A small business like a locally-owned pizza parlor would not traditionally have access to financial services offered by large investment banks. But Brinda Bhattacharjee hopes to change that through her role at Goldman Sachs’ new Transaction Banking unit.
"This innovation opens up a range of possibilities for small and medium-sized businesses,” said Bhattacharjee, chief operating officer and head of partnerships for Transaction Banking at Goldman Sachs in New York. Bhattacharjee helps lead the growth of the unit, branded TxB, as part of the firm’s strategy to broaden its reach through collaboration and open technology development. She oversees the long-term growth and strategy of the department, and supervises its risk, operations, finance, marketing and corporate development initiatives.
Bhattacharjee is one of American Banker's Most Influential Women in Payments for 2022.
Fintechs had long been viewed as competitors to banks, though that perception has evolved in recent years. Traditional financial institutions are increasingly partnering with fintechs to support
TxB provides a set of application programming interfaces that enable fintech platforms to embed TxB’s products into their own ecosystems, and in turn enable end users to do things like create virtual accounts, originate and track payments, retrieve information about those accounts and manage incoming payments. One of TxB's partners is Stripe, which entered a deal with Goldman Sachs in 2020 to offer bank accounts to merchants that use Stripe's payment processing technology. Transaction Banking has also allied with companies like American Express, Visa and Fiserv.
"Until these types of embedded finance relationships came about, a corporation or a small business would have to go to multiple providers to meet all of their treasury needs," Bhattacharjee said.
Goldman Sachs debuted TxB in June 2020 in the U.S., launched in the U.K. in the summer of 2021 and plans to expand to the European Union and Japan next.
The timing of the initial launch in 2020 was challenging given pandemic-related restrictions, but it also inspired the development of new techniques at a time of increasing demand.
"Starting a new business from scratch is challenging in the best of times, but leading a team remotely to launch a new business was unprecedented," Bhattacharjee said.
But the early-pandemic timing was suited to meet the demands of retailers that wanted to quickly upgrade to digital models to accommodate shifts in business. The bank's work with fintechs has helped push payments technology out to small businesses faster, Bhattacharjee said.
"By embedding transaction banking services into their web-based platforms, we can bring payments to the fintech’s clients without needing them to leave the ecosystems they use to manage their business," Bhattacharjee said.
Goldman Sachs has operated the transaction banking unit like a startup, using development techniques that favor collaboration between different departments at the bank to share information and insights.
"Early on, we made a conscious decision to have our engineers and product owners seated beside our salespeople and operations teams," Bhattacharjee said, adding Goldman Sachs uses agile project management techniques, which are designed to expedite development by working on smaller pieces of a project, followed by feedback and revision in shorter increments.
"Creating this tight-knit space not only results in a better product for clients, but helps individuals get to know teammates on a personal level and develop strong mentor-mentee relationships, just like the ones that have been so valuable to me," Bhattacharjee said.
The idea that incredible things happen when women support each other has often rung true for her. A native of India, Bhattacharjee's family lived in Kuwait when the Gulf War broke out, which prompted a move back to India when she was eight.
"Amidst the uncertainty, we had to learn to be resilient, and I formed a sisterhood with classmates at my all-girls school, many of whom I’m still in contact with," Bhattacharjee said.
Later, in her professional career at Oliver Wyman, Bhattacharjee worked with leaders at Goldman Sachs on a series of projects, where she built a new network of female sponsors who believed in her potential.
"They took a chance on me, a non-practitioner, and hired me in 2016 to lead Goldman Sachs' asset liability management initiatives. Fast forward to today," Bhattacharjee said. "Forming those bonds created a rare opportunity for me to transition from advisor to practitioner to builder. I’ll be forever grateful for the sponsorship and am always looking to pay it forward to emerging female talent."
