February 28, 2022 • 16 mins
In Episode 14 we interview Amy Barbieri Co Founder and President of Vital4. When it comes to knowing your customers and key stakeholders, you can’t afford to be in the dark. Amy discusses Vital4’s automated AML/KYC data tools analyze more than 6,000 global watchlists to help identify subjects involved in financial crimes, terrorism, or corruption.
About Vital4:
Vital4 is an Atlanta-based, woman-owned SaaS company dedicated to providing data solutions for due diligence, risk management, and global compliance – without the high prices, lack of transparency, and risks associated with legacy services.
Learn More:
https://vital4.net/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Play the King (00:01):
This podcast is sponsored by OMI the company
that makes CRM work! Today, I amspeaking with Amy Barbieri, with
Vital4.
Amy, I wonder if you could,you're the co-founder of
president Vital4.
I wonder if you could tell usjust a little bit about what you
do?
Amy Barbieri (00:17):
Sure.
Absolutely.
Well, thanks for having me.
I am, co-founder and president,and actually a chief growth
officer of Vital4.
N ow that's a, a little bit of amouthful t here.
My role at Vital4 is really tohelp drive strategy for our
brand internal and externalmessaging for go to m a rket s
trategy, also support our chiefrevenue officer and sales
(00:39):
business development, marketingefforts.
I drive the prioritization ofour technology ro admap a nd
work closely with our productdevelopment teams as well in
respect to what the market islooking for.
But a little bit about Vital4.
We are a wo man o w ned technology company located here
in Atlanta, Georgia.
We are actually known, a s a Regor a F i nTech c ompany.
(01:03):
We provide global data tocompanies all over the world for
compliance purposes.
So those companies use our datato mitigate risk within their
organization and to try and staycompliant with, w hatever the
global regulations that they'retrying to comply with.
We're in a couple of differentmarkets.
(01:23):
One market is the globalbackground screening industry.
So we provide data to theindustry for pre-employment
purposes, again, to mitigate, wi th someone they're hir ing and
then, to the financial servicesindustry for global anti-money
laundering into the Know YourCustomer regulatory compliance.
Play the King (01:41):
So Amy, I know the audience for this, has some,
some idea about this industryfor someone like me, who, and
people who m ay b e a littleless familiar.
Can you tell me a little bitabout how you do what you do?
You know it seems like a hugeproblem that you're trying to
solve, and I know you havevarious ways of doing that, but
(02:02):
like, I would have n o idea howto get started with, screening,
you know, background checks orlike screening for information,
or like looking for cyber crimesor, you know, all the stuff that
you guys do.
Amy Barbieri (02:11):
Yeah, no, that's a great, that's a great question.
Well, so high level, from aproblem perspective globally, I
think it's nearly$2 trilliondollars of illicit funds go
through our banking system and,I'm speaking more from the
financial services industry, andthen I can touch on the back
ground screen industry, but, youknow, with those illicit funds,
(02:33):
crimes that are being, you know,ta ken, you know, through the
processes, terrorism and humantrafficking, drug trafficking,
you know, scams involvinginvolving the elderly an d, an d
t h e t h ings l i ke t h at, and h orrific type th ings.
So, so really the banks that areresponsible for identifying
these types of activities andthese bad actors, if you will,
(02:55):
they're faced with a huge taskto be able to, you know, Wade
through a lot of data to try toidentify these types of people.
And so with that being said,they're faced with a lot of
regulatory fines every year, I'mtalking in th e b illions of
dollars.
And so part of, part of thatfalls into what I mentioned
earlier, th e a nti-moneylaundering, r egulations.
(03:15):
And so the problem is, is th e,is, like I said, th e s orting
through all this data and tryingto get to the relevant data is
if you can imagine a, a massivetask.
So what we do
Play the King (03:26):
Again, and, and, and just to, just to jump in, I,
I, I, I would also imagine thata lot of that data is like
proprietary or private.
Like, you know, I'm justwondering how, you know, and I'm
sure some of it is like publicbecause it regulatory stuff, but
, maybe you could just untanglethat for me as well.
