Mazy Dar is CEO of OpenFin.

What was the highlight of 2019?

Two highlights. The first was our Series C financing which added three major banks, Wells Fargo, Barclays and HSBC as backers of OpenFin to provide shared industry application infrastructure that is analogous to what Apple and Google provide for the consumer space. The second was the announcement of FactSet running on OpenFin, becoming the first major market data vendor to do so and enabling significant possibilities for interoperability and collaboration.

What are your expectations for 2020?
For the past several years, we have been working closely with customers to lay the foundations for digital transformation. 2020 will be the year that brings this all to life with the ecosystem coming together in exciting ways to fundamentally change the experience of working on a financial desktop.

If you could give one piece of technology advice to banks/buy-siders, what would it be?
It’s not new advice, but it can’t be said often enough: embrace the cloud! Many large institutions are using the cloud for their own internal systems, but when it comes to third-party vendors, they request an on-premises build. This is hugely costly for the vendor, which must sacrifice time that could be spent on innovation, reducing the power of their offering. Yes, there are understandable concerns on security and compliance, but stonewalling isn’t the answer. To truly adapt, a firm must incorporate the cloud into every aspect of its technology strategy.