London Fintech Podcast: Recent Episodes
Mike Baliman
https://londonfintechpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/riverside_copy_of-fireblocks_-revolutionizing-blockchain-tr_lfp_recording-studio.mp3Watch on YouTube and Spotify.
Crypto is no longer operating at the edges of finance. It’s becoming part of the core infrastructure powering global payments, treasury operations, and digital asset innovation.
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Ran Goldi, SVP Payments & Network at Fireblocks, to explore the rapid rise of stablecoins, institutional crypto adoption, and the technologies reshaping the future of financial services.
Broadcast live from Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, the conversation examines how traditional financial institutions are increasingly embracing blockchain-based financial rails. Ran shares insights from Fireblocks’ unique vantage point, with the platform now supporting approximately $15 trillion in annual stablecoin transaction volume and serving thousands of organisations across banking, payments, fintech, and digital assets.
The discussion explores the evolution of the crypto industry through three major waves: trading, payments, and tokenisation. Ran explains why stablecoins have become one of the fastest-growing areas of financial infrastructure, how regulatory clarity is accelerating adoption, and why the “hottest thing in DeFi is TradFi.”
They also dive into the emerging role of tokenised deposits, the future of digital asset infrastructure, and how AI-powered agents could transform the way businesses and consumers interact with money.
Whether you’re a fintech founder, banker, payments executive, or digital asset investor, this episode offers practical insight into where financial infrastructure is heading next.
Topics covered:
• Fireblocks’ role in digital asset infrastructure
• Institutional adoption of crypto and stablecoins
• Why stablecoin transaction volumes are accelerating
• The evolution from crypto trading to payments and tokenisation
• Tokenised deposits vs stablecoins
• The impact of regulation on institutional adoption
• Blockchain infrastructure for banks and payment providers
• AI, automation, and agent-based financial services
• What the next decade of digital finance could look like
• Advice for founders building in emerging technology markets
Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
Ran Goldie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rangoldi/
NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com
Fireblocks: https://www.fireblocks.com
Crypto #Stablecoins #Fireblocks #DigitalAssets #Blockchain #Tokenization #InstitutionalCrypto #Payments #Fintech #DeFi #TokenizedDeposits #AI #FutureOfFinance #Money2020 #LondonFintechPodcast
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Embedded banking is moving from concept to reality. According to Andrew Ellis, CEO of NatWest Boxed, the future of financial services will be shaped by organisations that can seamlessly integrate banking products into the experiences customers already use every day.In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Andrew Ellis, CEO of NatWest Boxed, about the evolution of Banking-as-a-Service, embedded finance, and how major brands are creating new opportunities through financial products.Andrew shares the journey behind NatWest Boxed, from building a modern banking platform to powering partnerships with organisations including Sainsbury's, Saga, and the AA. The conversation explores how embedded banking is changing customer expectations, creating new revenue opportunities, and enabling brands to deepen customer relationships.They also discuss the realities of AI adoption in financial services, the importance of governance and trust, and why many firms are focusing on practical business outcomes rather than simply chasing the latest technology trends.At the heart of the conversation is a bigger question: what happens when banking becomes an invisible, integrated part of the customer experience?📌 Topics covered• The growth of embedded banking and Banking-as-a-Service• The story behind NatWest Boxed• Building partnerships with brands including Sainsbury's, Saga, and the AA• How customer expectations are changing in financial services• The role of trust, governance, and resilience in modern banking• Practical AI adoption in financial services• Why firms struggle to move from AI pilots to production• Trends shaping banking, fintech, and customer experience over the next 12–18 months🔗 Learn more:Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/Andrew Ellis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-a-ellis/NatWest Boxed: https://www.nwboxed.com/NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/#EmbeddedFinance #BankingAsAService #NatWestBoxed #Banking #FinancialServices #FinTech #AI #DigitalTransformation #Innovation #CustomerExperience #OpenBanking #LondonFintechPodcast
Most AI projects don't fail because of the model. They fail because organisations don't trust the data.In this special live edition of the London Fintech Podcast, recorded from Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam, Tony Clark sits down with Remco den Heijer, Vice President APJ & EMEA Channels at Alteryx, to explore why data readiness has become the defining challenge in enterprise AI adoption.As organisations move from AI experimentation to real-world deployment, the conversation is shifting away from models and prompts towards trust, governance, and operational execution. Remco explains why AI success depends not on having the latest model, but on having data that is visible, understandable, repeatable, and auditable.Drawing on experience working with some of the world's largest enterprises, Remco shares how organisations are modernising legacy processes, replacing spreadsheet-driven workflows, and creating the foundations required for AI to deliver measurable business outcomes.The discussion explores agentic AI, enterprise automation, regulatory expectations, and the infrastructure needed to support AI at scale. They also examine how businesses are using governed workflows to bridge the gap between raw data and trusted decision-making.Beyond technology, the conversation covers leadership, ecosystem partnerships, global perspectives on AI adoption, and why organisations that treat data as a strategic asset are emerging as the winners in the AI era.Whether you're a data leader, fintech operator, AI practitioner, or executive responsible for transformation, this episode offers practical insight into what it really takes to become AI-ready.📌 Topics covered:• Why most AI projects fail despite advances in AI models• What "AI-ready data" actually means• The VURA framework: Visible, Understandable, Repeatable, Auditable• Data governance, trust, and the EU AI Act• Agentic AI and governed workflows• How Alteryx powers enterprise-scale automation• The role of data infrastructure in AI adoption• Why businesses run on workflows, not prompts• AI readiness across Europe, Asia, and North America• Lessons from investing in startups and scaling technology businesses🔗 Learn more:Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/Remco den Heijer: https://nl.linkedin.com/in/remcodenheijerAlteryx: https://www.alteryx.com/platformNextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/NextWave Alteryx Knowledge Hub: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/nxw-alteryx-hubFree Alteryx License: https://www.alteryx.com/trial/workflow-automation?prid=0033n00002qVAafAAG&crp=0033n00002qVAafAAG≋=0012R00002DwbwTQARAlteryx Training Courses: https://www.nxwave.com/alteryx-trainingGo Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast
Recorded live at the Banking Transformation Summit, this special London Fintech Podcast panel brings together senior leaders from banking and technology to explore one of the biggest strategic questions facing financial services today: what happens when AI moves from assistant to autonomous teammate?
Host Tony Clark is joined by Stuart McIntyre, Executive Director, Digital Strategy & Operations – AI & Change Enablement at Standard Chartered, Marc Barnard-Naulls, Head of Enterprise Platforms and Services at Close Brothers, and James Georgiou, Principal Solution Engineer at Salesforce.
Together, they unpack the strategic fork in the road facing banks as Agentic AI accelerates from experimentation to implementation.
The discussion explores where banks need to commit versus hedge, which capabilities will separate winners from laggards by 2027, and the challenges leaders are still avoiding.
From intelligent infrastructure and AI-powered operations to governance, trust, and the future of human-machine collaboration, the panel provides a practical view of what transformation looks like beyond the hype.
A recurring theme emerges throughout the conversation: technology is no longer the primary constraint. Success will depend on how effectively banks align people, processes, data, and governance to unlock value from AI at scale.
Whether you're a banking executive, fintech founder, technology leader, or investor, this episode offers valuable insight into the decisions financial institutions can no longer afford to postpone.
📌 Topics covered:
• The rise of Agentic AI in banking
• Where banks should commit versus hedge their AI strategy
• The capabilities that will define winners by 2027
• Human + machine leadership and workforce transformation• Intelligent infrastructure and operational resilience
• Trust, governance, and AI risk management
• What leaders are still avoiding when it comes to AI adoption
• The cost of inaction in financial services
• How banks can move from experimentation to execution
🔗 Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.com
Banking Transformation Summit: https://bankingtransformationsummit.com/
James Georgiou: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesgeorgiou/
Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/uk/
Marc Barnard-Naulls: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markbarnard/
Close Brothers: https://www.closebrothers.com/
Stuart McIntyre: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcintyre/
Standard Chartered: https://www.sc.com/en/
Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
AgenticAI #BankingTransformation #ArtificialIntelligence #Banking #FinancialServices #Fintech #BankingTransformationSummit #MoneyNext #AIinBanking #DigitalTransformation #Salesforce #StandardChartered #CloseBrothers #Innovation #EnterpriseAI #AIGovernance #FutureOfBanking #FinancialInnovation #Leadership #LondonFintechPodcast
Smartphones are evolving. According to Emmett Hollyer of Solana Mobile, the next generation of devices will be the foundation of how we own, trade, and manage digital assets.In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Emmett Hollyer from Solana Mobile about the rise of crypto-native hardware, the launch of the Seeker device, and why mobile phones could become the primary gateway to decentralised finance and digital ownership.Emmett shares the story behind building one of the world’s first crypto-native smartphones, from early experimentation and hardware challenges to shipping more than 150,000 devices across 50+ countries. The conversation explores how Solana’s high-speed blockchain infrastructure enables seamless mobile trading, payments, and digital asset interaction directly from your pocket.They also discuss why crypto adoption is moving beyond niche communities, how embedded security and ownership models are reshaping mobile technology, and why major manufacturers are beginning to pay attention to crypto-native infrastructure.At the heart of the conversation is a bigger question: what happens when financial services become native to the device itself?📌 Topics covered• The story behind Solana Mobile and the Seeker device• Why crypto-native smartphones are gaining traction globally• How Solana enables fast, seamless mobile transactions• The future of mobile DeFi and digital asset ownership• Hardware security, self-custody, and crypto usability• Why major tech companies are paying attention to crypto hardware• The shift from crypto niche to mainstream consumer adoption• How mobile devices could become the foundation of digital finance🔗 Learn more:Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/Emmett Hollyer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmett-hollyer/NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.comSeeker: https://solanamobile.com/Solana: https://solana.com/Range by David Epstein: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized-World/dp/1509843493London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe: https://amzn.eu/d/03Ipm9m8Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null#Solana #Crypto #Web3 #Blockchain #DigitalAssets #DeFi #MobileTech #FinTech #CryptoWallet #SelfCustody #AI #Web3Gaming #Smartphones #FinancialServices #Innovation #LondonFintechPodcast
Crypto is moving from the margins to the core of global financial infrastructure — but the real question is how fast that transformation will happen, and who will lead it.
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Keith Grose, UK CEO at Coinbase, to explore the evolution of crypto, institutional adoption, and the technologies shaping the next decade of finance.
The conversation traces Coinbase’s journey from early conviction in digital assets to becoming one of the world’s largest regulated crypto exchanges. Keith explains how a compliance-first mindset, product innovation, and long-term strategic thinking have been central to building trust in an emerging asset class.
As the discussion turns to market evolution, a key theme emerges: institutional adoption. From stablecoins to tokenised assets, Keith shares how traditional financial institutions are increasingly embracing crypto as new financial rails — unlocking faster, more efficient global transactions and entirely new business models.
A major focus of the episode is scalability. Keith dives into Layer 2 solutions, including Base, and explains how these technologies are addressing blockchain limitations — enabling high-performance, low-cost infrastructure for developers, businesses, and the next generation of “crypto-native” applications.
They also explore the UK market and regulatory landscape, highlighting the importance of trust, compliance, and collaboration with policymakers in scaling crypto responsibly.
From embedded finance to AI integration and the convergence of crypto with traditional equities, the discussion offers a forward-looking view of financial services.
Whether you’re a fintech founder, investor, or operator, this episode provides practical insight into how crypto is reshaping financial infrastructure — and what it takes to build at scale in a rapidly evolving ecosystem.
📌 Topics covered:
• Coinbase’s growth and key success factors
• Institutional adoption of crypto and stablecoins
• Layer 2 solutions and blockchain scalability (Base)
• The UK regulatory landscape and building trust
• Embedded finance and infrastructure growth
• AI and digital currency integration
• Future trends in finance and crypto markets
• Advice for fintech founders building at scale
🔗 Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
Keith Grose: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithgrose/ & https://x.com/kmgrose
NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.com
Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch: https://amzn.eu/d/04tOEa62
There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak: https://amzn.eu/d/0hGlwUGf
The Knowledge Project Podcast by Shane Parrish: https://www.youtube.com/@UCLtTf_uKt0Itd0NG7txrwXA
Acquired Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fj0XEuUQLUqoMZQdsLXqp
Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
Crypto #Coinbase #Stablecoins #Layer2 #Fintech #InstitutionalAdoption #Blockchain #UKFintech #DigitalCurrency #financialinfrastructure #Web3 #Base #CryptoRegulation #AI #FutureOfFinance #LondonFintechPodcast
Banking is changing fast, but what does real transformation actually look like inside today’s financial institutions?
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Mark Johnstone, Chief Strategy Officer at MoneyNext and Managing Director of the Banking Transformation Summit, to unpack how banks are navigating AI, modernisation, and the evolving competitive landscape.
Mark shares insights from curating one of the most practitioner-led banking events in Europe, where the focus isn’t hype, but what’s actually working inside banks today. With 175+ institutions represented and a highly curated audience, the summit offers a unique lens into how senior leaders are tackling transformation at scale.
