Fred Brothers, chief innovation officer of US-based payments company FIS, has said he would like the company to be one of the biggest venture investors in fin-tech. This could see him make a big impact in corporate venturing, after he took on the chief innovation officer role in 2012 last year.
At FIS, Brothers has taken boardroom roles at Cardlytics, a financial payments analytics company, and Everlink, a secure payments company, both of which have been backed by the financial payments company.
Brothers was founder and managing partner of strategy and consulting firm eCom Advisors from 2005 to April 2010, when the business was acquired by FIS. He was an executive at CheckFree, a business which was acquired by Fiserv in December 2007 for $4.2bn. He joined CheckFree when it had $2m in revenue. He was a business student at Ohio State University.
What is the future of your sector?
Brothers said: “The very nature of money has been utterly transformed. People like to talk about these new, alternative virtual currencies, but in reality most traditional currencies are now digital, virtual and cloud-based. Think about the percentage of your household’s income and outflow that still occurs in paper currency and paper cheques versus electronic deposits, money movement and payments.”
He added: “I believe financial services providers, and their vendors, must focus more on where the puck is going, and where innovation and disruption are occurring within their traditional competitor base, in nontraditional substitutes and in other industries. They must focus on earlier- stage innovation companies, must invest for the future – even if it does not have a directly measurable economic benefit as soon as next quarter – and must have a strong executive commitment to remaining successful as the competitive landscape of financial services evolves.”