Amy Barbieri (03:40):
Yeah, sure.
No, that's actually a greatquestion.
And people ask me that all thetime, the majority, surprisingly
enough, the majority of the datais publicly available, and then
you would think, well then whywould they need somebody like
Vital4 to, to capture that, butit's quite complex.
Um, so when you think about, youknow, 240 countries around the
world, in their all publishingdifferent types of lists, um,
(04:02):
and that that's in respect, youknow, kind of one category, and
then you're talking about mediaoutlets all over the world where
we capture information on try toidentify people that are, you
know, in kind of in the negativelight in the news.
If you could imagine hundreds ofthousands of sources and how do
you capture all that into oneplace?
Well, that's kind of where,where we come in.
So kind of to your originalquestion, to kind of simplify
(04:24):
what we do think of ourtechnology as a giant search
engine.
And it, it goes to a very highlycurated, um, list of sources all
over the world.
And of course we have toconfigure every single one of
those, but we've been doing thisfor a long time.
And, and, um, that's what we're,that's what we're good at.
And so we're able to capturedata, um, in real time, directly
from the, the source in a lot ofcases, government published
(04:48):
sources, obviously there's a lotof sanctions news right now, um,
with what's going on in Russia.
Um, so that type of informationwe're capturing, and then we're
delivering that, you know, toour customers in, in real time
as possible.
And, and then they're looking tothat data for insights, right?
Hey, what kind of level of riskcould this person, or could this
company that I'm, you know,doing business with p ose t o my
(05:10):
organization
Play the King (05:11):
That is fascinating.
And I, I would imagine thatthere's maybe also the problem
of companies flooding, uh, withso much information sort of
maybe hide stuff sort of the waythe company might do during
discovery, you know, in alawsuit or something like that.
Amy Barbieri (05:24):
Yeah.
Well, that's, that's, yeah,that's another conversation too.
That's a whole, a whole podcastin myself and part of the
anti-money launderingregulations and trying to
identify what we call universalbeneficial owners of companies,
because that's a really good wayto hide, illicit funds and
through those shells.
Play the King (05:43):
So I wonder if you could talk to me about the,
the global regulatory landscape,like just sort of, um, I don't
know, fill in that landscapepainting for me so I can sort of
understand the, the breadth ofthat.
Amy Barbieri (05:54):
Yeah.
I mean, there's, there's a lotof different regulations all
over the world that we can helpcompanies comply with without
getting to in the weeds andputting everyone who's listening
to this, to sleep, as Imentioned, the anti-money
laundering, um, and know yourcustomer regulations and there's
, and they're different forcountry.
So a lot more stringent inEurope than what we're seeing,
(06:16):
you know, here in the us.
However, we're starting to seemore, especially with our new
administration, they're puttingmore stringent controls in
around that.
So I'm starting to see kind ofthe concerns that are from the
financial institutions here inthe us, very similar to what's
going on in Europe.
So I think we're starting to seethat shift, but those, those
things change, um, constantly.
(06:38):
And they're constantly adding tothe regulatory requirements and
it puts, you know, bankscryptocurrency now is, is
falling under that category realestate in Europe.
We're, we're gonna probably seethat happen eventually in the us
.
So, you know, again, where weare from a regulatory
perspective and where we'regoing is not, you know, it's not
(06:58):
gonna get any easier there'sthere's regulations that we have
to follow around backgroundscreening, and that's called
FCRA, which stands for the faircredit reporting act.
Um, and you think about that aslike a, an Equifax or transunion
or something being a creditreporting agency and having to
follow those guidelines.
But that background screening inindustry has to follow fair
(07:19):
credit reporting act, uh, youknow, policies as well.
So we have to, we have to lookclosely at that.
Um, and there's a lot of thingsthat are changing constantly
there in the us.
There's date of birth, what wecall date of birth redaction.
So they're saying, Hey, you know, you can't use an individual's
date of birth anymore toidentify a person to a record.
So if I I'm delivering acriminal record to a background
(07:40):
screening company, and they'retrying to make an employment
decision, they're gonna have topass through a candidate that
potentially has a very dangerousbackground, because there's no
way to quantify thatinformation.