The conversation explores how the industry has shifted from digital transformation to AI-driven execution, and why the real challenge is no longer technology, but adoption, governance, and human integration.
They also dive into the biggest themes shaping banking right now: agentic AI, AI risk and regulation, embedded finance, and the surprising return of the human touch in financial services.
Whether you’re a banker, fintech operator, or simply tracking the future of financial services, this episode offers a grounded, insider view of where the industry is heading next.
📌 Topics covered• What makes Banking Transformation Summit different from other fintech events
• Why banks are shifting from AI hype to real delivery and ROI
• The rise of agentic AI and what it means for banking operations
• AI governance, regulation, and the impact of the EU AI Act
• Embedded finance and the battle for customer ownership
• Why human interaction is making a comeback in digital banking
• The real blockers to transformation: adoption vs technology
• How banks are competing with AI-native fintech startups
• Why smaller, curated events outperform large conferences🔗 Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
Mark Johnstone: https://www.linkedin.com/in/majohnstone/
NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.comBanking Transformation Summit: https://bankingtransformationsummit.com/
MoneyNext: https://uk.linkedin.com/company/moneynexttv
Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null#FinTech #Banking #AI #AgenticAI #DigitalTransformation #EmbeddedFinance #BankingTransformation #FinancialServices #Innovation #AIRegulation #OpenBanking #FintechEvents #LondonFintechPodcast
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Christoph Rieche, CEO and Co-Founder of iwoca, about his transition from Goldman Sachs to building one of Europe’s leading SME lending platforms.
“More than 80% of our customers receive instant credit decisions… and can draw funding the same day.”
That capability sits at the heart of iwoca’s proposition — transforming SME lending from a slow, uncertain process into something fast, data-driven, and accessible.
Christoph explains how API integrations and real-time data sharing allow businesses to move from application to funding in record time, unlocking opportunities that would otherwise be lost.
Christoph shares how a desire to “build something with my own hands” led him into entrepreneurship, and how iwoca has grown into a data-driven lender helping small businesses access fast, flexible financing. From the early days to scaling through uncertainty, he reflects on the “roller coaster” of building a fintech business with real-world impact.
The conversation dives deep into how AI and data science are transforming credit decisioning, enabling faster and more accurate lending decisions for underserved SMEs.
Christoph explains iwoca's hybrid approach, combining machine learning with human judgment, and why this balance is critical in modern lending.
They also explore the rise of embedded finance and API-driven lending, and how partnerships are reshaping distribution across digital platforms. With insights into post-pandemic market dynamics, geopolitical pressures, and funding strategies, this episode offers a comprehensive view of where SME financing is heading.
Whether you’re a fintech founder, investor, or operator, this is a practical and insightful look at scaling a lending business in today’s environment.
📌 Topics covered:
• Christoph's journey from banking to fintech founder
• Building iwoca and scaling an SME lending platform
• AI and data science in credit decisioning• Embedded finance and API-led distribution models
• Navigating COVID-19 and macroeconomic challenges
• Growth strategies for SME lenders
• The role of partnerships in fintech ecosystems
🔗 Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/Christoph Rieche: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/christophrieche
NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.comiwoca: www.iwoca.co.uk/
1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History: https://amzn.eu/d/09UYVP9L
Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
FinTech #SMELending #EmbeddedFinance #AI #DataScience #DigitalBanking #CreditDecisioning #UKSMEs #Startups #Entrepreneurship #BusinessGrowth #Lending #FinancialTechnology #APIs #LondonFintechPodcast
Entrepreneurship offers endless opportunities, but the real challenge is knowing which ones to pursue.
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with James Benham, CEO & Co-Founder at JBK & Terra and host of the InsurTech Geek Podcast, to reflect on a wide-ranging career spanning technology, insurance, and construction, and the hard-earned lessons that come with it.
The conversation explores how procurement and RFP processes are increasingly incorporating supplier diversity, creating opportunities for smaller, specialist firms to compete alongside large consultancies. James shares how this shift is shaping vendor ecosystems and why there is a growing appetite for alternative providers.
As the discussion turns to career reflections, a central theme emerges: focus. James highlights how early-stage entrepreneurs often spread themselves too thin across industries and opportunities, delaying true expertise and scale.
He explains why learning to say “no”, and resisting the pull of “shiny objects”, is one of the most critical skills for long-term success.
They also explore the realities of bootstrapping, the discipline it requires, and why building sustainably without external capital can create stronger, more resilient businesses.
The episode closes with insights into continuous learning, from long-form business podcasts to classic management books, and why case-study-driven thinking remains one of the most effective ways to understand how great companies are built.
Whether you’re an early-stage founder or an experienced operator, this episode offers practical lessons on focus, decision-making, and building with intention.
📌 Topics covered:
• How RFPs and supplier diversity are shaping fintech and consulting
• Why smaller firms are gaining traction alongside large consultancies
• The importance of focus in entrepreneurship
• Learning to say no and avoid “shiny object” syndrome
• Bootstrapping vs venture capital — building sustainable businesses
• The role of continuous learning, podcasts, and business case studies
🔗 Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
James Benham: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbenham/
NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.com
InsurTech Geek Podcast: https://insurtechgeek.com/
Acquired podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@AcquiredFM
Good to Great by James Collins: https://amzn.eu/d/0f8rgsjx
Traction by Gino Wickman: https://amzn.eu/d/02f4Mlb6
Drive by Daniel H. Pink: https://amzn.eu/d/0j3bm6ZA
David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell: https://amzn.eu/d/0dYKZUSY
Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=nul
Money20/20 has become one of the most important gatherings in global fintech — bringing together the leaders, innovators, and institutions shaping the future of financial services.
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Oliver Smith, Head of Content for Europe at Money20/20 Europe 2026, to explore what’s coming at this year’s flagship event.
They discuss the scale and ambition of Money20/20 Europe, the key themes driving the agenda, and how the conference continues to reflect — and shape — the evolution of the fintech ecosystem.
At the heart of the event are four major pillars: AI, rebundling of financial services, the evolving tech stack, and regulation. Oliver shares how these themes come together across stages, speakers, and sessions — and what attendees should focus on to get the most value from the experience.T
he conversation also looks ahead to emerging trends, including agentic finance, the growing role of AI across financial services, and how blockchain and digital assets continue to evolve within institutional markets.
Whether you’re attending Money20/20 or following the direction of fintech more broadly, this episode is a useful guide to the ideas and conversations shaping the industry right now.
📌 Topics covered
• What to expect from Money20/20 Europe 2026
• The four key themes: AI, rebundling, tech stack, and regulation
• How to navigate the conference and maximise your time
• The rise of agentic finance and AI-driven services
• Blockchain, digital assets, and evolving market infrastructure
• Why Money20/20 remains a central hub for fintech innovation
🔗 Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
Oliver Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliversmitheu/
Money 20/20 Europe: https://europe.money2020.com/
NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.com
The MoneyPot Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/57KYwfMgZsVBIaxHcOCzeb
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Careless-People-explosive-memoir-doesnt/dp/1035065924
Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
FinTech #Money2020 #AI #Blockchain #RegTech #FinCrime #DigitalAssets #FinancialServices #Innovation #LondonFintechPodcast
Blockchain has been discussed for over a decade, but its real impact in institutional finance is only now beginning to take shape.
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Yuval Rooz, CEO of Digital Asset and Co-Founder of Canton, about how blockchain infrastructure is evolving to meet the needs of global capital markets.
At the centre of the conversation is the Canton Network: a public, privacy-enabled blockchain designed to bring blockchain rails to financial markets at scale. Yuval explains how Canton is addressing one of the biggest barriers to institutional blockchain adoption: privacy and control over sensitive financial data, while still enabling interoperability across markets and participants.
They discuss why traditional financial infrastructure struggles with fragmented data and settlement delays, how blockchain can confirm the validity of data across multiple institutions, and why tokenisation, stablecoins, and programmable assets could transform how markets operate.
The conversation also explores the growing intersection between blockchain and AI, and why financial infrastructure needs to be prepared for a future where automated agents transact and make decisions at scale.
📌 Topics covered
• The 11-year journey building institutional blockchain infrastructure
• Why privacy is critical for blockchain adoption in capital markets
• How the Canton Network enables interoperability across financial institutions• The role of stablecoins in reducing settlement risk
• Tokenisation and the representation of real-world assets on blockchain• Preparing financial systems for AI-driven transaction volumes
• The future of crypto markets and financial infrastructure
🔗 Learn more
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Yuval Rooz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yuvalrooz/
Digital Asset: https://www.digitalasset.com/
Canton Network: https://www.canton.network/
NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.com
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami: https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Talk-About-When-Running/
Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
Blockchain #InstitutionalFinance #Toenization #Stablecoins #DigitalAssets #AI #FinancialInfrastructure #FinTech #CryptoInnovation #LondonFintechPodcast
As AI accelerates across financial services, the real competitive advantage is no longer just analytics — it’s decision intelligence.
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark is joined by Jamie Hutton, Chief Technology Officer of Quantexa, to explore how organisations are moving beyond dashboards and manual analysis toward context-driven, automated decision-making.
Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Quantexa is one of the UK’s standout post-pandemic unicorns, scaling globally with over $100m+ ARR and recognised as a leader in the Decision Intelligence category by Gartner.
Jamie explains how Quantexa pioneered entity resolution and graph analytics to help organisations connect fragmented data, resolve real-world entities, and uncover patterns across risk, fraud, compliance, and growth.
The conversation dives into why data quality and context are foundational for AI, how decision intelligence differs from traditional BI, and why siloed data continues to hold enterprises back.
They also discuss Quantexa’s journey from a kitchen-table startup to working with 30 of the world’s top 50 banks, the trade-offs of building highly extensible enterprise software, and how the company is evolving its platform for faster deployment, lower TCO, and AI-native use cases — including agentic AI.
If you’re thinking about AI adoption, enterprise data strategy, or how to turn information into action at scale, this episode is a must-watch.
📌 Topics covered
• What decision intelligence really means in the AI era
• Entity resolution, graph analytics, and connecting siloed data
• Why AI fails without trusted, contextual data
• Fighting financial crime — and finding growth opportunities
• Building enterprise-grade platforms from day one• From customisation to productisation at scale
• Agentic AI, unstructured data, and what’s next for Quantexa
🔗 Learn more
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Jamie Hutton: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/huttonjamie
Check out Quantexa’s website: https://www.quantexa.com/?utm_medium=partners&utm_source=london_fintech_podcast
Access a complimentary copy of the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Decision Intelligence Platforms report: https://www.quantexa.com/resources/2026-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-decision-intelligence-platforms/?utm_medium=partners&utm_source=london_fintech_podcast&utm_campaign=701Nz00000jrM0Y
Check out Quantexa's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@Quantexa
NextWave Consulting: www.nxwave.com
Go Beyond the Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
The Anxious Generation: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Anxious-Generation-Rewiring-Childhood-Epidemic-ebook/dp/B0CGWS3JQ6
While much of the financial world is racing to keep up with AI and the rapid institutionalisation of blockchain and crypto, another powerful technology has been quietly advancing in the background for decades — quantum computing.In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark is joined by Christopher Jensen, Portfolio Manager & Director of Digital Asset Research at Franklin Templeton, to explore what quantum computing really is — and why it could have profound implications for digital assets, cryptography, and financial infrastructure.Franklin Templeton, one of the world’s most innovative asset managers with over $1 trillion in AUM, recently published a paper titled Digital Asset Security in the Quantum Era. Chris joins the podcast to unpack the research, explain the real risks quantum computing poses to today’s encryption standards, and outline how the industry can prepare for a post-quantum world.They discuss why Bitcoin’s quantum risk is concentrated in legacy address formats, how crypto-agility will create a new trust premium for assets and custodians, and why blockchain governance — not panic — is the key to navigating this transition. The conversation also explores smart contracts, post-quantum upgrades, and why the biggest systemic risk may be “harvest now, decrypt later.”The episode looks at how major financial institutions are already testing quantum-resistant approaches, why this shift may be comparable to Y2K or IPv6, and how the intersection of AI and quantum computing could accelerate change across financial markets faster than many expect.Whether you’re an investor, technologist, or finance leader, this episode offers a grounded, practical view of one of the most important — and least understood — risks facing digital finance.📌 Topics covered• What quantum computing is and why it matters for finance• How quantum machines threaten current cryptography• Bitcoin’s exposure via legacy address formats• Post-quantum cryptography and crypto-agility• Blockchain governance and upgrade coordination• Smart contracts and post-quantum migration• “Harvest now, decrypt later” risks• Institutional readiness and custody implications• AI, quantum, and the future of financial infrastructure• What investors should consider over the next 5–15 years🔗 Learn moreTony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.comChristopher Jensen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherjensen2001/Franklin Templeton: https://www.linkedin.com/company/franklin-templeton/Franklin Templeton Digital Assets Insightshttps://www.franklintempleton.com/insights/disruptive-technology/digital-assetsFranklin Templeton Digital Assets on Xhttps://x.com/FTDA_USDigital Asset Security in the Quantum Era: https://franklintempletonprod.widen.net/s/zqcgfsrm8f/insight-article-digital-asset-security-in-the-quantum-era-dasqe-fl
🎙️ In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Søren Westh Lonning, CFO of Pleo, about how finance leaders are navigating an era of growing complexity, higher expectations, and mounting pressure — and why too many organisations are still making decisions based on hindsight rather than foresight.
