improve and to increase our presence, I would say, also in the organization of the bank, leading to many more use cases over time that could be addressed by our technology and which we then packaged in if you want, in different solutions. And the beginning indeed was from this Google of the bank perspective with reporting and dashboards and stuff. But then that actually evolved also based on exchanges with our clients. We try to listen to our clients, you know, when—
Very good.
What they need and what they're looking for, what their challenges are, their pains. And one point in time, we got a request from a bank saying, well, you know, we are actually very happy with your technology, which is looking at, call it, completed transactions. But at the same time, we are very much also, the world is going much, more in real time. We would like to understand also to, you know, to see what is happening with transactions that are going through their lifecycle. Now, call it transactions being in flight. And that's actually how we then came up with a more track and trace type of solution, which is really going in depth in the organization and really taking information from the different events, what transactions are living through or going through. And that gave a number of opportunities both on the business side, because since we address complexity, let's say, from an organization, not from a technical perspective, but from a data perspective, it gave us opportunities to address both business challenges like, you know, what's my value at risk in the company at every stage, but at the same time also to understand what my operational efficiency and also the improvements I could make on that hand could be realized. So, and that's something that really triggered a lot of interest from the large players. And, you know, we have— it was also a trigger for us to really get the tier 1 banks on board. That was really for them the biggest pain they were having. And also most of them had already tried to develop that themselves and miserably failed. Most of them, I would say. But our technology was indeed able to address that. And then from there, addressing to finalize that story, the next big step we see now happening or living, I would say, on top of mind of our clients is everything regarding compliance and regulation.
And there also our solution has While you were explaining, Mark, I was thinking you're a magical guy. Why? Because if we would have played a game, talk about bank operations without using the compliance words, you managed it. Because a lot of the things you said had in my eyes, my ears, a lot to do with compliance. But then at the end, you nailed it by saying compliance.
But it's, you know, it's today, it's one of the top topics, I would say, in the financial world, compliance regulation. It's there and it's just becoming more and more challenging and important for banks to address.
And earlier you said now you're entering the Asian markets with an entry point in Singapore. Are you not a bit afraid that compliance and rules and regulations are so different from the current client set that you have?
Yeah, and that's a question we got here this week as well in Singapore. Now the thing is that Intiq should not be seen as a compliance solution. Might sound strange that I say that. We consider ourselves rather as a compliance facilitator. So what we do, and nowadays what is a very, I would say, maybe a recent but important term in that world is know your transaction. We all know KYC from the know your customer, but the next step indeed, KYT, know your transaction, is really what regulators are looking at. And it's extremely difficult to, let's say, to generate that information because, you know, the data is coming from so many. It's not only transactions, it's also combining transactions with AML information, with account information, with beneficiary information, with KYC files, and so on. And what we can do with our technology is to bring all these different data elements together and create through correlation and AI also a linking amongst that data so that you can actually have like an immediate profiling about your transaction, which is then actually the information that, let's say, regulators are looking for. And since the fact that we are not the AML system, we are not a screening system, we are not the compliance tool specifically. We are not really dependent on, let's say, being— having to apply or to implement the different local rules and regulations. But we can work with the information that the bank has available and actually use that for the linking into the transaction and as a result generate the KYC information.
Makes sense. I think that's a good story to bring also to this market.
Yes.
Mark, we're almost to the end of this podcast. So what I like to ask is, well, you came here for the first time. If you would be a salesperson for the FinTech Festival, what would be your 1-minute pitch?
You mean selling the FinTech Festival?
Yes.
Well, I think it's been fantastic for us. The first time, first discovery. So my sales pitch here would be that this is for me a fantastic platform to be. to get really reached. I mean, Asia is big. I mean, we think Europe is big. This is another ballgame.
Different dimension.
And so I would say this is an ideal location to really come and discover the whole of Asia. Everyone's here. I mean, you can talk to people from Vietnam, from Japan, from Australia. Everyone's here. Everyone's approachable. Very relevant, I would say, also profiles of the different institutions that you're interested in. So I would— I can only recommend it. I mean, it will be back.
Cool. Mark, thank you so much for your contribution to my podcast.
My pleasure.
It was great to have you, to meet you here as well, knowing that we were both at Sibos. We have been splitting each other before. So thank you also to the audience. Please stay tuned because we will have more news coming straight from the FinTech Festival here in Singapore. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
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