So there's a lot of things goingon from a regulatory
perspective, not only here inthe us, but, but all over, we
also help comply with the UKbribery act to just some similar
(08:01):
to the foreign practices acthere in the us.
And, um, you know, it, the listcan go on.
Those are just some, someexamples
Play the King (08:10):
That is really helpful.
Yeah, no, that's really helpful.
Thank you.
So I'm just curious aboutactually your gut level reaction
to this question, and it mightbe, you know, tell me if it's
too simplistic, but I'm wonderyou, you mentioned the new, the
new administration sort ofamping up the, the regulations,
you know, when regimes increasesort of the, in the annoyance
factor for, you know, financialfirms, do you see a
(08:31):
corresponding decrease in whitecollar crime, or is that, does
that slider actually work or, orI'm curious, like, just whether
you have noticed the at, in yourcareer?
Amy Barbieri (08:42):
No, I haven't.
And I don't know that I, Iwould, I'm not that much of an
expert in that area where theincrease in crime has happened,
particularly with COVID and thewhole digital transformation
that's happened.
I mean, if you think about it,it's expedited the process.
And so now we're moving reallymore heavily to digital payments
(09:04):
versus, you know, thetraditional way.
We've been doing things formany, many years that has
expedited white collar crimeand, and fraud and corruption
exponentially, because it'sgiven it kind of a criminal is a
segway into, you know, justbeing able to, to hide it and
hide their true identity,because it's more, you know,
(09:26):
it's all digital versus, youknow, when you, you were able to
go into a bank branch and openup an account, there's a process
and there's human it's face toface less opportunity to fake
your identity in that, in thatinstance.
So that's where I see yeah, theopportunity
Play the King (09:43):
That, that that's really, really interesting.
Thank you.
Can you talk about how do youkeep pace with the changes in
tech, like, like from the Vital4side, what are you doing to, you
know, what are you implementing?
What to, you know, you mentionedcrypto, I'm sure that's, that's
gotta be a headache trying toget a handle on that, but, you
know, just in a, in a widersense, how are you guys, um, how
do you guys do that?
Amy Barbieri (10:04):
Well, yeah, I mean, we have to, so we have to
stay pretty up to date on, onwhat's going on in the world, if
you can imagine.
And we have a pretty strongcompliance team that actually
keeps a, keep a library ofinformation that actually our
customers have access to.
That basically houses all thedata, privacy laws in every
(10:24):
country and territory in theworld.
That's a start, but yeah, wehave to, we have to keep up with
what's going on from aregulatory perspective so that
we can stay ahead of things and,you know, keep our product
roadmap full of things, gonnahelp solve those problems for
customers.
From a technology perspective,we are a definitely a technology
driven, you know, innovativecompany.
(10:46):
And this is something that, youknow, we're, we're always
looking forward, you know, forthinking with, um, taking
advantage of all the new, um,capability, these and
technologies that we can toalways improve the products and
improve the output for ourcustomers, because we know what
a challenge they have.
So the, the great thing that wehave as far as a unique, you
(11:09):
know, positioning in the marketis our competitors.
What we call our legacyproviders have what I see as a
tremendous disadvantage from a,a technology perspective,
because they're working on oldsystems and they're bandaided
together, and it's hard toimplement things like artificial
intelligence and machinelearning and things that were
very critical to our platformlike natural language processing
(11:31):
and the way that our searchalgorithms work and all the
things that we're able to takeadvantage of they're, they're
really kind of handicapped by.
So it gives us a big, bigadvantage.
And I'll say the, um, superinteresting, some of the, uh,
regulatory enforcement agenciesare starting to look to
companies like us to helpeducate them on the technology
(11:53):
and how that can help, help theindustry as a whole move forward
a little bit quicker and tryingto solve some of these problems.
So it's been, it's beeninteresting.
Um, so it's hard to get buy infrom customers sometimes when,
you know, you're a smallercompany and they don't know who
you are.
Um, and you're running upagainst, uh, legacy providers.