Søren shares Pleo’s growth journey, scaling from €65m to €165m in ARR in just three years, and explains how the company has evolved from a simple expense management tool into a comprehensive spend and cash management platform designed to support real-time, confident decision-making across finance teams.
Drawing on insights from Pleo’s Decision-Making Report, the conversation explores a stark reality facing finance leaders today: 58% of financial decision-makers — and 65% of CFOs — are making more high-level decisions than ever before, yet confidence remains low. Nearly half have experienced decision-freeze, and 41% of decisions are made without full confidence, often due to fragmented systems and a lack of contextual, real-time data.
Tony and Søren unpack what’s driving this — from rising geopolitical and economic pressures to greater business ambition — and discuss how modern finance teams can rethink strategy to stay effective. Central to this shift is enabling teams to move from hindsight to foresight, using real-time visibility, analytics, automation, and AI to guide decisions before opportunities are missed.
The episode also dives into how Pleo helps finance teams build trust across the business, forge stronger data-driven partnerships, invest more intelligently, and ensure cash works harder through smarter optimisation. Søren reflects on maintaining culture during rapid scale, the role of strategic partnerships, and practical advice for FinTech founders looking to achieve lasting product-market fit.
📌 Topics Covered
• Why CFOs are under more pressure — and less confident — than ever
• Insights from Pleo’s Decision-Making Report
• The cost of decision-freeze and fragmented financial data
• Moving finance teams from hindsight to foresight
• Real-time visibility, analytics, and AI in modern finance
• Scaling from expense management to full spend & cash management
• Maintaining culture and trust during rapid growth
• Strategic partnerships and the future roadmap for Pleo
🔗 Learn More:
Tony Clark: linkedin.com/in/tclark100
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Pleo: https://www.pleo.io/en
Søren Westh Lonning: https://www.linkedin.com/in/s%C3%B8ren-westh-lonning/
Pleo Decision-Making Report 2025: https://content.pleo.io/en/decisions-report-2025
Explore Pleo Embedded Finance: https://embedded.pleo.io/news/pleo-embedded-official-launch
Pleo Cash Management Suite: https://www.pleo.io/en/cash-management
NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
On My Watch: Leading NATO in a Time of War: https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Watch-Leading-NATO-Time/dp/0008708746
How Big Things Get Done: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Big-Things-Get-Done/dp/1035018950/
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Susanne Chishti to explore the growing pressure on CFOs operating in today’s increasingly complex financial environment, from geopolitical shocks to shrinking margins and fragmented data systems.
This conversation is created in collaboration with Pleo, and highlights their work in modernising the CFO’s office through real-time visibility, automated treasury workflows, and embedded finance capabilities that unify spend across the business.
Tony and Susanne dive deep into findings from Pleo’s Decision-Making Report 2025, including:
💡 Over 50% of UK decision-makers experience “decision freeze” due to a lack of real-time data
💡 Finance teams spend 26+ hours per week on manual treasury tasks
💡 Many organisations still make decisions based on “feeling” rather than evidence
💡 Fragmented systems slow down business agility and innovation
They also unpack how tools such as Pleo Embedded (their new embedded finance solution) and the Cash Management Suite are helping CFOs automate treasury operations, consolidate financial data, and accelerate decision-making with greater clarity and control.
Whether you're a CFO, operator, finance leader, or founder, this episode offers practical insights into the future of financial decision-making — and why integrated tooling is now essential rather than optional.
🔗 Learn More:
Tony Clark: linkedin.com/in/tclark100
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Pleo: https://www.pleo.io/en
Susanne Chishti: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannechishti/
Pleo Decision-Making Report 2025: https://content.pleo.io/en/decisions-report-2025
Explore Pleo Embedded Finance: https://embedded.pleo.io/news/pleo-embedded-official-launch
Pleo Cash Management Suite: https://www.pleo.io/en/cash-management
NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
"From Good to Great" by Jim Collins: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Good-Great-Companies-published-HarperBusiness/dp/B00E327SVA/ref=asc_df_B00E327SVA?mcid=ff85ddadb41e3021bd513644d3a153d5&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=781457465012&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6936681774339943281&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045984&hvtargid=pla-2444989498790&psc=1&hvocijid=6936681774339943281-B00E327SVA-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1
🎙️ In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Sid Powell, CEO of Maple Finance, to explore the rapid rise of onchain finance and what it means for the future of institutional lending, asset management, and global financial markets.
Sid explains how Maple is building institutional-grade borrowing and lending natively onchain, taking a different path from traditional finance players that rely on legacy rails. By using stablecoins, Bitcoin, and decentralized finance protocols, Maple is working to make lending faster, cheaper, more transparent, and more efficient—all while maintaining a rigorous focus on risk management.
With over $4 billion in assets under management, Maple has emerged as a key player in crypto-native credit markets, partnering with institutions such as Cantor Fitzgerald, Bitwise, family offices, prime brokers, exchanges, trading firms, and Bitcoin miners. Sid outlines how BTC-backed loans, stablecoin-based lending, and DeFi integration are reshaping capital markets at scale.
The conversation also dives into the regulatory outlook for the year ahead, including the implications of the GENIUS Act, the likely passage of the Clarity Act, and how improved regulation could unlock new use cases such as Bitcoin-backed mortgages. Sid shares his views on Bitcoin’s long-term trajectory, the current macro environment, and why stablecoin adoption is accelerating through banks, fintechs, and global payment providers.
Tony and Sid also discuss Maple’s expansion across Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, and other blockchains, the role of products like syrupUSDC in creating liquid, yield-bearing assets for DeFi, and how AI is increasingly being used to improve risk management in onchain asset management.
📌 Topics covered:
•The explosive growth of onchain finance
• Institutional crypto lending vs traditional financial rails
• Stablecoins, BTC-backed loans, and DeFi credit markets
• Maple’s $4B+ AUM growth and institutional partnerships
• Risk management in crypto-native lending
• GENIUS Act, Clarity Act, and regulatory clarity
• Cross-chain DeFi infrastructure (Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum)
• Yield-bearing stablecoins and onchain composability
• Bitcoin market outlook and macro trends
• The future of AI in onchain asset management
Whether you’re tracking institutional crypto adoption, stablecoin innovation, or the future of lending on blockchain rails, this episode offers a deep dive into where digital finance is heading next.
🔗Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com/
Sid Powell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidneypowell/
Maple Finance: https://maple.finance/
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6NTY%3D&c=cG9zdDo5OTMzNTQ%3D
Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Augustus-Life-Romes-First-Emperor/dp/0812970586/ref=asc_df_0812970586?mcid=33b3cd8f94e23fceb665d3018d99fb8d&th=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696450770399&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15772828612049184534&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045984&hvtargid=pla-417307122658&psc=1&hvocijid=15772828612049184534-0812970586-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1
Founders Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7txiovdzPARhjm18NwMUYj?trackId=21yPPGH9UO7nu1Vc0P6Y1l
🎙️ In this episode, Tony sits down with Richard Squire, founder of My Finance Future, to explore how his FinTech startup is reshaping the way people plan their financial lives—not just for today, but for the decades ahead.
Richard shares his journey from a successful career in management consulting to building a platform designed to help individuals truly understand their long-term financial position. He explains why so many people begin planning too late, and how My Finance Future aims to solve this by giving users a clear, comprehensive view of their financial future before they make life-changing decisions.
They discuss the complexities behind building a complete lifetime financial planning tool, the importance of earning user trust in financial services, and the collaborative effort required to bring a robust MVP to market. Richard also dives into the strategies behind reaching the right audience—from social media to influencer partnerships—and what it takes to stand out in a crowded FinTech landscape.
Looking ahead, Tony and Richard explore the next phase for My Finance Future, including new capabilities, expanded reach, and the broader mission of empowering individuals to take control of their financial journey.
📌 Topics Covered
• Richard Squire’s transition from consulting to FinTech
• Why lifetime financial planning matters
• Understanding your financial situation before major decisions
• Why many people start planning too late
• Building a comprehensive, all-in-one financial plan
• Trust as a cornerstone of financial services
• Collaboration & teamwork in early-stage startups
• Marketing via social media and influencers
• My Finance Future’s MVP and long-term roadmap
• Expanding the platform’s capabilities & audience
🔗 Learn More
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com/
Richard Squire: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardsquire/
MyFinanceFuture: https://myfinancefuture.com/
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6NTY%3D&c=cG9zdDo5OTMzNTQ%3D
🎙️ In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Dalal Buhejji to explore how Bahrain is fast becoming one of the most dynamic fintech hubs in the Middle East.
Dalal unpacks Bahrain’s rich legacy in financial services, now the largest contributor to its economy, surpassing oil and gas. She shares how the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB) supports global and local fintechs entering the market—providing investment facilitation, guidance, and an environment designed for innovation.
They discuss Bahrain’s unique regulatory model featuring a single financial regulator, which simplifies market entry and has been instrumental in developing a thriving fintech ecosystem. Dalal also highlights the success of the country’s regulatory sandbox, which has produced major fintech players and spurred new models in payments, digital banking, and beyond.
A core focus of Bahrain’s strategy is talent development, with initiatives to upskill Bahrainis in technology and financial services. Combined with its strategic location, the country offers unrivalled access to the GCC and wider MENA region—positioning Bahrain as a launchpad for global expansion.
Looking ahead, Dalal and Tony explore emerging trends shaping Bahrain’s financial future, from AI and digital banking to deeper collaboration across the region.
📌 Topics Covered• Bahrain’s evolution into a fintech hub
• How the Bahrain EDB supports global fintechs
• Single-regulator advantage
• Success of Bahrain’s regulatory sandbox
• Local talent development & upskilling
• Strategic access to GCC & MENA markets
• Economic diversification beyond oil
• Innovation in payments & digital banking
• AI adoption in financial services
• What’s next for Bahrain’s fintech ecosystem
🔗 Learn More
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com/
Dalal Buhejji: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbuhejji/
Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB): https://www.bahrainedb.com/
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6NTY%3D&c=cG9zdDo5OTMzNTQ%3D
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Ben Brophy, Head of Institutional Growth, Europe at the Solana Foundation, to explore how the world’s fastest and most actively used blockchain is shaping the next generation of financial infrastructure.
Ben shares his journey from traditional finance—spanning roles at NatWest and Fidelity International—to leading Solana’s institutional adoption across Europe. They dive into how Solana’s high-performance, single-layer network is driving on-chain innovation at scale, and what it means for banks, asset managers, and payment providers now entering the blockchain era.
The conversation covers the institutional shift from private to public blockchains, the rise of tokenisation, the integration of on-chain solutions with treasury operations, and Solana’s vision to become “Nasdaq on the Internet.” Ben also unpacks Solana’s collaboration with R3, the regulatory evolution enabling public deployments, and the $2.5 billion DeFi capital request that’s opening new pathways between traditional finance and crypto-native ecosystems.
📌 Topics covered:• How Solana became the world’s fastest and most adopted blockchain
• The evolution of institutional blockchain adoption
• Public vs. private networks—and why the shift matters now
• Tokenisation, stablecoins, and yield-generating assets on-chain
• The future of programmable compliance and transparent governance
• R3 x Solana: bridging TradFi and DeFi
• Why we’ve passed the tipping point for on-chain finance
Tune in to hear how Solana is redefining performance, trust, and innovation in blockchain—and why the next wave of institutional finance will be built on-chain.
🔗 Learn More:Tony Clark: linkedin.com/in/tclark100
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.comSolana Foundation: https://solana.com/ &. https://x.com/solana?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Ben Brophy: linkedin.com/in/benbrophy
NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
The Fourth Turning Is Here by Neil Howe: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fourth-Turning-Here-Seasons-History/dp/1982173734/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2JGUG3UZKXC5Y&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UnHitIUegc8AC05jF0ZWTZMwWgbhD9RWG1GpDfRjCDvGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.F2PF1-CK0Cy5SS6yy83q5mKyUWCdfZ4L4QY58AN2GWo&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+Fourth+Turning+Is+Here+by+Neil+Howe&qid=1760691367&sprefix=the+fourth+turning+is+here+by+neil+howe%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-1
🎙️ In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Andy MacMillan, CEO of Alteryx, to explore how data, automation, and AI are reshaping the future of financial services.
With a background in enterprise software and data management, Andy shares how Alteryx has evolved into a leading platform helping organisations operationalise AI—turning raw data into actionable insight.
The conversation dives into what it takes to build trust in AI-driven systems, how financial institutions are integrating automation into both customer-facing and internal workflows, and why predictability and governance are critical to success.
They also discuss Alteryx’s role as a data clearinghouse for AI applications, the importance of customer feedback in shaping innovation, and how the real promise of AI lies not in hype—but in solving practical business challenges.
