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To  be honest, I don't expect the green light from Finma before the beginning of 2020. It has emerged that the examination of our new banking IT requires a lot of effort. The license takes a lot of time, the regulator is looking very closely into it and that is a good thing too.

You will also build you own IT?

Yes, we have developed our own core banking system from scratch. It took us three years to do so, but it will become decisive in the long run. Working with several Genevan banks, we found that they work with IT monoliths that they upgraded bit by bit and over time. This system makes it both expensive and complicated to attach new services and to keep it up-to-date. We are offering an alternative.

Which is?

We are using a technology well known in the IT industry but not yet well known in banking: the so-called «Micro Service Architecture». It means that each solution of a bank is operated as its own independent technological component.

«We aim to equip all Swiss banks, and indeed all banks worldwide, with our core banking solution»

The trading system is a component, the transfer of card payments is one, and so on. If henceforth you need an improvement, you won't have to renovate the whole solution to do so. And you can always add new components and interfaces. A central regulatory system is keeping together all the components.

In other words, you want to compete against the established banking software firms – Avaloq, Temenos and Finnova?

We aim to equip all Swiss banks, and indeed all banks worldwide with our core banking solution. In a first step, we created interfaces that will allow our system to link up with the software designed by Avaloq and Temenos. It will allow established users to move parts of their balance sheet onto the blockchain and to make their bank fit for the future.

This sounds pretty ambitious, with all due respect. Will you be able to make this happen?

It is correct that our system is untested as yet. It is important to test all the components and to show that it works.

You are testing it yourself?

Banks are risk averse. No company will consider switching to a new system if nobody has tested it.

Arnaud Salomon is the head of Mt Pelerin, a Geneva-based fintech. The 37-year-old grew up in the Czech Republic and India and started his own IT firm at the age of 16. He later studied at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), before joining UBS. He worked as a trader before founding Mt Pelerin in 2014. Swiss investment banker Kuno Kennel is one of the company's advisers.