—Appoints Citibank veteran of 27+ years, and former CIO of Citigroup’sInternational Consumer Business – Devendra Sharma – as its CEO for N. America.Based in the U.S., Sharma will spearhead Latize’s push into the U.S. market,with a specific focus on the financial services and insurance sector.
—Signs deal with global warranty giant The Warranty Group, in addition toLatize’s existing stable of financial services sector clients includingSingapore’s top cashless payment network NETS, helping them with data-drivendecision making and business intelligence
SINGAPORE,7 June 2017 – Latize, a Singapore based data startup, is taking aimat the global financial services sector. It has signed global warrantysolutions leader, The Warranty Group (TWG) as a customer, helping TWG to makebusiness decisions leveraging big data. The TWG deal deepens Latize’s expertisein the financial services and insurance (FSI) sector, with existing customersincluding consumer banking giant Citibank and Singapore’s top cashless paymentnetwork NETS.
VikramMengi, CEO of Latize said, “Latize will enable TWG to capitalise on its data.We will do this by helping them aggregate the diverse data from their variousclients and markets so that they can derive better insights and builddeeper engagement with their customers. This will also help them to remaincompetitive in today’s highly competitive and increasingly digital world offinance.”
Tocontinue their push into the FSI sector, Latize has also appointed a CEO forN.America. Joining Latize is Devendra Sharma, Citigroup veteran andformer Chief Information Officer of Citicorp International. As Latize’s CEO –N. America, he will spearhead Latize’s push into the U.S. market, with aspecific focus on the FSI sector.
Speakingon his appointment, Sharma said, “I started at Citibank in 1989, and over theyears had the opportunity to lead various technology enabled businesstransformations as CIO for International Markets. I enjoyed the journeytremendously, but felt something missing in leveraging the treasure trove ofinformation that is latent in large organizations and eco systems – forprofitable customer engagement. The time taken to make information actionableand developing valuable insights breaks business momentum. That has to befixed.
“Sowhy Latize? Big data is such an oft used buzz word, especially within thebanking and finance sector, but who understands it or can make sense of itsbusiness implication and potential? And who truly is simplifying highly complexinformation for every single business user, in a manner which can deepen theconnection between these institutions and their customers? I believe Latize isamong the very few players who can help business leaders impact their bottomlines with smart data. I’ve also put money where my mouth is and taken afinancial stake in the company,” added Sharma.
Accordingto estimates by market research company IDC, the global market for big data andanalytics is expected to reach US$150.8 billion by the end of 2017, withUS$78.8 billion being spent by the United States alone. IDC also reported thatthe banking industry alone spent nearly US$17 billion on big data and analyticsin 2016, and is set to see the fastest spending growth on such services throughto 2020.
“Inthe race to uncover new business opportunities or to make existing operationswork more efficiently and effectively, many financial institutions turn to theone common resource that is often under-utilised: data,” said GaryLim, Head of Business Intelligence, The Warranty Group.
“Weare excited to work with Latize, as we needed a company with the expertise andambition to help us capitalise on this wealth of data in an IoT world.Collecting and storing data is simple, but Latize helps us to structure andanalyse the anonymised data in a seamless and timely manner. This enables TheWarranty Group to derive relevant business insights, which is critical toremain competitive in a digital world. Latize’s innovative approach to dataharmonisation and ability to work across diverse markets has empowered thecompany to transition from traditional warranty services to a dataintelligence-enabled company”, added Gary.
TheFSI industry has a wealth of data at its disposal and has adopted big data andanalytics for a variety of uses. With TWG, Latize united all its varied dataacross clients and markets to create a uniform knowledge base. With this, TWGcan then generate insights to realise greater data-driven responsiveness,deepen relationships with customers or even sell those insights to other serviceproviders so that they can make data-driven decisions.
Latizehas rapidly expanded since its inception in 2009. It has recently openedoffices in Sydney and Perth, and have representatives in Europe and the US.Latize inked its first Australian deal with the New South Wales government’sDivision of Resources and Energy. The company has also made waves in theeducation sector both at home and abroad, with a customer portfolio consistingof Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Perth, Republic Polytechnic and various K-12 educational institutions in Singapore.
Latize is accredited by the Infocomm Media Development Authority(IMDA) under its Accreditation@IMDA programme. The programme helps to grow andnurture promising Singapore-based Infocomm Media companies to scale and competeon the global market. Latize, a big data and analytics innovator is looking toraise a Series A funding round of approximately US$5-US$7 million to aid theirexpansion efforts into the US market, and to also target the FSI sector.