📌 Topics covered:
• Data as the fuel powering the AI revolution
• How Alteryx enables end-to-end AI adoption
• Building trust and predictability in AI processes
• The evolution of data management in financial services
• Using AI to enhance customer experience and operations
• The intersection of automation and human expertise
• The customer-led approach driving Alteryx’s innovation
• The future of AI: from experimentation to operational excellenceTune in to hear how Andy MacMillan and Alteryx are helping financial institutions turn data into their most strategic asset—and what it takes to bring AI to life responsibly.
🔗 Learn more:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Andy MacMillan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apmacmillan/Alteryx: https://www.alteryx.com
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6NTY%3D&c=cG9zdDo5OTMzNTQ%3D
On the Calculation of Volume 1" by Solvej Balle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Calculation-I-Solvej-Balle/dp/0571383378
🎙️ In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Symmie Swil, UK General Manager of Upvest, about the company’s role in financial technology and investment infrastructure.
Symmie shares her career journey, the development of Upvest, and how embedded finance is being integrated into modern financial services. The conversation covers financial literacy, the use of AI in financial operations, and the supportive environment for fintech innovation in the UK.
📌 Topics covered:• The growth of embedded finance in financial services• Symmie’s career path and leadership insights• The role of AI in financial operations• Financial literacy and education initiatives• UK fintech ecosystem and regulatory environment• Building culture and collaboration at Upvest
🔗 Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Symmie Swil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/symmie/
Upvest: https://upvest.co/
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6NTY%3D&c=cG9zdDo5OTMzNTQ%3D
Cautionary Tales podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2yPlb6ynbhTJbziSIcykQd
Hidden Brain podcast: https://www.hiddenbrain.org/
Crossing the Chasm (book): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstream/dp/0062292986
https://londonfintechpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/riverside_governing_the-machine-.-_-oct-10-2025-001_lfp_recording-studio.mp3Watch the video episode on YouTube and Spotify.
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Dr Paul Dongha, Head of Responsible AI & AI Strategy at NatWest Group, about the importance of AI governance in financial services.
With decades of experience in AI—from his early PhD research on autonomous agents to leading responsible AI initiatives at major banks—Paul brings both technical depth and practical expertise to the conversation. He shares insights from his new book “Governing the Machine”, co-authored with leading global AI advisors Ray Eitel-Porter and Miriam Voge, and promoted by figures such as Andrew Ng, Reid Hoffman, and the CEO of IBM.
They discuss the nine key risk areas of AI—including bias, privacy, security, and hallucinations—the role of regulation such as the EU AI Act, and why effective governance must be an organisation-wide effort led from the boardroom. Paul also explains how firms can implement practical frameworks, governance forums, and training to safely unlock AI’s potential while staying compliant and ethical.
“Governing the Machine” will launch on October 23rd and is available for pre-order now: https://amzn.eu/d/9PSBRAt
Paul shares perspectives from his career in AI research and strategy, including risk areas such as bias, privacy, security, and hallucinations. The discussion explores regulatory frameworks like the EU AI Act, organisational approaches to responsible AI, and practical tools that firms can use to manage AI adoption effectively.
Topics covered:
• Why responsible AI is critical for financial services
• The nine biggest risk areas for AI adoption
• Bias, fairness, and how to mitigate them in practice
• Privacy, security, and the risks of prompt hacking
• Hallucinations and why they can’t be “designed away”
• Regulation: EU AI Act, NIST framework, and global standards
• The rise of Chief AI Officers and responsible AI roles
• How to build governance forums, ethics boards, and AI inventories
• Tools, platforms, and GRC systems for managing AI at scale
• Key takeaways from Governing the Machine
Key takeaway: AI governance isn’t about slowing innovation—it’s about building the guardrails that make responsible, scalable innovation possible.
I would be delighted to welcome you to one of our launch events, where you can purchase a signed copy of the book.
7.30pm on Tuesday, 21st October in Jesus College, Cambridge, CB5 8BL. RSVP: https://bit.ly/3VD65EV (select “Reserved tickets” – you are a VIP!) You will need a ticket to gain entry, so you must RSVP.
OR 6pm on Wednesday, 22nd October at NatWest Bank, 250 Bishopsgate, London, EC2M 4AA. RSVP: https://bit.ly/3IuBiaq You will need a QR code to gain entry, so you must RSVP.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com/podcasts/
Paul Dongha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-dongha/
Governing the Machine (pre-order link): https://amzn.eu/d/9PSBRAt
NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/
Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coming-Up-Short-Memoir-America/dp/0593803280
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?c=cG9zdDo5OTI5NzY%3D&nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6MTA%3D&s=null
https://londonfintechpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/riverside_copy_of-lfp-finch-capital-with.-magic-episode-__lfp_recording-studio.mp3Watch the video episode on Youtube and Spotify.
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Mike Brennan of Finch Capital and AI innovator Parsa Ghaffari about the evolution of fintech in Europe and the impact of AI on financial services.
They discuss the development of new fintech hubs, the integration of AI across business functions, and how regulation and technology are shaping operating models. The conversation also explores the concept of “peak engineering” and what it could mean for the next phase of digital transformation in finance.
Topics covered:
• The changing fintech landscape in Europe
• AI applications in financial services
• Emerging fintech hubs across the region
• Regulation and its role in shaping adoption
• The idea of “peak engineering” in technology
• AI integration into business workflows
• Industry perspectives on digital transformation
Learn More:
Tony Clark: / tclark100
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Parsa Ghaffari: / parsa-ghaffari-a7300a24
Mike Brennan: / mikebrennan
Finch Capital: https://finchcapital.com/
NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/
The State of European Fintech: https://finchcapital.com/research-rep…
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6NTY%3D&c=cG9zdDo5OTMzNTQ%3D
https://londonfintechpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/riverside_copy_of-money20_20_-inside-fintechs-biggest-stage_lfp_recording-studio.mp3Watch the video episode on YouTube and Spotify.
️ In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark speaks with Scarlett Sieber, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer at Money20/20, about the role of global industry gatherings in financial services.
Scarlett discusses her career journey from banking innovation to leading strategy at Money20/20, and shares perspectives on collaboration across the sector. The conversation covers the return of in-person events, trends in AI and fraud prevention, blockchain use cases, and the influence of technology companies on finance.
Topics covered:
• Industry collaboration through fintech conferences
• Scarlett’s background in banking and fintech innovation
• In-person networking and events post-COVID
• AI, fraud detection, and operational priorities
• Blockchain adoption in financial services
• The role of large technology firms in finance
• Global fintech trends and regional perspectives
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Scarlett Sieber: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scarlettsieber/
Money20/20: https://www.money2020.com/
NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/
Go Beyond The Podcast: https://resources.nxwave.com/hub/london-fintech-podcast?nav=aHViX3BhZ2U6NTY%3D&c=cG9zdDo5OTMzNTQ%3D
Taking Stock: https://tv.nyse.com/taking-stock-2
Fintech #FinancialServices #AIinFinance #Blockchain #FraudPrevention #LondonFintechPodcast
fintech podcast, money2020, financial services conference, AI in finance, blockchain in banking, fintech events, industry collaboration, financial technology trends, fraud detection in finance, fintech leadership
️Watch the video episode on YouTube and Spotify.
LFP 280 – The future of asset servicing: AI, automation & digital assetsIn this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Rob Stone, General Manager of Intelligent Automation and Analytics at SS&C, to explore how AI, automation, and digital assets are reshaping the future of asset servicing and investment management.
Rob shares his journey with SS&C—from joining in 2010 when the firm was valued at $1 billion, to helping scale it into a $20+ billion leader at the intersection of technology and operations. He explains how SS&C’s unique dual role as both a technology provider and an operator creates a powerful competitive advantage in financial services.
They also dive into the evolution of asset servicing from manual workflows to digitally integrated operations, the governance challenges of deploying AI at scale, and why blockchain and digital assets will be central to the industry’s next chapter.
Topics covered:
• Rob Stone’s journey and SS&C’s remarkable growth
• The evolution of asset servicing in a digital-first world
• How AI and automation are driving efficiency and innovation
• Why SS&C’s dual model creates a strong competitive moat
• Governance, security, and responsible AI adoption
• The role of blockchain and digital assets in investment firms
• How adaptability will define the winners of the next decade
Tune in to hear how SS&C is using technology not only to serve clients, but to reinvent its own operations—and what this means for the future of financial services.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
SS&C Technologies: https://www.ssctech.com
Rob Stone: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robstone2/
Dungeon Crawler Carl: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dungeon-Crawler-Carl-Gamelit-Adventure-ebook/dp/B08BKGYQXW
FinTech #Automation #AIinFinance #DigitalAssets #Blockchain #AssetServicing #InvestmentInnovation #FinancialServices #LondonFintechPodcast #SSCTech
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Sandy Kaul, Executive Vice President & Head of Innovation at Franklin Templeton, to explore how tokenisation, smart contracts, and wallet-based ecosystems are set to redefine the future of finance.
Sandy shares her extensive background at the intersection of finance and technology, explaining how the industry is moving from traditional account-based systems to decentralised, wallet-driven models. They dive into the transformative power of tokenisation for equities, bonds, and other financial instruments, as well as the potential of smart contracts to automate and streamline transactions.
The conversation also unpacks the regulatory landscape, the growing mainstream adoption of digital assets, and why investment firms must act now to adapt. From tokenised funds to personalised portfolio benefits, Sandy outlines a vision of finance that is more accessible, flexible, and innovative than ever before.
Topics covered:
• The shift from account-based to wallet-based systems
• Why tokenisation will revolutionise traditional finance
• Smart contracts and the automation of financial markets
• How decentralised finance can democratise investment access
• Institutional adoption of digital assets
• The regulatory path for tokenised instruments
• Future trends in portfolio management and investor personalisation
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Sandy Kaul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-kaul/
Book –The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fourth-Turning-American-Prophecy/dp/0767900464
Tokenisation #DigitalAssets #SmartContracts #WalletBasedSystems #FinTech #DeFi #Blockchain #InvestmentInnovation #FranklinTempleton #FinancialServices #LondonFintechPodcast
️In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Robb Wilson—pioneer in AI, experience design expert, and author—to unpack the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence and what it really means for the future of financial services.
Robb shares why simulation is the next big leap in AI, how outbound and agentic AI will redefine customer interactions, and why the industry needs to stop bolting AI onto outdated systems. Drawing from years of experience building platforms for smarter machines, Robb argues that success with AI requires rethinking objectives, embracing foundational design, and preparing for a future where machines not only support—but act.
They also explore the risks of AI overload, the need for shared knowledge infrastructure, and why clarity and control must underpin innovation.
Topics covered:
• Why AI is the defining force in financial services
• The rise of agentic AI and outbound automation
• Why simulation will reshape AI development
• The hidden risks of bolt-on AI solutions
• How companies can build foundational AI infrastructure
• The challenge of integrating AI into legacy business structures
• Why objectives—not just tools—must evolve
• Building platforms for intelligent, autonomous systems
• The future of human-AI collaboration in finance
Tune in to hear how Robb Wilson is helping reshape AI thinking across industries—and what it takes to lead in the age of intelligent systems.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Robb Wilson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/invisiblemachines/
UX Magazine: https://uxmag.com/
OneReach.ai: https://onereach.ai/
Dopamine Nation: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dopamine-Nation-Finding-Balance-Indulgence/dp/B09GYNV92D
AIinFinance #AgenticAI #ConversationalAI #OutboundAI #DigitalTransformation #SimulationTech #FinTech #Automation #PlatformThinking #LondonFintechPodcast #AILeadership #FutureOfWork
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Staci Warden, CEO of the Algorand Foundation, to explore the future of crypto, stablecoins, and the role of blockchain in building more inclusive, efficient financial systems.
Staci shares her journey from Wall Street and the U.S. Treasury to leading one of the most innovative blockchain foundations in the world. The conversation dives deep into how stablecoins work, what makes them trustworthy, and why Algorand’s energy-efficient, secure platform is well-positioned to power the next generation of decentralised finance.
They also explore real-world use cases for blockchain—from programmable money to disaster relief—and discuss how stablecoins could reshape traditional finance, enable financial inclusion, and unlock new forms of value transfer.
Topics covered:
• Staci Warden’s path from JP Morgan to the Algorand Foundation
• What makes stablecoins stable—and how they differ from other crypto
• Algorand’s tech: instant finality, low fees, energy efficiency
• How blockchain is helping drive transparency and accountability
• The shift from hype to utility in the crypto space
• Financial inclusion and identity in the digital era
• The rise of programmable money and automated transactions
• Integrating blockchain into traditional finance
• Educating traditional finance professionals on Web3
• Why the future may favor yield-bearing digital assets over fiat-backed stablecoins
Tune in to hear how Algorand is building the foundation for a fairer, faster financial future—and what it takes to lead responsibly in the crypto era.
Learn More:
Go Beyond The Podcast for exclusive insights and resources (free of charge): Bit.ly/LondonFintechPodcast
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
Staci Warden: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staci-warden-b15268b9/ & https://x.com/StaciW_DC
Algorand Foundation: https://www.algorand.foundation/
Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Read-Write-Own-Building-Internet/dp/1529925623
In this special AI episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark explores the transformative impact of AI in financial services—from practical applications to regulatory challenges, and everything in between.