Who've been around for many,many years, such as Lexus nexus.
(12:16):
Who's had quite a bit of time tobuild a brand for themselves
multi-billion dollar company.
And, you know, and we're workingwith tier one banks and they
might not know who we are.
So, you know, it's reallyhelpful to get a, a look from,
uh, Fincen financial enforcementprime network to say, Hey, you
know, you might wanna take alook, get what companies like
Vital4 are doing, then they'renot endorsing us, but they
(12:37):
might, you know, they might say,Hey, you might want to look at
something, you know, from atechnology standpoint that, that
some of these more, uh, moderncompanies are doing
Play the King (12:46):
Totally.
And, you know, speaking of someof your customers, I wonder if
you could just tell me a littlebit, you know, make this
concrete for, for the listenerswho, who are you working with?
Like who can you tell us about?
Amy Barbieri (12:56):
Sure.
Well, so, you know, as Imentioned, when we first started
talking, we're in two differentmarkets, so I'll, I'll address
the background screening marketfirst.
Um, we, our go to marketapproach is really through
channel partners.
And so we have probably the topfive largest background
screening companies, maybe six,um, in the world that are our
(13:17):
customers of ours.
And they're looking to us tohelp provide data in screening
services.
And then they're packaging thoseservices up and doing background
checks and background screeningfor their customers.
Um, utilizing our data in thefinancial services industry, we
have the same approach from apartner perspective.
We typically don't go straightto the tier one banks, which the
(13:39):
sales cycle is, you know, couldbe three to five years long.
We tend to partner with otherfintechs or financial services
companies that are, you know,providing services or maybe, um,
technology to banks where theycan, um, ingest our data and
serve it to their customers toscale where,it would be, it
would take us a lot longer toget there.
So it's been a really goodstrategy for us and it's
(14:01):
working.
So
Play the King (14:02):
Can I ask you what you've learned by being
sort of, um, you know, a, aunique company in, in two ways?
I think one, uh, a company ledby women in, in the tech space
and another, you know, being atech company in, in Georgia in
the south, like what do youthink people don't understand
necessarily about, about the,those two paths you guys are
blazing?
Amy Barbieri (14:22):
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question, too.
I get asked about the challengesaround a woman and tech company
all of the time.
And I think people are surprisedby hearing my answer.
And my answer is it's been anincredible advantage, I think,
especially, I, I don't know ifit's a Georgia thing.
I, I know that we do have quitean incredible network of support
(14:44):
here, whether it's the MetroAtlanta chamber or FinTech
Atlanta, which I'm a part of theboard there, and it's an
incredible ecosystem here tosupport the industry and, um,
particularly women in tech.
So I think it's a great time tobe, you know, a co-founder and a
leader and a woman ownedorganization.
So w e, I feel like we get a lotof special attention because of
(15:06):
that.
And, a nd we love it.
We appreciate it.
U m, nothing but open a rms we've r eceived so far.
So, yeah.
Play the King (15:13):
Great.
So just, could we summarize hereand, and tell people where they
can go to learn a little bitmore about Vital4, your, your,
your website is Vital4.net.
Is there anything you you'dpoint them toward or, you know,
like yeah, just, just, uh, wrapit up for us.
Amy Barbieri (15:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, Vital4.net, and, you know,there's a, I know there's
contact forms there, so feelfree to reach out and we're
happy to, to speak with anybodyabout what we do.
And I just appreciate your, yourquestions and your time here
today.
Play the King (15:40):
Yeah, definitely.
You too.
Thanks.
Thanks again.
Amy Barbieri (15:42):
Yeah.
And to real quick, the little,like, you know, tidbit of
information, Atlanta has anickname called transaction
alley.
Um, and you're, you're right itwith the payment processors, but
about 80% of the transactions inthe country.
And when I say transactions, I'mtalking about a credit card,
swipe, a debit card swipe, uh,you know, even a gift card, any,
(16:03):
any kind of transaction that'shappening is originated out of
Atlanta.
