Five minutes with Kim Van Esbroeck from Aion Bank

Kim Van Esbroeck is responsible for growing Aion Bank’s business through commercial activities and business development, directly managing Aion Bank’s Belgian sales and partnerships team, as well as the flagship department in Brussels. We caught up with her to find out more.

Describe your journey to Fintech. How did you get here?

My career started in the payments industry. I held several different positions from test engineer to head of card marketing at Integri and Clear2Pay, then, at Belgian payments leader Bancontact, I was Chief Operations Officer, then promoted to Chief Commercial Officer before being appointed CEO in January 2017.

In 2020 I was looking for a new challenge and Aion Bank entered the Belgian market with a completely new banking concept – completely end-to-end digital, powered by the latest in cloud technology. I was drawn to the company’s mission to offer people a better way to bank, and the technology is at the forefront of the industry. Looking back, I didn’t really plan a career, but I followed my gut and if a train passed that I found interesting, I jumped on it.

Who was your childhood hero and why?

I was a huge Madonna fan when I was a teenager. Of course she’s an iconic performer, but I loved her attitude. She was defiant to carve out her own path, no matter who challenged or disagreed with her. She created a new template for what a pop star could do and say. Looking back on her career, I now understand that as a woman in the 80’s she had to take a f*ck up attitude to the male dominated industry to get her voice heard. She is a real powerhouse!

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

The most amazing things lie outside of your comfort zone, so at any moment, force yourself to step outside.

Name one piece of technology you couldn’t live without and tell us why

I love the parking assist feature in my car. The camera and sensors that have spatial awareness sound like simple technology because we use them every day, but very soon the same technology will evolve so our cars will be able to park themselves!

Aion Bank is going from strength to strength – did you ever think your plans would take you to this point when you first started?

Anyone who has worked in a startup knows that where you start is almost never where you end. When I joined Aion, we were just launching marketing efforts for our retail banking business. The big challenge was to build a new brand in the middle of a pandemic and shutdown. Over the past two years our business has grown and evolved, but the core of what we want to achieve hasn’t changed – we want to democratize better banking for people, make it more accessible and fully digital.

Is there a personal achievement from the past 12 months that you are particularly proud of?

I am proud of the tenacity and flexibility of my team. We have gone through some shifts and twists and turns in the last two years – everything from strategy to tactics, to prospects, to marketing, to sales. This can be distracting, but my team kept up and continues to deliver.

Describe yourself in three words

Perfectionist and control freak with a never-give-up attitude

What inspires you in Fintech today?

Fintech is constantly changing and disrupting business models. The exciting thing about the next generation of fintech is that Banking-as-a-Service fuels further innovation. With BaaS providing the underlying technology, licensing, compliance and regulatory needs, fintechs can focus on what they do best – making people’s lives easier with brand new front-end solutions.

What’s next for Kim Esbroeck?

We plan to invest further in our BaaS strategy. What sets us apart in BaaS is our combination of banking expertise and innovative technology. We offer one of the most comprehensive retail and SMB banking platforms powered via hundreds of open APIs. This platform is also a ‘360’ ecosystem that taps into fast-moving fintech innovation by integrating nearly 90 of the top fintechs. The growth of BaaS takes advantage of the strong tailwind of Open Banking and modern cloud technology.

Our ability to provide a technical solution together with our ECB licensing, regulatory and compliance expertise uniquely positions us to become one of the top European BaaS players in the next two to three years.