As AI adoption accelerates, Tony goes through a number of key insights covering what it takes to implement AI responsibly, how firms are moving from narrow to generative and Agentic AI models, and why data quality, ROI, and explainability are critical for success.
We discuss real-world use cases, how leading institutions are embedding AI into their operations, and why the future of work will be defined by human-AI collaboration. Whether you’re in tech, risk, strategy, or ops—this episode offers tangible insights to help you navigate the AI shift.
Topics Covered:
• The rise of generative and agentic AI in finance
• AI for fraud detection, customer service & operational efficiency
• Measuring ROI on AI projects
• Navigating regulation, compliance & governance
• AI as a coworker, not just a tool
• Building AI literacy across financial institutions
• Investing in data quality and explainable AI
• Use cases for synthetic teams and autonomous agents
• The future of finance: collaboration between people and machines
Tune in to learn how AI is reshaping the financial sector—and what it takes to lead the change responsibly.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
NextWave Consulting: https://www.nxwave.com/
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO and founder of AZA Finance, to explore how she’s reshaping cross-border payments and foreign exchange across frontier markets in Africa and beyond.
Elizabeth shares her journey from Wall Street to Nairobi, her groundbreaking work with BitPesa in launching digital currencies, and how AZA Finance is solving real-world problems through infrastructure, innovation, and deep local expertise. The conversation highlights the challenges of building a fintech across diverse and volatile markets, and the importance of representation, resilience, and culture in leading a global financial company.
They also discuss AZA’s recent partnership with Dlocal, the growing role of stablecoins and AI in payments, and the importance of sticking to your values while building something that lasts.
Topics covered:
• From New York to Nairobi: Elizabeth’s founding story
• Building BitPesa—the world’s first digital FX exchange
• The evolution of mobile money and fintech in Africa
• Why infrastructure, not hype, is the future of fintech
• AZA Finance’s cross-border payments and FX strategy
• How to lead in volatile frontier markets
• The importance of diversity and representation in fintech
• Culture as the engine of scale
• The rise of stablecoins, 24/7 settlement & AI innovation
• Lessons for female founders and fintech entrepreneurs
• Why everything in business is cyclical—and persistence wins
Tune in to hear how AZA Finance is redefining payments in some of the world’s most dynamic markets—and what it really takes to lead with purpose and vision.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Elizabeth Rossiello: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-rossiello-589b8b1/
AZA Finance: https://azafinance.com/
FinTech #EmergingMarkets #DigitalCurrency #CrossBorderPayments #WomenInFintech #Stablecoins #AfricaTech #FinancialInclusion #Entrepreneurship #LondonFintechPodcast #AZAFinance #AIinFinance #PaymentsInnovation #FintechLeadership
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9i5uct_nA
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Mia Drennan, founder of Global Loan Agency Services (GLAS), to explore her remarkable entrepreneurial journey—from launching a business with just £6,000 to building a global company with over 400 employees managing $500 billion in assets.
Mia shares what it takes to succeed as a female founder in a male-dominated fintech space, the evolution of loan agency services, and how innovation and digital transformation are driving the next chapter for GLAS. She reflects on the importance of resilience, building a strong network, and advocating for diversity in the investment community.
The conversation is packed with insights on scaling a niche financial services firm, the power of a digital mindset, and the role of leadership in shaping inclusive and high-performing cultures.
Topics Covered:
• Adopting a dog from Antigua
• Starting GLAS with £6,000 and scaling to £100M+ turnover
• The importance of innovation in loan agency services
• Why only 12% of fintech founders are women—and what needs to change
• How GLAS grew to 400+ employees across 10 countries
• Embracing a digital mindset to lead transformation
• Lessons in risk-taking, resilience, and fearless leadership
• Diversity as a growth driver in finance
• Building a support network for female founders
• What’s next for GLAS: global growth and digital acceleration
Tune in to hear Mia’s inspiring story and her vision for the future of fintech.
Learn More: Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Mia Drennan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miadrennan/
GLAS: https://glas.agency/ Great CEOs are lazy: How exceptional CEOs do more in less time: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Ceos-Are-Lazy-Exceptional-ebook/dp/B01DBAUZT6
The Rest is Politics: https://www.youtube.com/@restispolitics
FinTech #FemaleFounders #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #Leadership #DiversityInFinance #LoanAgency #DigitalTransformation #WomenInBusiness #LondonFintechPodcast
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPN9RnxuP_E&t=525s
️ In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Pete Wickes, General Manager for Global Enterprise at Worldpay, to unpack the fast-evolving landscape of payments and the innovations redefining how money moves around the world.
Pete shares insights from his extensive experience leading Worldpay’s global operations, exploring the rapid acceleration of digital payment methods, the rise of wallets and account-to-account transactions, and why understanding consumer behaviour is crucial for innovation.
The conversation highlights Worldpay’s role in powering billions of transactions globally and how merchants today have more choice than ever in how they accept payments. They discuss the broader payments ecosystem—from acquirers to PSPs—and what the future might look like as digital currencies, embedded finance, and alternative payment rails continue to gain momentum. Pete also reflects on the importance of staying close to the market through industry events and customer conversations.
Topics Covered:
• Being an avid football fan
• How the global payments ecosystem is evolving
• The role of WorldPay in powering billions of transactions
• Why merchants now have more options than ever
• The rise of account-to-account payments and digital wallets
• Cash isn’t dead—but it’s changing
• Key innovations shaping the next phase of payments
• Why consumer preference should drive product design
• What’s next: digital currencies, real-time payments, and embedded finance
Whether you’re a fintech innovator, payments professional, or just curious about where the future of transactions is headed, this episode offers a front-row seat to the transformation underway in the global payments space.
Learn More: Tony Clark: / tclark100
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Pete Wickes: / pete-wickes-a04b3912
Worldpay: https://www.worldpay.com/en-GB
Global payments report: https://www.worldpay.com/en/insights/…
PaymentsInnovation #FinTech #DigitalPayments #WorldPay #CustomerExperience #FinancialServices #LondonFintechPodcast #EmbeddedFinance #DigitalTransformation #SMEs #RealTimePayments
Watch the video episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRslY8JVaCs&t=11s
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Andrew McKibben, Head of International Technology and CIO for Global Corporate & Investment Banking at Bank of America, to explore how one of the world’s largest financial institutions is using technology, AI, and innovation to stay ahead in a rapidly changing industry.
Andrew shares insights on the strategic role of technology in banking, how AI and machine learning are reshaping financial services, and why customer-centric innovation is key to long-term success. He also discusses the challenges of modernising legacy systems, the importance of fostering a culture of innovation, and how the bank is investing in talent and cutting-edge technology to drive growth.
The episode also touches on the importance of patents in fintech, how Bank of America has secured over 7,000 patents, and why continuous investment in technology—over $13 billion annually—is a critical factor in staying competitive.
Andrew highlights the mindset required to embrace change and push technological boundaries.
Topics Covered:
• The importance of curiosity as a career foundation (and starting out with a Sinclair Spectrum…)
• Technology as a strategic enabler for the business
• Really (really) listening to customers
• Spending $13 billion a year on technology, whilst also being agile and innovative across 35 countries
• The impact of AI and machine learning on financial services
• Bank of America as the most patented Financial Institution in the industry
• Why investing in employees is just as important as investing in tech
• Always being there to support clients
• Getting out of your comfort zone to drive personal and professional growth
Tune in to discover how Bank of America is shaping the future of banking through innovation, technology, and a relentless focus on customer needs.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: / tclark100
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Andrew McKibben: / andrew-mckibben-0204691
Bank of America:https://www.bankofamerica.com/
Thinking, Fast and Slow: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0141033576
The Singularity is Nearer: https://amzn.eu/d/26PBJTA
FinTech #BankingInnovation #ArtificialIntelligence #MachineLearning #CustomerCentric #BankofAmerica #TechLeadership #DigitalTransformation
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lnCI-bWj12Q
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark is joined by EJ Achtner, former Group Head of Generative AI Capabilities at HSBC, to explore the transformative power of AI in the financial services industry. They delve into what it really takes to implement AI at scale in highly regulated, complex environments and the potential challenges and opportunities this presents.
EJ shares insights into leading enterprise-level AI transformation, from the early days of tools like ChatGPT to establishing robust governance frameworks and aligning AI strategies with business goals. The conversation goes beyond the buzzwords, focusing on how AI can drive productivity, improve customer outcomes, and unlock innovation when used responsibly.
They discuss the common hurdles that prevent AI projects from progressing beyond the proof of concept, the importance of data quality, and how strong model risk management is crucial for successful AI adoption. EJ also highlights the importance of human oversight in high-stakes environments and the role of cross-functional collaboration in ensuring successful outcomes.
Topics Covered:
• AI has reached a turning point in accessibility and real-world impact
• Successful adoption requires strong governance, clear business goals, and strategic leadership
• Generative AI must be treated as an enabler, not a silver bullet
• Human oversight and cross-team collaboration are essential for managing risk
• Organisations must focus on data quality and upskilling their workforce to keep pace
Whether you’re in strategy, tech, or operations, this episode offers valuable, practical insights for embedding AI within your organisation and doing it the right way.
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUTLS4v9N_M
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony sits down with Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier, founder of iBanFirst, one of Europe’s fastest-growing fintech companies specialising in cross border payments.
They explore the complexities of international transactions, Pierre-Antoine’s entrepreneurial journey, and what makes IBAN First stand out in a competitive market. From funding strategies to the role of technology in financial services, this conversation is packed with valuable insights for fintech founders, investors, and business leaders.
The episode also dives into the challenges SMEs face in managing global payments, the importance of transparent pricing, and how investing in talent and technology is essential for long-term success.
Topics Covered:
• The $200 trillion cross-border payments market opportunity
• Self-funding vs. VC vs. PE – choosing the right funding strategy
• Why client satisfaction is key to scaling a fintech business
• How IBAN First is simplifying payments for 10,000+ SMEs
• The power of transparent pricing as a competitive advantage
• The role of technology in driving fintech innovation
• Carving out a niche in a crowded financial services market
• Building a house from scratch in France
• The importance of social wealth and the 5 types of wealth
Tune in now to discover how IBAN First is revolutionising cross-border payments and what it takes to build a successful fintech startup!
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com Pierre-Antoine Dusoulier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierre-antoine-dusoulier-b1b8202/ IBAN First: https://www.ibanfirst.com The 5 Types of Wealth: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Types-Wealth-Transformative-Guide-Design/dp/0008623201
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g_sphqWmi8&t=267s
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony sits down with Shameer Sachdev, an expert in FinTech marketing, to explore the rapidly evolving landscape and the strategies that drive growth in a competitive market.
Shameer shares insights on the critical role of creativity in FinTech marketing, the power of effective messaging, and the potential of influencer marketing to enhance brand awareness.
The conversation dives into how AI can boost marketing efficiency, the importance of regular customer engagement, and the significance of analytics in measuring success.
The episode also touches on the unique challenges of global expansion and the need to leverage new media channels to reach younger audiences. Shameer emphasises the value of “zigging when others zag” to gain a competitive edge in the dynamic FinTech space.
Topics Covered:
- The evolving landscape of FinTech marketing
- Being an astronaut in your spare time…
- The role of creativity in driving effective strategies
- Understanding customer pain points for better messaging
- Finding your ‘Finfluencer’…
- Leveraging AI for improved marketing output and efficiency
- The importance of customer feedback in adapting strategies
- Navigating global expansion and understanding market dynamics
- Utilising new media channels to engage younger audiences
- The fundamental role of analytics in tracking success
- Standing out by “zigging when others zag”
- Tune in to discover actionable strategies and key insights to help your FinTech thrive in a rapidly changing market.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Shameer Sachdev: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shameersachdev/
Growth Gorilla: https://www.growthgorilla.co.uk/
Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQt73hUb5Zs&t=756s
In the latest episode of the London Fintech Podcast, we sit down with Ellison Anne Williams, founder and CEO of Enveil, to explore the critical role of data privacy and privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) in the fight against financial crime.
Ellison Anne shares her expertise in homomorphic encryption and secure data collaboration, highlighting how financial institutions can leverage sensitive data while maintaining compliance with evolving regulations. The discussion covers key challenges in data privacy, the importance of operational pilots, and how PETs are reshaping the regulatory landscape.
The episode also examines the cultural barriers that hinder data sharing, the UK’s leading role in PET adoption, and how institutions can quantify the return on investment for secure data-sharing initiatives. Ellison Anne offers invaluable insights into entrepreneurship, the power of belief in one’s vision, and the future of privacy in fintech.