So to your point, yes, we've gota huge FinTech support system
and a lot of payments companies,a lot of just financial
companies that we're reallytrying to make Atlanta known as,
you know, really as the FinTechcapital of the world.
(16:23):
And then we kind of competewith, with London, for, you
know, financial services in NewYork, of course, but that's more
on the traditional banking side.
So it's cool.
It's a cool you business to bein, at a really good time in a
really good place.
This podcast is sponsored by OMI the company
that makes CRM work! Today, I amspeaking with Amy Barbieri, with
Vital4.
Amy, I wonder if you could,you're the co-founder of
president Vital4.
I wonder if you could tell usjust a little bit about what you
do?
Amy Barbieri (00:17):
Sure.
Absolutely.
Well, thanks for having me.
I am, co-founder and president,and actually a chief growth
officer of Vital4.
N ow that's a, a little bit of amouthful t here.
My role at Vital4 is really tohelp drive strategy for our
brand internal and externalmessaging for go to m a rket s
trategy, also support our chiefrevenue officer and sales
(00:39):
business development, marketingefforts.
I drive the prioritization ofour technology ro admap a nd
work closely with our productdevelopment teams as well in
respect to what the market islooking for.
But a little bit about Vital4.
We are a wo man o w ned technology company located here
in Atlanta, Georgia.
We are actually known, a s a Regor a F i nTech c ompany.
(01:03):
We provide global data tocompanies all over the world for
compliance purposes.
So those companies use our datato mitigate risk within their
organization and to try and staycompliant with, w hatever the
global regulations that they'retrying to comply with.
We're in a couple of differentmarkets.
(01:23):
One market is the globalbackground screening industry.
So we provide data to theindustry for pre-employment
purposes, again, to mitigate, wi th someone they're hir ing and
then, to the financial servicesindustry for global anti-money
laundering into the Know YourCustomer regulatory compliance.
Play the King (01:41):
So Amy, I know the audience for this, has some,
some idea about this industryfor someone like me, who, and
people who m ay b e a littleless familiar.
Can you tell me a little bitabout how you do what you do?
You know it seems like a hugeproblem that you're trying to
solve, and I know you havevarious ways of doing that, but
(02:02):
like, I would have n o idea howto get started with, screening,
you know, background checks orlike screening for information,
or like looking for cyber crimesor, you know, all the stuff that
you guys do.
Amy Barbieri (02:11):
Yeah, no, that's a great, that's a great question.
Well, so high level, from aproblem perspective globally, I
think it's nearly$2 trilliondollars of illicit funds go
through our banking system and,I'm speaking more from the
financial services industry, andthen I can touch on the back
ground screen industry, but, youknow, with those illicit funds,
(02:33):
crimes that are being, you know,ta ken, you know, through the
processes, terrorism and humantrafficking, drug trafficking,
you know, scams involvinginvolving the elderly an d, an d
t h e t h ings l i ke t h at, and h orrific type th ings.
So, so really the banks that areresponsible for identifying
these types of activities andthese bad actors, if you will,
(02:55):
they're faced with a huge taskto be able to, you know, Wade
through a lot of data to try toidentify these types of people.
And so with that being said,they're faced with a lot of
regulatory fines every year, I'mtalking in th e b illions of
dollars.
And so part of, part of thatfalls into what I mentioned
earlier, th e a nti-moneylaundering, r egulations.
(03:15):
And so the problem is, is th e,is, like I said, th e s orting
through all this data and tryingto get to the relevant data is
if you can imagine a, a massivetask.
So what we do
Play the King (03:26):
Again, and, and, and just to, just to jump in, I,
I, I, I would also imagine thata lot of that data is like
proprietary or private.
Like, you know, I'm justwondering how, you know, and I'm
sure some of it is like publicbecause it regulatory stuff, but
, maybe you could just untanglethat for me as well.
Amy Barbieri (03:40):
Yeah, sure.
No, that's actually a greatquestion.
And people ask me that all thetime, the majority, surprisingly
enough, the majority of the datais publicly available, and then
you would think, well then whywould they need somebody like
Vital4 to, to capture that, butit's quite complex.
