What started as a simple app for splitting expenses with flatmates led to an industry-shaking realisation—banks were drowning in inefficiency. Instead of brushing it off, Joaquim and his co-founder, Álvaro Morales, built Flanks to solve the problem at scale. Today, the company is redefining how financial institutions handle data.
In this interview, Joaquim shares the aha moment that set Flanks in motion, the biggest challenges of breaking into a deeply traditional industry, and what it really takes to disrupt wealth management from the outside in.
How did a software engineer end up disrupting wealth management?
It all started with a very different project - building an app for sharing expenses between flatmates while I was at university. While working on that, I realised there were huge inefficiencies in financial infrastructure, not just at the customer-facing level. My background leading data teams for about 10 years gave me unique insights into how to handle large-scale information systems, which turned out to be crucial for what we'd build with Flanks.
Can you tell me about the moment you first realised the wealth management industry needed disruption?
I completely remember this moment. I was visiting a bank with my co-founder Álvaro Morales, and the CEO showed us a floor where everyone was spending 80% of their time manually inputting data. They were literally going to different banks, logging information manually, and checking everything by hand. I said, "I can do this with a couple of lines of code," and the CEO of that bank said it was impossible. We created a quick experiment using Álvaro's account, wrote some code to automatically gather the information, and when we showed it to them, they said "This is magic." That was our real "aha moment" - when we knew we had something special.
As a software engineer entering wealth management, what were some common industry practices that surprised you? How did your 'outsider' perspective help you approach these differently?
What surprised me most was that despite moving trillions of dollars every year, the wealth management industry seemed very fragmented at a fundamental level. Basic things like the information you see in your bank sometimes isn't even correct. Many financial products still rely on manual operations - not just for data aggregation, but even for executing orders. As an outsider with a software engineering mindset, it helped us challenge these old-fashioned dynamics. Instead of accepting "this is how we've always done it," we could ask "why isn't this automated?" and actually build solutions.
What was your biggest technical challenge in building Flanks, and how did your engineering background help you solve it in a way that perhaps traditional finance approaches wouldn't have?
The most difficult part was solving the connectivity challenge - figuring out how to connect to hundreds of institutions automatically without direct partnerships. When we first proposed this idea, people thought we were crazy. We ended up developing what we call a "data-source agnostic" approach, employing multiple connectivity methods tailored to each institution's capabilities. For institutions that support structured access, we utilised dedicated read-only access for Flanks. For others, we established direct data feeds that enable automated, standardised data exchange. And for institutions without these capabilities, we developed sophisticated data extraction techniques from various documents and formats. My background in handling massive data systems really helped here - we could apply those principles to financial data aggregation, even though we were dealing with banking systems that were sometimes unreliable or difficult to work with.
Being a young founder in wealth management must have presented some unique challenges. Can you share a specific story about winning over a skeptical client?
I've learned that if you're adding enough value for clients, age becomes irrelevant. But yes, in the early days, we faced a lot of skepticism about being young, both as individuals and as a company. We overcame this through two main approaches: First, we emphasised that we were a regulated company playing by the same rules as the big institutions. Second, we would simply say, "try it for free." That was our technique with early clients - let the technology speak for itself. Once they saw it working, age wasn't an issue anymore.
How did meeting Álvaro Morales influence your vision for Flanks?
Meeting Álvaro was a pivotal moment. He was a mentor, having just left his role at Santander. He saw our technology and immediately recognised its potential for wealth management. In the elevator after a session, he said, "Guys, I'm not at Santander anymore, but I love your technology. I think we can apply this in the wealth management industry." Álvaro helped us understand our clients better and pushed us to think bigger - to build as if we were already a major company rather than just a startup.
Looking back at early client implementations, what was the most surprising feedback you received and how did it shape Flanks' development?
One of the most impactful early experiences was moving from handling small retail accounts of a few hundred euros to suddenly managing accounts worth hundreds of millions. That was a crazy moment. It really forced us to deal with complexity at a whole new level and helped the product evolve significantly. When you're dealing with that scale of wealth, every detail matters, and it pushes us to make our systems more robust and sophisticated.
Having gone from student developer to Forbes 30 Under 30, what advice would you give to other technical founders looking to disrupt traditional industries?
My main advice would be to change your approach from "I'm going to build an amazing app and they'll buy it" to taking a more consultative approach. Partner with established people in the industry, offer to develop solutions based on their specific needs, and be willing to help for free initially. Once you have that first client, you can create a flywheel effect and expand from there. Also, remember that just because you can technically do something doesn't mean you can legally do it - especially in regulated industries. Focus on building trust by showing you're a serious company that understands both the technical and regulatory aspects of the industry.
Also, be prepared for longer timelines than in pure tech - you're dealing with bigger companies, more regulation, and more hierarchy. You can't expect to get clients overnight, but if you're patient and build the right foundations, you can create something truly transformative.
Joaquim De La Cruz is the CEO and cofounder of Flanks.