Topics Covered:
• The growing importance of data privacy in financial services
• How PETs enable secure cross-border data collaboration
• Advancements in homomorphic encryption and secure computation
• The role of operational pilots in demonstrating PET effectiveness
• Regulatory trends shaping the future of privacy and compliance
• Cultural and institutional barriers to effective data sharing
• The UK’s pioneering role in privacy-enhancing technology adoption
• How financial institutions can measure the ROI of PETs
• Why education and awareness are crucial for technology adoption
• Lessons in entrepreneurship and leadership from Ellison Anne
Tune in to discover how cutting-edge privacy technologies are transforming financial services and the fight against financial crime.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.nxwave.uk
Ellison Anne Williams: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellison-anne-williams-98102a127/
Enveil: https://www.enveil.com/
Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSNW5yhQhq8
In this insightful episode of the London Fintech Podcast, we sit down with Alistair Hegge, co-founder of DA Insured, to explore the challenges and opportunities of building a FinTech startup in the rapidly evolving digital asset insurance market.
Alistair shares his journey in launching DA Insured, an insure-tech company bridging the gap between Web3 and traditional insurance. He highlights the importance of product validation, automation, and AI in streamlining operations and scaling a fintech business. The conversation delves into the unique challenges of insuring digital assets, the role of partnerships in navigating emerging markets, and the future of tokenisation and regulation in the space.
The episode also covers essential startup insights, including strategic decision-making, continuous product refinement, and the importance of understanding client needs. Alistair offers valuable advice for entrepreneurs looking to enter the fintech and insure-tech landscape.
Topics Covered:
• The journey of building DA Insured and entering the insure-tech space
• How digital asset insurance is evolving in the Web3 ecosystem
• The importance of product validation for startup success
• Using AI to automate the go-to-market for 200 target clients
• The role of partnerships in establishing credibility in emerging markets
• Continuous iteration and refinement in product development
• How client interviews help shape and improve fintech offerings
• The current challenges and future potential of insuring digital assets
• The necessity of a solid incident response plan for trust and recovery
• Trends in tokenisation and regulatory advancements in the digital asset space
Tune in to discover how FinTech innovation and insure-tech solutions are shaping the future of digital assets and financial protection.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Alistair Hegge: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alistair-heggie/
DA Insured: https://dainsured.com/
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVKwUaypz9Q
In this special episode of the London Fintech Podcast, we sit down with Simon Torrance, an expert in AI and business model transformation, to explore the emerging world of Agentic AI and its profound implications for businesses.
Simon shares his journey in helping enterprises navigate AI-driven change and the founding of his advisory firm, AI Risk. He explains how Agentic AI is revolutionising industries, from customer service and consulting to operational automation, and why companies must adopt a strategic approach to AI to stay competitive.
The episode explores the rise of synthetic workforces, real-world case studies showcasing AI outperforming human agents, and the role of governance and ethics in AI deployment. Simon also highlights the changing economics of business due to AI advancements and provides actionable insights for organisations preparing for the AI-driven future.
Register for our upcoming Agentic AI for AI Visionaries Forum on 27th March: https://www.nxwave.com/agentic-ai-event
Topics Covered:
• Simon’s career journey and the founding of AI Risk
• What is Agentic AI, and why does it matter?
• The infinite supply of cost-effective synthetic workers
• How AI agents are transforming customer service and business operations
• The strategic risks of AI adoption and how to mitigate them
• AI’s role in augmenting human capabilities rather than replacing them
• The disruption of traditional consulting models through AI automation
• Why AI-driven businesses must align with governance and ethical frameworks
• The future of AI in business, financial services, and beyond
Tune in to learn how agentic AI is reshaping the business landscape and how companies can harness its power for growth and innovation.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tclark100/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com/
Simon Torrance: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/simontorrance
AI Risk: https://www.ai-risk.co/
Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvoxw3RU-BI
In this insightful episode of the London Fintech Podcast, we sit down with Francesco Filia, founder of Fasanara Capital, to explore the transformative landscape of private credit and fintech lending.
Francesco shares his journey from traditional banking to building Fasanara Capital, a digital finance asset manager redefining lending practices with cutting-edge technology. Drawing on his background in derivatives, Francesco provides a unique perspective on the opportunities and challenges within the private credit market and the importance of aligning the interests of lenders and borrowers.
The episode highlights key market trends, including the decentralisation of traditional banking, the rise of institutional interest in uncorrelated returns, and the integration of fintech and blockchain as drivers of future growth. Francesco also reflects on the lessons learned from past failures and offers valuable advice for aspiring fintech entrepreneurs.
Topics Covered:
• Francesco Filia’s career journey: from traditional banking to fintech innovation
• How Fasanara Capital leverages technology to streamline lending processes
• The rapid growth and potential of the private credit market
• The importance of aligning interests between lenders and borrowers
• Why institutional investors are drawn to uncorrelated returns in private credit
• Decentralisation as a key trend shaping the lending landscape
• The role of fintech and blockchain in the future of lending
• Lessons learned from past failures and their value for new ventures
• Practical advice for entrepreneurs entering the fintech space
Key takeaway: Private credit is a dynamic, rapidly evolving market with vast opportunities for innovation, and leveraging technology is essential for shaping its future.
If you’re curious about fintech lending, private credit, or how technology is transforming finance, this episode is a must-listen!
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.nxwave.uk
Francesco Filia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-filia-aa178b/
Fasanara Capital: https://www.fasanara.com/
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/FFEJpYz7hgw?si=GEi30wCYW9PqcX_e
In this thought-provoking episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark interviews Dan Awrey, a professor of law at Cornell Law School and the author of Beyond Banks. The conversation delves into the intersection of technology, law, and financial institutions, exploring the evolution of banking and payments, the transformative impact of fintech innovations, and the regulatory challenges facing this rapidly evolving landscape.
Drawing on his expertise in financial market infrastructure, Dan shares a vision for a new regulatory framework to address the emerging shadow monetary system and shifting consumer expectations in the digital age. He discusses the future of banking and payment systems, advocating for a model that reduces reliance on traditional financial intermediation, grants technology firms access to central bank reserve accounts, and prioritises competition to drive innovation and enhance consumer welfare.
The episode offers valuable insights for financial institutions, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future of finance, as Dan outlines practical steps to navigate the challenges and opportunities of a technology-driven financial ecosystem.
Topics Covered:
•Dan Awrey’s career journey: fintech to law and academia
•Key insights from Beyond Banks: the intersection of technology and finance
•How fintech innovations are reshaping consumer behaviour and banking models
•Challenges for traditional banks in adapting to rapid technological change
•The rise of non-bank payment platforms and shifting consumer preferences
•The need for a new UK regulatory framework to accommodate financial technologies
•The growing shadow monetary system and its implications
•Access to central bank reserve accounts as a key to fostering competition
•Governance frameworks that balance innovation with public good priorities
•Historical perspectives on banking as a guide for future innovations
Tune in to discover how technology is redefining finance, what’s next for regulation, and how collaboration between fintechs and traditional institutions can shape a better financial future.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Dan Awrey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-awrey-56737040/
Beyond Banks: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691245423/beyond-banks?srsltid=AfmBOops_B8X3JBO1IqMZbYu0OUQIUhrd4pLhVg3hybJIGtezm_a_U2e
Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7M7njXxafNg
In this insightful episode of the London Fintech Podcast, we sit down with Nick Rose, CFO of Enable, a pioneering FinTech company revolutionising rebate management. This is an episode for CFOs and deal-makers alike.
Whilst rebate management as a concept may not be immediately familiar to all, once we understand that it’s any deal structure where money flows back up the deal chain based on hitting thresholds and targets, we can see that Enable is digitising a vast and often overlooked aspect of the market.
There is a great story here of transitioning from traditional finance in an established bricks & mortar business, to a scale-up SAAS company backed by Silicon Valley.
Nick shares his inspiring journey from a traditional accounting career at EY and Travis Perkins to becoming a key leader in a fast-growing technology company. Drawing on his wealth of experience, he explains the complexities of rebate systems, the importance of collaboration between trading partners, and how Enable’s innovative software transforms rebate management, reducing the reliance on spreadsheets.
The episode explores Enable’s remarkable growth, expanding from just 55 employees to over 650, and the integral role of flexibility and understanding customer needs in the company’s success. Nick also discusses how AI-powered analytics are poised to enhance decision-making for their customers, and he offers invaluable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs looking to make an impact in the FinTech space.
Topics Covered:
• Nick’s career journey, from EY to Travis Perkins and Enable
• How Enable’s software simplifies rebate management
• The importance of collaboration in trading relationships
• Enable’s growth trajectory and scaling challenges
• The role of AI in shaping the future of rebate management
• Why understanding customer needs drives product development
• The significance of a supportive board in achieving growth
• Flexibility as a cornerstone of operational success
• Insights into the fast-paced, dynamic FinTech environment
• Practical advice for entrepreneurs: solve real customer problems
Tune in to learn how FinTech innovation can transform complex processes and create value for businesses everywhere.
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com
Nick Rose: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-rose-81ba318a/
Enable: https://www.enable.com/
Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P2WLceLQ8A&t=2s
In this special episode of the London Fintech Podcast, we are privileged to talk with Michael Manelli, the 695th Lord Mayor of London.
Michael shares his extraordinary career journey, spanning from his early days in aerospace at Lockheed Martin to becoming a key figure in financial services, fintech, and leading the CIty of London. As a Chartered financial accountant, economist, author, and scientist, Michael discusses the wide-ranging initiatives he championed during his year as Lord Mayor, including mental health research, sustainable finance, Ethical AI, and Space Protection.
The episode also dives into the City of London’s unique governance structure and its role as a global fintech hub.
Michael provides fascinating insights into the integration of finance, science, and technology, as well as the evolving role of the Lord Mayor in shaping the city’s future.
Topics Covered:
• Michael’s diverse career and path to becoming Lord Mayor of London
• The Lord Mayor's job - Global initiatives, leading the City, pageantry, speeches & costume changes
• London’s status as a global fintech hub and its governance model
• Initiatives Michael made including mental health, sustainability, Ethical AI & Space Protection
• The intersection of finance, science, and technology in the City of London
• Innovations in environmental sustainability and emissions trading
• The role of the Lord Mayor in global leadership and governance
• The future of fintech, ethical AI, and environmental responsibility in the financial sector
Tune in for an enlightening conversation on leadership, innovation, and the future of fintech in the heart of London.
Learn More:
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.nxwave.uk
Michael Mainelli: https://www.mainelli.org
Watch the video episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXa2V8bRufA
In this episode of The London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Duncan Stevens, Founder of Gretel, to discuss the platform’s mission to reconnect individuals with lost financial assets.
Duncan shares how his entrepreneurial journey was shaped by his early life experiences and a strong desire to create purpose-driven solutions. He reflects on the challenges of launching Gretel during the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights the platform’s unique approach to tackling the issue of stranded financial assets in the UK.
The conversation explores the social and financial impact of Gretel, including its inclusive design and success in reuniting consumers with tens of millions of pounds. Duncan delves into the scalability of Gretel’s two-sided marketplace model and its focus on fostering trust between financial institutions and consumers. He also provides valuable advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, emphasising the importance of purpose over profit and the need for accessible innovation.
Topics Covered:
• Duncan’s career journey and inspiration for founding Gretel
• The problem of stranded financial assets in the UK
• Gretel’s design principles: inclusivity, accessibility, and ease of use
• How Gretel operates as a two-sided marketplace
• Growth potential within the financial sector and future expansion plans
• Challenges of launching during the pandemic
• The role of purpose-driven entrepreneurship
• Predictions for the future of asset reunification and financial inclusion
Tune in to learn how Gretel is reshaping the financial landscape by addressing a critical problem and empowering consumers to reconnect with their forgotten assets.
Learn More:
Duncan Stevens: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncan-stevens/
Gretel: https://www.gretel.co.uk/
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com/
Watch the video version on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgYg4tPP48A
In this episode of The London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Aman Ghei to look at the state of Fintech in Europe.
Aman shares his journey from M&A banking, working at Accel and Facebook and games development, to building a career in venture capital. Aman reflects on how these experiences have influenced his approach to investing in post-revenue companies across sectors like payments, banking, and insurance technology.
The conversation explores the current state of European Fintech, including the growing prominence of local investors, the impact of economic challenges on valuations, and the opportunities emerging in thriving markets like Germany and the Nordics. Aman delves into the complexities of the investment landscape, emphasising the importance of capital efficiency and highlighting trends in mergers and acquisitions.
Aman also provides insights into lucrative verticals like payments and the strategic advantage of focusing on the mid-market in Europe. He shares practical advice for navigating the Fintech space, predicting the continued rise of "useful AI" and the shifting dynamics of the market.
Topics Covered:
- Aman’s career journey and Finch Capital’s focus on post-revenue Fintech investments
- Finch Capital's 9th Annual European Fintech Report
- Key investment trends across Europe, including country-specific opportunities
- The evolving role of local investors in driving growth
- Challenges and opportunities in the current economic cycle
- Mid-market investment focus
- Insights into thriving sectors like banking, payments, and insurance technology (BNPL, Stablecoins and InsurTech)
- Complexities of valuation in Fintech and the importance of capital efficiency
- The strength of the European PE sector (Eur 50-500m)
- The UK as the major European Fintech hub
- The "Rule of 40"
- German private capital focus
- The Nordic & Polish fintech scene
- Being commercial from the start
- Predictions for the future of European Fintech, including M&A activity and market consolidation
Tune in to gain a deep understanding of the European Fintech ecosystem and learn how investors like Aman Ghei are shaping its future.
