Last month, Rebank’s Will Beeson sat down with Galileo CEO Clay Wilkes to record a podcast covering a wide range of topics, most notably a recent infographic published by the research firm Apptopia, showing that Galileo holds a 95 percent market share among the largest challenger banks in the U.S.
After expressing his delight with the infographic, which was created independently with no input from Galileo, Wilkes shared that Galileo’s dominance in the U.S. challenger bank market will only accelerate as newer entrants supported by Galileo begin to scale, continuing to fuel Galileo’s growth.
According to Wilkes, it’s not just challenger banks, which have become a Galileo specialty, that are seeking out the company’s services. It’s mainstream banks as well. Wilkes shared that Galileo recently was approached by some of the world’s leading banks that are interested in deploying Galileo’s tech stack to promote innovation and leverage Galileo’s nimbleness to take them further, faster than they can go on their own.
We’ve built “a lot of capability”
In describing the core of the Galileo system, Wilkes says it’s an account-based platform that structures the “account” differently than nearly every other payment platform. “For us, it's a control structure,” he says, “and off that hangs these other important dimensions of the services that we deliver. It enables us to be either the primary or sub-ledger in any one of a number of different environments or applications.”
Wilkes explains, “It’s not an account, like, oh, Will Beeson, he lives at this address, et cetera. It's the control structure that's really core and fundamental to what we do."
What might those different environments or applications be? Wilkes offers as examples including cash management, stock trading and securities.
More to come
Beeson grilled Wilkes on what Galileo’s recent acquisition by SoFi means. Wilkes responded by highlighting the power of the combination and the potential for Galileo to white label credit services to its B2B client base.
In addition, Wilkes described Galileo’s foray into Latin America, with strong gains already in Mexico, and the introduction of Galileo Instant, a streamlined solution for a variety of businesses to create debit cards fast, without the time and cost barriers that have kept many away from offering creative financial solutions.
To listen to the full interaction between Beeson and Wilkes, click here.
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How the quiet giant of fintech is rewriting the rules - Clay Wilkes (Galileo) and Accel's John Locke
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