Buy, build or wait? How lenders decide on technology change

Tech and business leaders from three specialist lenders will examine the merits of three approaches to tech change: buy a system off the shelf, build your own or wait for someone to build what you need. This session considers the relative merits of each approach for different types of lenders.

This choice has become more apparent to today’s lenders who need to decide, for example, whether to take AI from an existing supplier, turn to an independent vendor or build their own agents.

Each choice has an implication. A tool you buy may also be available to competitors. A tool you build needs a team to maintain it and keep it working with your other systems. If you wait for an existing supplier, you depend on its roadmap and on whether it gives your own tools access to the data they need.

In “Buy, build or wait: how lenders decide on technology change”, part of the Technology stream at the Finance Connect UK Autumn Conference, Murad Baig, Product Strategy Specialised Lending & Banking at Basikon, brings the vendor perspective to a question lenders need to ask: are suppliers solving the problems your team actually has?

Simon Harris, Consulting Director at Finativ, moderates as the panel compares decisions across different lenders and invites you to put your own technology choices to them.

Panellists

Murad Baig, Product Strategy Specialised Lending & Banking, Basikon
Alison Perks, IT and Transformation Director, Haydock Finance
Isabel Cristina Crenski Mokva, Head of D&IT, Volvo Financial Services
Jason Hurwitz, CEO, STAR Asset Finance

In this session you will:

Compare what buying, building and waiting mean for cost, team capability, competitive advantage and dependence on suppliers.
See how starting with a specific lending problem changes the way you assess origination platforms, specialist tools and AI.
Identify which assumptions to test in your own technology plans, drawing on the panel’s experience and the audience discussion.

View the full Finance Connect UK Autumn Conference 2026 agenda here.

Register here: https://afcconferenceuk.com/financeconnectautumnconference2026/en/page/book-now

The Finance Connect UK Autumn Conference 2026 is supported by Odessa as Event Partner, with Alfa as Headline Sponsor of the Asset Finance community stream and Dancerace as Headline Sponsor of the Receivables Finance Connect Conference.