Learn More:
Aman Ghei: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanghei/
Finch Capital: https://www.finchcapital.com/
State of European Fintech report: https://finchcapital.com/post/state-of-european-fin-tech-2024
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
The London Fintech Podcast: https://londonfintechpodcast.com/
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1M4ODqxthw&t=973s
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Qin En Looi, a leading figure in the Asia fintech space, to explore the future of digital assets and the convergence of fintech and blockchain technology. Qin shares his journey from a traditional Singaporean upbringing to becoming a successful entrepreneur and investor, co-founding Glints and leading Saison Capital. He reflects on how these experiences shaped his understanding of fintech’s potential in Southeast Asia.
The conversation covers blockchain's evolution, the growing institutional interest in digital assets, and the importance of trust within the crypto space. Qin emphasises the role of tokenisation in the future of finance, particularly in streamlining transactions and overcoming the limitations of traditional systems like SWIFT. They also discuss how fintech innovation is accelerating in Southeast Asia, the challenges of tokenised assets, and the critical importance of choosing the right technology and jurisdiction for protection.
Qin also offers practical advice for entrepreneurs in fintech, stressing the importance of learning to sell, building strong distribution networks, and how financial discipline is crucial as the fintech sector undergoes a phase of consolidation.
Topics Covered:
• Qin's background, dropping out and then completing a Stanford degree in half the time (and achieving top marks!)
• The potential of digital assets and blockchain technology in fintech
• The rise of tokenisation and its impact on the financial industry
• Importance of trust and regulatory clarity for blockchain adoption
• Challenges and opportunities for startups in the digital asset space
• Insights into fintech’s growth in Southeast Asia and global liquidity trends
• The convergence of fintech and blockchain technology
• Practical advice for entrepreneurs: mastering sales and distribution
• The role of institutional finance in the digital asset ecosystem
Learn More:
Chinen Lui: https://www.linkedin.com/in/looiqinen/
Saison Capital: https://www.saisoncapital.com/
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
NextWave: www.nxwave.com
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Tk_Qg5Lkiw0
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark sits down with Jordan Sinclair, President of Robinhood UK, to explore Robinhood’s ambitious global expansion, with a particular focus on its UK market entry.
Jordan brings a wealth of experience from his diverse career, and is now leading Robinhood’s mission to democratise finance by offering commission-free trading, fractional shares, and innovative 24/5 trading access to a broader audience.
Jordan shares insights into his unique journey and Robinhood’s customer-centric approach, emphasising the importance of financial education, localising products to meet specific needs, and addressing underrepresented groups within the UK market.
This conversation delves into Robinhood’s strategy for market disruption, its revenue model, and the role technology—especially AI—plays in enabling scalable growth. They also discuss the UK investing environment and Robinhood’s financial literacy initiatives, along with the company’s approach to diversity and inclusion in shaping its customer base.
The episode provides an in-depth look at Robinhood’s approach to sustainable growth and how the company uses its technological edge to stand out in a competitive fintech landscape. Jordan also opens up about maintaining a work-life balance, staying informed, and Robinhood’s plans for future advancements to continue scaling its operations.
Topics Covered:
- Jordan’s career journey and insights into Robinhood’s UK market strategy
- Robinhood’s mission to democratise finance and innovative features like 24/5 trading
- The role of financial education and localisation in product development
- Strategic approaches to market disruption, marketing, and growth • Robinhood’s revenue model, including diverse income streams
- The importance of technology in Robinhood’s expansion and customer engagement • Insights into the UK investing environment and the future of fintech
- Diversity, inclusion, and broadening financial access
- Staying ahead with AI-driven solutions and scaling technology
- Balancing professional growth with personal well-being
- Robinhood’s vision for the future of finance and upcoming advancements
Tune in to gain a comprehensive understanding of Robinhood’s strategy for global growth and how the company is paving the way for the next generation of fintech innovation.
Learn More:
Jordan Sinclair: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-sinclair-36827142/
Robinhood UK: https://robinhood.com/gb/en/
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
NextWave: https://www.nxwave.com
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ny7vDFIVhko
In this episode Tony Clark sits down with Paul Caulfield for a deep dive into the troubling world of Financial Crime.
Paul is a practising attorney. He’s been a chief legal officer and a chief risk officer at major Financial Institutions, and he’s worked with pretty much all the market regulators in the sector, including the Department of Justice, the OCC, OFAC, and the Fed. Paul is also an adjunct professor at Fordham Law in New York.
This is a ‘must-listen’ for anyone in the Risk, Compliance or Legal space.
This conversation centres on Money Laundering and Cyber Crime as two key dimensions of the criminal activity challenge that the FS sector faces. In today’s market, illegal activity manifests in so many different ways and some surprising places. Paul shares some of his practical stories of the threats, regulations and remedies that firms must pay attention to.
Topics covered include:
- The Growing Threat of Financial Crime
- Introducing Paul Caulfield: Expert in Financial Crime
- Regulatory Challenges and Innovations
- The Role of Technology in Combating Financial Crime
- Money Laundering innovations in surprising places – diamonds, gaming & crypto
- The Importance of Collaboration in Financial Security
- Leveraging AI and Technology for Better Compliance
- The Future of Financial Crime Prevention
- Voice & Avatar Synthesis and Cyber Attacks
- Real-Life Scenarios of Cybercrime
- The Rise of Romance Scams and Social Engineering
- Election Security and Media Influence
- The Dark Web and Cybercrime as a Service
- Regulations and the Role of Citizen Activism
- The Future of Cybersecurity and Financial Crime
- Personal Reflections and the Impact of 9/11
- The Importance of Cyber Hygiene and Human Factors
- Unexpected Inspirations: Japanese Haiku
Learn more:
Paul Caulfield: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulcaulfieldny/
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
NextWave: https://www.nxwave.com
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7NHLjXfhNqQ
In this episode of the London Fintech Podcast, Tony Clark is joined by Louis Glass, the head of CMS’ TMT-sector M&A group in the UK, Managing Partner of the firm’s Tel Aviv office, and a member of the management board.
Louis brings a wealth of experience as a corporate lawyer with specialist expertise in tech, internet, and e-commerce transactions. His career spans over two decades, including extensive cross-border work for multinationals, startups, and venture capital funds. Louis’ journey into the world of law and fintech is as unique as it is impressive.
Tech-obsessed from a young age, he was writing database software by the age of 15. Today, his work revolves around complex international transactions, particularly in the tech sector, where he represents clients across 45 countries.
This conversation explores the intersection of law, technology, and fintech, focusing on how legal frameworks can support innovation while ensuring compliance in the ever-changing regulatory environment.
Louis also opens up on his personal journey, mental wellness and the vital importance of team and company culture.
Louis offers key insights into navigating the legal challenges fintech companies face, from securing licenses to managing cross-border transactions, and balancing rapid growth with stringent regulatory standards.
Throughout the episode, Louis provides practical advice for fintech leaders, sharing how companies can leverage legal expertise to innovate while staying compliant. He also touches on the future of regulation in fintech and how businesses can anticipate and adapt to evolving legal landscapes.
Topics covered include:
- Louis’s journey from writing software to leading M&A transactions in the tech and fintech sectors.
- The twin ‘fairytales’ of company law and money.
- Resilience, mental health & corporate culture.
- The critical relationship between legal frameworks and fintech innovation.
- Balancing regulatory compliance with business growth in a global context.
- Managing cross-border transactions and securing licenses in different jurisdictions.
- The future of fintech regulation and how businesses can stay ahead.
- Aligning legal teams with business objectives to drive long-term success.
- Louis’s experience working across the UK, US, and global markets.
- Practical strategies for legal professionals in the fintech space.
- Building trust with regulatory bodies through proactive compliance.
- Insights from Louis’s work across over 45 countries.
- Interesting reads (and podcasts…)
Learn more:
Louis Glass: https://cms.law/en/gbr/people/louis-glass
CMS: https://cms.law/en/gbr/
Tony Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
NextWave: https://www.nxwave.com
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/go9S3Ta0xtY
In this episode of the London Fintech podcast, Tony Clark talks to Sarah Levy.
Sarah has over 25 years of experience launching and growing new brands, however Sarah’s journey to FS is an unconventional one, having crossed over only 4 years ago from a super successful career with Disney, Nickelodeon and Viacom, to leading one of the fastest growing and most progressive digital wealth management firms in the US.
There are approximately 60,000 wealth firms globally of all sizes offering propositions that span pure advisory, self-directed, robo-advisory and hybrid models in a market characterised by shifting demographics, consolidation and new asset classes. So how do firms differentiate and get ahead?
This conversation explores Betterment’s use of technology for competitive advantage and delivering a purpose-led wealth solution to the “zillennial” generation of investors.
Sarah shares her unique insights on building targeted consumer brands for specific demographics and customer segments, the power of hyper-personalisation, and the misalignment between traditional firms and the digitally accelerating ecosystem. “If Schwab and Fidelity and Vanguard are my parents brands, Betterment will be the Zillennial wealth brand”.
Additionally, she provides some really practical insight for C Suite leaders and fintech entrepreneurs on building a growth company, transitioning to fintech, building customer loyalty, and creating a balanced corporate culture.
- Moving from big-media to Wealth Management
- Transforming businesses for the Digital Age
- The importance of brand in all sectors
- Solving problems for customers and laser focus
- The ‘Zillennial’ generation need for technology driven solutions
- The direction of the Wealth Management sector
- “Selling eat your vegetables while some of the others were offering candy” during the pandemic
- How Important is Enterprise scale for Wealth Firms?
- Betterment’s Mission – making people’s lives better
- How Betterment Works
- Digital vs Real Life advisors
- Betterment’s Portfolio Strategy
- Betterment’s Market Positioning as a FinTech
- How Betterment Differentiates from Competitors
- Simplicity and the elegance of the user experience
- Sarah’s Team Building Journey and Betterment’s Culture
- Food as a team-builder..
- The Rise of AI in Wealth Management
- Sarah’s Challenges and learning every day
- Switching from corporate to fintech
- Future Plans for Betterment
- Where to Learn More Learn more:
Sarah: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-kirshbaum-levy-889881a1/
Betterment: https://www.betterment.com
Tony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
NextWave: https://www.nxwave.com
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-thOpJvMmF8
Which bank was the first UK clearing bank in 250 years, grew income 91%, last year despite the fintech downturn, doubled its deposits and provides banking services to 250 companies, including 16 other banks?
In this episode of the London FinTech podcast, Tony Clark is joined by Charles McManus, Founding CEO of ClearBank.
Charles is an international banking professional with over 30 years in global investment banking, wealth management and retail. Before ClearBank, he was the group CFO of RBS Ulster Bank and spent 13 years at the Royal Bank of Canada, where he became CFO for Europe and Asia and Global Head of Product Control.
This conversation explores ClearBank’s pioneering role in embedded banking and its remarkable growth and success. Charles offers deep insights into the firm’s journey, its innovative solutions, and its leadership in the fintech sector.
Topics include the future of embedded banking, ClearBank’s successful navigation of regulatory challenges, and the expansion into Europe post-Brexit. Additionally, Charles shares his personal experiences, stress management strategies, and advice for fintech entrepreneurs.
Topics covered include:
- ClearBank’s remarkable journey to-date
- Charles’ background & career Journey
- Setting up ClearBank in Europe post-Brexit
- Learning to ride a horse at 50..
- The Fintech revolution and the Embedded Banking sector
- ClearBank’s business model
- Banking for banks
- Stablecoin and tokenised deposits
- ClearBank’s competitive landscape and differentiators
- Tech company vs bank
- Hiring an amazing team & psychometric testing
- Agile working
- AI in the Embedded Banking sector
- Future plans for ClearBank
- Advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, including those thinking of swapping the corporate world for the fintech world
Learn more:
Charles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-mcmanus-/
ClearBank: https://clear.bank
Tony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
NextWave: https://www.nxwave.com
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/j5HZhwSuVy4
In this episode of the London Fintech podcast, Tony Clark talks to Niall Cameron. They explore Niall’s journey from heading trading teams to leading digital transformation at HSBC and now building a unique Fintech community through FinTech Connex.
There are by some estimates over 26, 000 FinTechs globally. However, as this audience will know, the sector has been on a rollercoaster ride since 2020. Post COVID FinTech funding dropped dramatically in 23 and in investment terms, the first half of last year was down 57 percent year on year versus 2022. Q1 24 this year was the worst performing fintech quarter since the start of 2020.
However, it’s not all gloom and doom. There is optimism across the sector from both the investment community and the fintechs themselves, particularly for those firms who have a clear niche product, a rapid growth rate and effective partnerships. A lot of this is down to product focus and leveraging the fintech ecosystem, something that Niall is an expert in.
Niall shares his insights on achieving product-market fit, staying ahead of trends, and the importance of narrowing focus for deep expertise. Additionally, he provides practical advice for fintech entrepreneurs on making their products more buyable and actionable in a swiftly evolving industry landscape.
