Anirban Basak is on a mission to keep personal data just that, personal, while helping financial institutions improve account level economics and reduce risk so financiers can focus less on data management and more on credit policy underwriting.

Personal data is everywhere, but Anirban Basak doesn’t want your data to be everywhere. A former marine engineer and veteran of the Merchant Marines, Basak built a company based on that principle after a completing a program with MIT Connection Science in 2017.

As founder and CEO of FortifID, which prides itself as the “privacy first customer on-boarding and identification” solution, Basak has sought to create an embedded financing platform that eliminates the need to transact raw data between data providers such as bureaus and data consumers like financial institutions. The ‘ION’ (insights only) platform was first conceptualized in 2017 and launched for financial institutions in 2020. Riding on it’s core foundational principle and building blocks of zero raw data emission, FortifID is scheduled to launch a next generation confidential computing platform in late 2023. Leveraging the platform, equipment finance companies will be able to execute on both ‘identity-verification’ and ‘credit-underwriting’ policies to focus on credit policy underwriting without incurring the responsibility of storing raw data.

What FortifID aims to accomplish could be transformational for financial services in general. Such an ambitious goal is fueled by Basak’s innovative philosophy, as they are not interested in making incremental improvements, but rather in making something that has meaning for society, saying you “make a meaning first, then make money.”

Remaining innovative is not just a philosophical endeavor for Basak; it is a survival imperative. To really innovate, it takes more than wanting to do so. It takes persuasion, building awareness and allowing the space for introspection, according to Basak. Basak is bullish on the equipment finance industry’s ability to transform, particularly by embracing new technology, which he says will be a necessity in an environment where managing expenses will become more and more important.

“Unless you embrace change and constantly innovate and make yourself valuable to the eco-system that you’re striving to drive, your existence could be at stake.”