BrazilDeloitte Consulting Portugal partners with Dutch FinTech firm Five Degrees
The Portuguese consulting arm of Deloitte, Deloitte Consultores, has signed a partnership agreement with Netherlands-based Five Degrees to build a Matrix delivery centre in Lisbon. Matrix is Five Degrees’ suite of digital banking solutions which helps banks to create an agile IT infrastructure for improved customer experience and operations.
The partnership of the companies comes after a period of successful collaboration on a number of projects in the Netherlands, where Five Degrees is headquartered. “We are very proud that Deloitte recognises the potential in the Matrix platform as the orchestrating platform for new digital banks satellites of existing banks, as well as digitising legacy backoffice systems,” said Martijn Hohmann, CEO of Five Degrees.
Founded in 2011, Five Degrees has in recent years been touted a FinTech disruptor in the banking systems landscape, having being recognised by among others analyst firms Gartner and Forrester. The company’s Matrix platform provides banks with the building blocks to optimise their IT operations across areas such as core banking, sales & marketing, customer relationship management, document management and account management. Among the financial services players that use Matrix are Aruba Bank, Crédit Agricole Consumer Finance, Knab, Leaseplan Bank, Munnypot and Van Lanschot.
Against a backdrop of growing competition, regulatory pressures and changing customer demands, banks are being forced to transform in order to adopt more agile and innovative way of working. In particular European banks have a long way to go in this respect. According to a recent report by The Boston Consulting Group, Europe’s banking industry is the globe’s least profitable (in terms of economic profit), with banking institutions in the Southern hemisphere identified as those with the largest need for profit improvement. Technology plays a crucial component in the equation – today’s banks are increasingly IT institutions, with technology-led activity driving innovation, core processes and cost excellence.
João Luis Fonseca, a Partner at Deloitte in Portugal, said that leveraging the collaboration with Five Degrees will enable Deloitte Consulting to strengthen its ability to provide “innovative digital solutions to all of Deloitte’s banking clients in the country”.
As part of the agreement, Deloitte Portugal will set up a Matrix delivery centre in Lisbon, which will serve Portuguese clients, but also clients of all other Deloitte member firms. With a revenue of $38.8 billion and a presence in 150+ countries, Deloitte is the globe’s largest professional services firm, and in consulting, the firm is the number two, behind rival PwC, which serves the market through PwC Advisory and Strategy& (formerly Booz & Company).
The two companies will further work together during vendor selection processes – Five Degrees competes with other FinTech solution providers such as Fidor, Ohpen en Mambo – and in joint solution building and the delivery of projects. “We strongly believe in the success of this partnership. This alliance represents a new way to collaborate with the ecosystem of our strategic partners,” remarked Fonseca.
Deloitte Portugal has more than 2,000 professionals based in offices in Lisbon and Porto, serving the market of Portugal and its associated countries such as Angola, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe. As Five Degrees is based in the Netherlands, Deloitte Portugal will work closely together with its Dutch member firm, Deloitte Netherlands, which employs around 5,400 people.