Um, so when you think about, youknow, 240 countries around the
world, in their all publishingdifferent types of lists, um,
(04:02):
and that that's in respect, youknow, kind of one category, and
then you're talking about mediaoutlets all over the world where
we capture information on try toidentify people that are, you
know, in kind of in the negativelight in the news.
If you could imagine hundreds ofthousands of sources and how do
you capture all that into oneplace?
Well, that's kind of where,where we come in.
So kind of to your originalquestion, to kind of simplify
(04:24):
what we do think of ourtechnology as a giant search
engine.
And it, it goes to a very highlycurated, um, list of sources all
over the world.
And of course we have toconfigure every single one of
those, but we've been doing thisfor a long time.
And, and, um, that's what we're,that's what we're good at.
And so we're able to capturedata, um, in real time, directly
from the, the source in a lot ofcases, government published
(04:48):
sources, obviously there's a lotof sanctions news right now, um,
with what's going on in Russia.
Um, so that type of informationwe're capturing, and then we're
delivering that, you know, toour customers in, in real time
as possible.
And, and then they're looking tothat data for insights, right?
Hey, what kind of level of riskcould this person, or could this
company that I'm, you know,doing business with p ose t o my
(05:10):
organization
Play the King (05:11):
That is fascinating.
And I, I would imagine thatthere's maybe also the problem
of companies flooding, uh, withso much information sort of
maybe hide stuff sort of the waythe company might do during
discovery, you know, in alawsuit or something like that.
Amy Barbieri (05:24):
Yeah.
Well, that's, that's, yeah,that's another conversation too.
That's a whole, a whole podcastin myself and part of the
anti-money launderingregulations and trying to
identify what we call universalbeneficial owners of companies,
because that's a really good wayto hide, illicit funds and
through those shells.
Play the King (05:43):
So I wonder if you could talk to me about the,
the global regulatory landscape,like just sort of, um, I don't
know, fill in that landscapepainting for me so I can sort of
understand the, the breadth ofthat.
Amy Barbieri (05:54):
Yeah.
I mean, there's, there's a lotof different regulations all
over the world that we can helpcompanies comply with without
getting to in the weeds andputting everyone who's listening
to this, to sleep, as Imentioned, the anti-money
laundering, um, and know yourcustomer regulations and there's
, and they're different forcountry.
So a lot more stringent inEurope than what we're seeing,
(06:16):
you know, here in the us.
However, we're starting to seemore, especially with our new
administration, they're puttingmore stringent controls in
around that.
So I'm starting to see kind ofthe concerns that are from the
financial institutions here inthe us, very similar to what's
going on in Europe.
So I think we're starting to seethat shift, but those, those
things change, um, constantly.
(06:38):
And they're constantly adding tothe regulatory requirements and
it puts, you know, bankscryptocurrency now is, is
falling under that category realestate in Europe.
We're, we're gonna probably seethat happen eventually in the us
.
So, you know, again, where weare from a regulatory
perspective and where we'regoing is not, you know, it's not
(06:58):
gonna get any easier there'sthere's regulations that we have
to follow around backgroundscreening, and that's called
FCRA, which stands for the faircredit reporting act.
Um, and you think about that aslike a, an Equifax or transunion
or something being a creditreporting agency and having to
follow those guidelines.
But that background screening inindustry has to follow fair
(07:19):
credit reporting act, uh, youknow, policies as well.
So we have to, we have to lookclosely at that.
Um, and there's a lot of thingsthat are changing constantly
there in the us.
There's date of birth, what wecall date of birth redaction.
So they're saying, Hey, you know, you can't use an individual's
date of birth anymore toidentify a person to a record.
So if I I'm delivering acriminal record to a background
(07:40):
screening company, and they'retrying to make an employment
decision, they're gonna have topass through a candidate that
potentially has a very dangerousbackground, because there's no
way to quantify thatinformation.
So there's a lot of things goingon from a regulatory
perspective, not only here inthe us, but, but all over, we
also help comply with the UKbribery act to just some similar
(08:01):
to the foreign practices acthere in the us.
And, um, you know, it, the listcan go on.
