TechPassport announces onboarding of James Varga, Founder & CEO at DirectID, to Supplier Advisory Board

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, October 31: TechPassport strengthens its Supplier Advisory Board with his 15 years experience leveraging financial services as a global trust network. On this journey he has helped to establish Open Banking in the UK and as a global movement. He now wishes to create a truly inclusive financial world. It can be very tedious onboarding a new startup if you work at a bank. It can also be very frustrating as a startup founder to find that your project doesn’t pass a banks’ internal tests. A solution needed to be found, and Layla White, a former procurement manager at HSBC, has done just that. This year Layla and her team have been spreading the word about their new match-making platform at events including Money 20/20 Europe, FinTech Week London and FinTech New York. Their popularity has been increasing. Supported by several global Tier 1 banks, the amount of FinTech products that are now listed on the site is in excess of a thousand. The startups are attracted to the risk-free option which allows them to onboard for free. Tech passport also offers them an educational piece where they learn what else they need in order to become enterprise ready and better secure the deals they so desperately need. In the meantime, more and more stakeholders amongst the FinTech community are learning about the platform and turning to TechPassport for help. A leading figure amongst the FinTech community, especially in the innovation space, is James Varga. James has recently joined TechPassport in the role of Supplier Board Advisor. Layla White, Founder and CEO of TechPassport shared: “At TechPassport we are building a real solution to a real problem and the only way we can ensure that we are fulfilling this is by building a trusted board of industry advisors. James has been influential to us for some time, so to bring him on officially was the natural next step. He will join us, alongside other industry veterans that will soon be announced, watch this space!” James Varga, Founder and CEO of DirectID, added: “For the UK to maintain it’s position in the world of fintech I believe we need to better bridge the gap between start-ups and incumbents. The industry is hampered by the industries inability to adopt innovation (completely understandable give the risks on all sides) but through better understanding, candid conversation and mutual respect we can break down those barriers.” He went on to say that on a personal level he is supporting TechPassport on the supplier advisory board, because he is “a firm believer in the ‘infinite game’ and how the industry needs to move forward for us as individual fintech companies to be successful. It is why we helped found Innovate Finance, FDATA and why we started Open Banking Excellence. It’s also why I do so much work with UK Government, the Kalifa review, on the board of Fintech Scotland, sit on the Ministerial Trade Board of Scotland and other things. I have a firm deep rooted passion for fintech and the positive impact it can create in the world.” About TechPassport Founded in 2019 TechPassport was created to help lower the barrier of entry for FinTechs who are looking to work with banks from across the world. The platform aims to do some of the heavy lifting for startups that want to work with banks. The angel-backed team helps startups get their compliance documents and legal paperwork in order before they engage with banks, to make the onboarding process faster. The TechPassport team actively scouts for startups to include on the platform and groups them according to their specialism – payments processing, security, etc. Banks can use the platform to find suppliers. Knowing that those who are listed won’t be starting from scratch when it comes to procurement requirements. TechPassport connects banks and FinTechs without the friction, making the process smoother, faster and cheaper. From sourcing a supplier, through to NDA’s and PoC’s, our Saas based platform uses intelligent workflows when onboarding FinTechs, enabling your people to reclaim time for higher value activities.