KK Gupta: Creating A Niche In Financial Risk Management
KK Gupta
Founder & CEO
Could you give a brief account of your professional background and experiences? What is the motivation that fuels your daily routines?
I have spent 30 years working in two large global banks Citigroup and Barclays spread across five countries. My last role before embarking on the entrepreneurial journey was as the CIO for the Barclays US Consumer Bank. During my 30 years of corporate journey, I led multiple teams to build products, led multiple large-scale transformations. The motivation for embarking on the entrepreneurial journey comes from the value banks provide in facilitating global commerce but in doing so, are
needlessly complex, inefficient, and extremely slow to change. I see a huge opportunity to contribute to the industry. My motivation comes from my firm belief that the banking industry needs a different and exciting technology and product paradigm. A lot of banking technology mindset is still very traditional process over product, throwing people at the problem vs automation, banking technology stacks are ageing, there is a significant opportunity having spent a lot of time in the banking industry.
How would you define Facctum Solutions as an organization and its position in the market?
Facctum is a risktech company specializing in a cloud delivered enterprise risk decisioning technology. Founded in 2021, it was created by former users and makers of financial crime compliance technology to build solutions for agile, low-latency and highly effective screening, at massive scale. Facctum uses risk analytics technology to improve compliance effectiveness and make operations more efficient. Its SaaS-first FCC platform is based on high performance parallel processing and fully deterministic technology. This approach results in more enhanced risk detection, increased speed to compliance and improved operational sustainability.
Tell us about your flagship offerings and what are the value additions that customers can expect from your solutions?
Facct List for watchlist management. Our watchlist management product is purpose-built to manage all the data inputs required for client and transaction screening. Features include internal block/pass list management, customized scenario builders for list data packages and data quality
K.K Gupta was born in Kota, Rajasthan and did schooling in Kota. He has studied engineering at BITS Pilani and is happily married with two children. His hobbies are Travelling and Watching Live Sports. His favorite Cuisine is Japanese. His favorite Books are by PG Wodehouse and his favorite Travel Destination is Maldives
How would you define Facctum Solutions as an organization and its position in the market?
Facctum is a risktech company specializing in a cloud delivered enterprise risk decisioning technology. Founded in 2021, it was created by former users and makers of financial crime compliance technology to build solutions for agile, low-latency and highly effective screening, at massive scale. Facctum uses risk analytics technology to improve compliance effectiveness and make operations more efficient. Its SaaS-first FCC platform is based on high performance parallel processing and fully deterministic technology. This approach results in more enhanced risk detection, increased speed to compliance and improved operational sustainability.
Tell us about your flagship offerings and what are the value additions that customers can expect from your solutions?
Facct List for watchlist management. Our watchlist management product is purpose-built to manage all the data inputs required for client and transaction screening. Features include internal block/pass list management, customized scenario builders for list data packages and data quality
assurance, all in a standardised workflow, governance, and reporting framework. Facct View is our customer screening product (individual/ entity). We offer multiple ways to use this Real time integration via APIs, Batch, and a destination product with its own UI. Facct Shield is Facctum’s third product, and it is for screening transactions / international payments.
Tell us about your leadership approach, and the guidelines or methodologies you follow to lead your team.
My leadership approach is to focus on building a highperformance team, and a great culture. My strong belief is that everything else follows from there.
Regular feedback is a strong factor in building team and culture. I believe feedback is a gift. I believe that one should ask for regular feedback and, also give timely feedback. I have done it in the past. At Facctum, we still have some way to go. It is something that I am still working on. You are never where you want to be, but you always achieve better results if there is ongoing transparent dialogue.
Could you reflect on some of the toughest challenges you have encountered in your journey so far? How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
There is a new challenge almost every day at a startup. Raising capital, attracting talent, developing products, and then taking them to market are just some of the big challenges that startups face and we are no exception.
The biggest asset I have been able to leverage in overcoming these challenges is the trust and confidence of the many people in me that I have built up over the years. These relationships have helped me to overcome these challenges so far.
In the light of your strong experience within the industry, what advice would you give to the budding industry leaders?
Don’t settle for the status quo. It is tempting to not fix what is working. Embrace Technology there is still far too much that human beings are doing that can be done more effectively and efficiently by automation at hyperscale. There is almost nothing that an enterprise may legitimately need that cannot be achieved, provided it can be imagined and described. Technology used to be a constraint once upon a time but it is now a great enabler.
Tell us about your leadership approach, and the guidelines or methodologies you follow to lead your team.
My leadership approach is to focus on building a highperformance team, and a great culture. My strong belief is that everything else follows from there.
Regular feedback is a strong factor in building team and culture. I believe feedback is a gift. I believe that one should ask for regular feedback and, also give timely feedback. I have done it in the past. At Facctum, we still have some way to go. It is something that I am still working on. You are never where you want to be, but you always achieve better results if there is ongoing transparent dialogue.
Could you reflect on some of the toughest challenges you have encountered in your journey so far? How did you overcome them and what did you learn from them?
There is a new challenge almost every day at a startup. Raising capital, attracting talent, developing products, and then taking them to market are just some of the big challenges that startups face and we are no exception.
The biggest asset I have been able to leverage in overcoming these challenges is the trust and confidence of the many people in me that I have built up over the years. These relationships have helped me to overcome these challenges so far.
In the light of your strong experience within the industry, what advice would you give to the budding industry leaders?
Don’t settle for the status quo. It is tempting to not fix what is working. Embrace Technology there is still far too much that human beings are doing that can be done more effectively and efficiently by automation at hyperscale. There is almost nothing that an enterprise may legitimately need that cannot be achieved, provided it can be imagined and described. Technology used to be a constraint once upon a time but it is now a great enabler.