Those are just some, someexamples
Play the King (08:10):
That is really helpful.
Yeah, no, that's really helpful.
Thank you.
So I'm just curious aboutactually your gut level reaction
to this question, and it mightbe, you know, tell me if it's
too simplistic, but I'm wonderyou, you mentioned the new, the
new administration sort ofamping up the, the regulations,
you know, when regimes increasesort of the, in the annoyance
factor for, you know, financialfirms, do you see a
(08:31):
corresponding decrease in whitecollar crime, or is that, does
that slider actually work or, orI'm curious, like, just whether
you have noticed the at, in yourcareer?
Amy Barbieri (08:42):
No, I haven't.
And I don't know that I, Iwould, I'm not that much of an
expert in that area where theincrease in crime has happened,
particularly with COVID and thewhole digital transformation
that's happened.
I mean, if you think about it,it's expedited the process.
And so now we're moving reallymore heavily to digital payments
(09:04):
versus, you know, thetraditional way.
We've been doing things formany, many years that has
expedited white collar crimeand, and fraud and corruption
exponentially, because it'sgiven it kind of a criminal is a
segway into, you know, justbeing able to, to hide it and
hide their true identity,because it's more, you know,
(09:26):
it's all digital versus, youknow, when you, you were able to
go into a bank branch and openup an account, there's a process
and there's human it's face toface less opportunity to fake
your identity in that, in thatinstance.
So that's where I see yeah, theopportunity
Play the King (09:43):
That, that that's really, really interesting.
Thank you.
Can you talk about how do youkeep pace with the changes in
tech, like, like from the Vital4side, what are you doing to, you
know, what are you implementing?
What to, you know, you mentionedcrypto, I'm sure that's, that's
gotta be a headache trying toget a handle on that, but, you
know, just in a, in a widersense, how are you guys, um, how
do you guys do that?
Amy Barbieri (10:04):
Well, yeah, I mean, we have to, so we have to
stay pretty up to date on, onwhat's going on in the world, if
you can imagine.
And we have a pretty strongcompliance team that actually
keeps a, keep a library ofinformation that actually our
customers have access to.
That basically houses all thedata, privacy laws in every
(10:24):
country and territory in theworld.
That's a start, but yeah, wehave to, we have to keep up with
what's going on from aregulatory perspective so that
we can stay ahead of things and,you know, keep our product
roadmap full of things, gonnahelp solve those problems for
customers.
From a technology perspective,we are a definitely a technology
driven, you know, innovativecompany.
(10:46):
And this is something that, youknow, we're, we're always
looking forward, you know, forthinking with, um, taking
advantage of all the new, um,capability, these and
technologies that we can toalways improve the products and
improve the output for ourcustomers, because we know what
a challenge they have.
So the, the great thing that wehave as far as a unique, you
(11:09):
know, positioning in the marketis our competitors.
What we call our legacyproviders have what I see as a
tremendous disadvantage from a,a technology perspective,
because they're working on oldsystems and they're bandaided
together, and it's hard toimplement things like artificial
intelligence and machinelearning and things that were
very critical to our platformlike natural language processing
(11:31):
and the way that our searchalgorithms work and all the
things that we're able to takeadvantage of they're, they're
really kind of handicapped by.
So it gives us a big, bigadvantage.
And I'll say the, um, superinteresting, some of the, uh,
regulatory enforcement agenciesare starting to look to
companies like us to helpeducate them on the technology
(11:53):
and how that can help, help theindustry as a whole move forward
a little bit quicker and tryingto solve some of these problems.
So it's been, it's beeninteresting.
Um, so it's hard to get buy infrom customers sometimes when,
you know, you're a smallercompany and they don't know who
you are.
Um, and you're running upagainst, uh, legacy providers.
Who've been around for many,many years, such as Lexus nexus.
(12:16):
Who's had quite a bit of time tobuild a brand for themselves
multi-billion dollar company.
And, you know, and we're workingwith tier one banks and they
might not know who we are.
