David and Goliath - an underdog story

Posted on the 31st January 2018 by Amanda Nunn in Team blog, SME blog, Business

For some 3,000 years, the story of David and Goliath has filled our cultural consciousness. Whatever your literature or film genre of choice, it’s likely that somewhere amongst the books you’ve read or films you’ve watched, you’ve come across an underdog story.

From Rocky to Star Wars and everything else in between, there’s nothing more inspiring than a film about the little guy (or gal!) who succeeds despite the odds being stacked against them and so it’s no surprise that the concept that has often been applied to the battle between the big banks and start-up fintech companies.

The payments space has undergone a significant overhaul in the last few years with companies like Money Mover bursting onto the scene with new technology capabilities and a desire to disaggregate the components of traditional banking; but do digital start-ups like Money Mover really have the potential to undermine the dominance of the high-street giants?

Last week Money Mover executed its largest ever payment on behalf of a client, purchasing a total of just under $52 million. We believe it’s one of the largest single transactions carried out by a Fintech payments company and is an apt reminder that fintech’s role is changing. Money Mover, and businesses like ours are no longer just start-ups. We’ve been bulking up and gaining financial muscle in the last three years and we’re ready for battle.

When the founders of the business started Money Mover the aim was simple – to provide a foreign exchange solution for business clients with unparalleled levels of transparency and functionality at greatly reduced costs. And that’s exactly what we’ve spent three years refining. Success isn’t always measured by your physical assets. It sometimes comes from being very good at one thing. Whilst we may not have the assets or presence of the big banks, we focus on providing international payments, and we do it with aplomb.

So perhaps the David and Goliath analogy is an apt one. Whilst Goliath is a terrifying giant kitted out with all of the appropriate accoutrements for battle, it makes him slow and cumbersome. David meanwhile has just his sling. Used effectively however it’s an incredibly effective weapon.

As Malcolm Gladwell points out in his TED Talk ‘The unheard story of David and Goliath’, once you realise that Goliath is much weaker than you think he is, and that David has superior technology, it becomes less of an underdog story.

Executing a transaction of $52 million demonstrates the appeal of our service to larger businesses, and Money Mover’s ability to deliver. It therefore is no longer a story about the little guy with the odds stacked against them, but the story of a serious competitor with the clout to go against the banks.

Of course, the future of fintech is all about the ever-evolving technology and, while we can’t predict where that may take us, it certainly makes it an exciting time to be part of the story.

And remember…in the words of Gladwell, “Giants are not as strong and powerful as they seem. And sometimes the shepherd boy has a sling in his pocket.”