Vipera Plc (LON:VIP) Chief Executive Officer Marco Casartelli caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the global partnership with ExperienceLab, what this means for Vipera’s customers and expectations for 2016
Q1: Congratulations on your news with Serco Group plc (LON:SRP), specifically can you tell us a bit more about what ExperienceLab does?
A1: ExperienceLab are an experience design research agency, they focus on user centric design and innovation to develop engaging and holistic customer experiences that go beyond simple screen based interactions. For more than 40 years, ExperienceLab has been helping to drive innovation and shape new products and services for innovative brands such as the BBC, Google and American Express.
Q2: How will you be working with them going forward?
A2: Well Vipera Plc developed over the years a bank grade proven technology which we use to deliver and manage engaging mobile banking services and customer engagement solutions to talk to your banks’ customers in many countries. The rapid growth of the FinTech sector has shown us the importance of providing simple, efficient and user-friendly services so users are not interested in the technology per se, they care about our simple efficient engagement for experiences. We think the combination of Vipera’s technology and visual design expertise, we have the deeper user centric approach of ExperienceLab which provides a powerful combination to give the consumers what they want. Both companies have top peer customers where we think this combination is a unique selling proposition and we both benefit from cross-sell opportunities.
Q3: So what does this mean for your customers?
A3: Our customers are all very committed to growing the digital banking services these days, the increasing competition in the banking sector has made functions and services expected commodities. So the real area of differentiation today comes from the overall customer experience again so for online or mobile banking to be successful, it requires functionality to make the completing a task simple, an interface that is instantly engaging and an experience that delights the customer and ensures not only loyalty but also advocacy. We believe this partnership with Vipera delivers to our customers this complete package. So again, our market leading software to deliver the function, ExperienceLab’s customer centred approach delivers experience and together we deliver an outstanding solution.
Q4: Finally then, do you think 2016 is going to be a good year for Vipera Plc?
A4: Well, 2015 has been a good year for Vipera, we have seen a good growth of revenue both with existing customers and new customers. Following the successful fundraising we did in May, whilst we continue to expand our customer proposition, we started expanding our sales and marketing team and enter into new geographies. We have seen complete results of those investments at the end of last year and we are confident that we will see more this year so yes, 2016 will be a good year, if not exceptional.