So, you know, it's reallyhelpful to get a, a look from,
uh, Fincen financial enforcementprime network to say, Hey, you
know, you might wanna take alook, get what companies like
Vital4 are doing, then they'renot endorsing us, but they
(12:37):
might, you know, they might say,Hey, you might want to look at
something, you know, from atechnology standpoint that, that
some of these more, uh, moderncompanies are doing
Play the King (12:46):
Totally.
And, you know, speaking of someof your customers, I wonder if
you could just tell me a littlebit, you know, make this
concrete for, for the listenerswho, who are you working with?
Like who can you tell us about?
Amy Barbieri (12:56):
Sure.
Well, so, you know, as Imentioned, when we first started
talking, we're in two differentmarkets, so I'll, I'll address
the background screening marketfirst.
Um, we, our go to marketapproach is really through
channel partners.
And so we have probably the topfive largest background
screening companies, maybe six,um, in the world that are our
(13:17):
customers of ours.
And they're looking to us tohelp provide data in screening
services.
And then they're packaging thoseservices up and doing background
checks and background screeningfor their customers.
Um, utilizing our data in thefinancial services industry, we
have the same approach from apartner perspective.
We typically don't go straightto the tier one banks, which the
(13:39):
sales cycle is, you know, couldbe three to five years long.
We tend to partner with otherfintechs or financial services
companies that are, you know,providing services or maybe, um,
technology to banks where theycan, um, ingest our data and
serve it to their customers toscale where,it would be, it
would take us a lot longer toget there.
So it's been a really goodstrategy for us and it's
(14:01):
working.
So
Play the King (14:02):
Can I ask you what you've learned by being
sort of, um, you know, a, aunique company in, in two ways?
I think one, uh, a company ledby women in, in the tech space
and another, you know, being atech company in, in Georgia in
the south, like what do youthink people don't understand
necessarily about, about the,those two paths you guys are
blazing?
Amy Barbieri (14:22):
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question, too.
I get asked about the challengesaround a woman and tech company
all of the time.
And I think people are surprisedby hearing my answer.
And my answer is it's been anincredible advantage, I think,
especially, I, I don't know ifit's a Georgia thing.
I, I know that we do have quitean incredible network of support
(14:44):
here, whether it's the MetroAtlanta chamber or FinTech
Atlanta, which I'm a part of theboard there, and it's an
incredible ecosystem here tosupport the industry and, um,
particularly women in tech.
So I think it's a great time tobe, you know, a co-founder and a
leader and a woman ownedorganization.
So w e, I feel like we get a lotof special attention because of
(15:06):
that.
And, a nd we love it.
We appreciate it.
U m, nothing but open a rms we've r eceived so far.
So, yeah.
Play the King (15:13):
Great.
So just, could we summarize hereand, and tell people where they
can go to learn a little bitmore about Vital4, your, your,
your website is Vital4.net.
Is there anything you you'dpoint them toward or, you know,
like yeah, just, just, uh, wrapit up for us.
Amy Barbieri (15:25):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, Vital4.net, and, you know,there's a, I know there's
contact forms there, so feelfree to reach out and we're
happy to, to speak with anybodyabout what we do.
And I just appreciate your, yourquestions and your time here
today.
Play the King (15:40):
Yeah, definitely.
You too.
Thanks.
Thanks again.
Amy Barbieri (15:42):
Yeah.
And to real quick, the little,like, you know, tidbit of
information, Atlanta has anickname called transaction
alley.
Um, and you're, you're right itwith the payment processors, but
about 80% of the transactions inthe country.
And when I say transactions, I'mtalking about a credit card,
swipe, a debit card swipe, uh,you know, even a gift card, any,
(16:03):
any kind of transaction that'shappening is originated out of
Atlanta.
So to your point, yes, we've gota huge FinTech support system
and a lot of payments companies,a lot of just financial
companies that we're reallytrying to make Atlanta known as,
you know, really as the FinTechcapital of the world.
(16:23):
And then we kind of competewith, with London, for, you
know, financial services in NewYork, of course, but that's more
on the traditional banking side.
So it's cool.
It's a cool you business to bein, at a really good time in a
really good place.
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