Niall, not just had a stellar career in trading, rising to the top of his business with several thousand traders reporting to him at one point, but he also made a successful move to digital leadership at one of the world’s largest banks and more recently. built a unique fintech community and network business across the sector.
- Meet Niall Cameron: A Fintech Connector
- The State of the Fintech Industry
- Urban art & meeting Banksy (maybe..)
- Niall’s Career Journey and Influences
- Transition to Digital Leadership
- The Birth of FinTech Connex
- Challenges and Opportunities in Fintech
- Mice dancing with elephants
- Segmenting and Labeling Products for Different Clients
- The Role of AI in Transformational Solutions
- AI’s Impact on Various Financial Sectors
- Challenges and Strategies for FinTech Companies
- Future Trends and Predictions in FinTech
- Navigating AI Adoption and Corporate Challenges
- Final Thoughts and Advice for FinTech Entrepreneurs
- Where to learn more & Connector invitation…
Learn more:
Niall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niall-cameron-8a1aab6/
FintechConnex: https://fintechconnex.com
Tony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
NextWave: https://www.nxwave.com
Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/j5HZhwSuVy4
In his inaugural episode of the London Fintech Podcast, host Tony Clark takes over from Mike Baliman and takes a deep dive into the world of AI powered forensic accounting.
Research shows that 1 in 10 US firms are cooking the books and that accounting manipulation is a $4.7Tn industry problem, in the US alone. Transparently has built an AI platform that can detect and score accounting manipulation, often years ahead of corporate collapse!
Tony talks with Dr. Hamish Macalister, the founder and CEO of Transparently AI. They discuss the prevalence of accounting manipulation in global markets, the statistical mechanics behind Transparently’s AI system, the varied use cases spanning banking, asset management, auditing, and regulation, and touch upon the ethical commitment Transparently has towards transparency and accuracy.
Hamish shares his journey, the company’s rapid evolution, and exciting future prospects involving generative AI integration. The episode provides deep insights into the significance and mechanics of forensic AI in tackling financial fraud.
- Meet the New Host: Tony Clark
- Tony’s Background and Vision for the Show
- Introducing Dr. Hamish McAllister – quant strategist, professor & AI inventor
- The potential of AI in Finance
- Transparently AI: Forensic Accounting
- Time away from the startup – Scuba diving
- Hamish’s Career Journey & asking the Singapore government to reduce their research grant!
- Founding Transparently AI
- Building the Transparently AI Team
- Cooking the books – the $4.7Tn problem (and opportunity..). Forensic reports in seconds..
- 85,000 companies – scoring every listed company since the 80’s
- Predicting corporate collapse – years ahead..
- Exploring Corporate Governance and Asset Quality
- Minimizing False Positives in Financial Systems
- Client Base and Use Cases
- Ethical Considerations and Transparency
- How Transparently AI Works
- Real-World Applications and Case Studies
- Investment from Franklin Templeton
- Transparently 2.0 – Generative AI Integration & Google AI acceleration
- The world’s first AI Forensic accountant that you can actually talk to
- Advice for FinTech Entrepreneurs
- Where to Learn More (and free trial offer)
More info:
Transparently.ai: https://www.transparently.ai
Hamish: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamish-macalister-phd-0b558bb/
Nextwave: https://www.nxwave.com
Tony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-clark-07160b/
This is the 4th and final episode in the mini-series celebrating the LFP’s 10th anniversary. Having looked at the past decade in Fintech, dived into how an LLM really works and discussed what risks AI does or doesn’t pose to humanity in this episode we cover the macro picture right now as the setting for the outlook for FS and Fintech over the next decade as well as revealing the exciting plans for levelling-up the LFP to go even further and fresher into it’s next decade.
For sure it is the best of times in terms of technology, even if in terms of “western”/US empire societal and economic situation the worst of times as WEF/2030/Agenda 21 continue to bear down upon the people.
But however the macro cookie crumbles with regard to geopolitics for sure FS will be affected significantly either way. Insane money-printing and government debt accumulation in western countries cannot continue for much longer without risking social and economic collapse as we have discussed on the podcast before. On the other hand will we have CBDCs and the State programming your currency?
There are many scenarios but the geopolitical changes are already being ushered in with the BIS, the “central banks bank” already well advanced with its mBridge project, a Swift alternative.
In this episode I am delighted to be joined once more by Tony Clark former guest and London Head of former brand partner’s Synechron as well as founder of Next Wave a digital acceleration consultancy for FS who lives much nearer the coalface of change than I.
So check the show out for not just an overview of the dominant geopolitical influences on FS, to which Fintech is simply a subset, but the future and how we see technology changing FS and Fintech in the upcoming decade.
And then finally in the show we reveal the exciting plans for levelling-up the LFP and taking it into its second decade – where for sure the pace of change will not, whatever happens, slow down!
Share and enjoy!
In this episode we discuss the super-hot and super-important topic of what Risks AI poses to humanity and society. There is perhaps not a hotter and more misunderstood topic than that of AI and the risks it poses. Many indeed fear that “it” will eliminate humans. The influential Geoffrey Hinton, co-creator of the seminal backpropagation algorithm, has been all over the media saying we need to worry and that there is 50% chance that AI outsmarts humanity and poses an existential risk. Other insiders put that probability at 100%.
Should we too worry if the real insiders are sounding the alarm?
I think not.
But why are the insiders not the people to turn to?
If the insiders were say insiders at Boeing who were blowing the whistle about dangerous aircraft manufacture processes then yes we should be concerned. Mind you we might also be concerned that three in a row now, having found their whistles, suddenly died in mysterious circumstances.
However if, in simple terms, airplane manufacturing risks are very much in the box, the risks AI poses are very much out of the box that the experts are expert in.
Whilst one must listen to their technological concerns, neural net experts are not experts out of the box. And it requires an assessment from outside the box to consider the risks to society as a whole.
So lets dive into whether AI is about to decide that their users are useless eaters or will AI be more benign than WEF luminaries and not turn us into slaves but serve us?
Or is AI merely the latest in many tools, many changes of technology which fits into a long-established pattern of such over the millennia. Each new technology by definition affecting the world in unique new ways as well as same old patterns.
We will have five sections:
- a brief summary of the prior episode on what an LLM is and a contextualisation in the wider field of AI and why LLMs in particular pose greater concerns than other AI technologies which have been used for a long time.
- I will briefly summarise LFP200 on the impact of technology on society historically. This new tech isn’t humanity’s first rodeo.
- before we assess risk in any domain we need to address biases that people have – linguistic/conceptual, philosophical/metaphysical, sociological and psychological.
- we will look at four domains that AI may affect in society – the crazy scifi that the robots are taking over, the economic impact, the informational impacts and technological developments.
- we will address the key point of who controls the technology. This “who controls” is for me the real crux of the matter and right now much of what one hears is propaganda to influence that outcome. To simplify will you end up owning your own super-smart chatbot or at the other will it be centrally-controlled by Big Brother, the corporate-state who will keep you safe and feed you its propaganda?
And much much more
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LLMs, of which ChatGPT is the most well-known, are perhaps the most awesome tech invention of all time. Even experienced AI folk didn’t see this coming. Most if not all of us will have used ChatGPT. However an understanding of how they work is for most people either totally missing or totally misled by anthropomorphic language – thinking, learning, hallucinating, learns like a human, is like your brain and so forth. None of which are actually true in the slightest.
In this super-special episode I reject all the utterly misleading language that is entirely off the mark and instead focus on what LLMs are – schematically two programs that process data like all other programs, using no different programming languages or technologies – well other than needing an astronomical amount of computing power which so enriched Nvidia shareholders.
I explain using only a simple excel spreadsheet model how both of these programs ~the “training” program and the ~”Chatbot” program work and conceptually how one could create one in Excel.
Having established that, listeners will really know – in ways they can explain to others – what LLMs are and not be misled by human terms which are the currency of so many LLM descriptions.
LLMs appear to be a very recent and overnight success. However like the Beatles there was a long hard slog to get to say Camp 4 on Everest at which point they started to become noticed and from where it appeared to be a relatively short walk to the top of Everest and a mystery about how rapidly someone can get there.
But John Lennon and Paul McCartney were playing together in dive bars and village halls from 1957 until they summitted in 1963 with their first Number One.
The climbers on Everest may have gone all the way from London on the way to Everest.
And as for ChatGPT, phenomenally the journey started as far back as during World War 2 – an astonishing 81 years ago!
The road to ChatGPT was long and winding with all sorts of ups and downs including most of the specialist AI researchers deserting the field in the so-called “AI winter” from 1969 onwards.
It is a truly astonishing tale and, fascinatingly, as to the insanely hyped and utterly misleading human-related vocabulary surrounding LLMs, this dates back to a 1958 press conference (!). This showcased the US Navy’s Mark 1 Perceptron machine – a hardware-only machine which was created to aid the navy in image detection where as wikipedia says:
“In a 1958 press conference organized by the US Navy, Rosenblatt made statements about the perceptron that caused a heated controversy among the fledgling AI community; based on Rosenblatt’s statements, The New York Times reported the perceptron to be “the embryo of an electronic computer that [the Navy] expects will be able to walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence.”
The blurry photo on the left is of the perceptron and unsurprisingly none of it and its successors never did walk, talk, see, write, reproduce itself and be conscious of its existence.
Indeed it took perhaps fifty years to develop robots that could walk or computer programs that could see, write and talk but over 70 years to ones that could talk or write as intelligently as ChatGPT et al do.
Even then ChatGPT and other LLMs are like all other programs – they simply take input, do some computations and create output using no different technology from any other computer program. Their awesome abilities rely not on any magic other than simply the awesome human skill of creating new ideas after new ideas until after 81 years these achieved a critical mass and produced results that no-one expected – even the experts.
This Special is Part 1 of 2.
In Part 2 we will look at the risks of this new technology – all new technologies come with upsides and downsides – nuclear technology for instance can be used to keep us warm or to atom bomb us .
However, as the world of risks in LLMs and AI in general is dominated by insane sci-fi visions the field is entirely ungrounded. To get to that episode it is necessary to understand the actual nature of an LLM and how it works. Only then, alongside its abilities as a program, can you start to form an opinion as to what it’s consequences are.
Will LLMs, as their capabilities and powers grow, decide – like WEF luminaries that the people, their users, are “useless eaters” and start releasing gain of functioned viruses, feed us bugs and bankrupt us with so-called green taxes to funnel ever more money upwards? Or, will LLMs not turn into the WEF and instead remain as a powerful tool on your desktop no more threat to you or me than Excel? Or something in between?
Tune in to the next episode to find out!
But first find out what LLMs actually are and the amazing 81yr tale of their creation…
The past decade has seen the most extraordinary innovation in any business sector in the UK and thence world since the industrial revolution . An amazing outburst of creativity and independent players emerged on the oldest and stodgiest sector of all – FS. The LFP was the first, and most blue-chip podcast to cover this scene starting in 2014. This episode is like a mini-documentary that takes us one fast-forward through the development and progress of Fintech as it happened and was perceived at the time.
A decade of the LFP represents a unique historical archive, a super-rare window, a time-machine to be able to look back in time and see how things were perceived at the time. However such is the volume of episodes that if you took on, as a full-time job, listening to every episode in order it would take you well over a man-month of full-on 9-5 listening to go through the whole evolution. I thought more preferable would be a one hour review of this exciting decade of innovation and entrepreneurialism instead
This is a super-short extraordinary LFP outside the usual programming schedule to alert listeners to the crime of mugging folks and then getting them to transfer under duress large sums of money to the thieves bank account. This is apparently on the increase in London and is well-known in countries such as Brazil and South Africa where people may routinely take burner phones with them when going into the City.
I initially learned about this risk in this Reddit thread.
Many people without reflection may in effect carry access to all of their money on a single device. We look at possible simple answers to avoid unnecessary risk.
There is also a shoutout for a Q& A in the 10th anniversary episode and instructions as how to send the Qs to me for answering in that episode.
If you invent the world’s greatest Fintech App in your garden shed that’s impressive – but something only known to you. At which point you need to get the word out to relevant audiences. PR is an essential component in the modern world to help you refine and target that message and to get you and it into the relevant publications/podcasts et al that will reach your target clients and the market in general (think targets for next fund raise perhaps).
At a more macro level, the dark side of PR is that it is, as Musk said propaganda, and one often designed not in the recipients’ best interest, whether it be Bernays getting women to take up smoking or governments getting people to be injected more recently.
However that’s way above the Fintech space and in this episode Ben takes a very value-adding practical approach to what PR is, when you need it and when you don’t, what the value-add is, how to use it well and what to look out for when hiring a PR firm amongst many other insider-angles.
Ben is a long term player in the whole media and Fintech scene including the earliest days of Level39 and working at Balderton Capital VCs and formed his own boutique agency focusing on B2B Fintech and VC PR in 2017.
Topics discussed include:
- Ben’s career journey and background working in various angles from working for free in the media to today
- the importance of not doing PR too soon or inappropriately lest you make things more difficult for yourself
- using PR along the growth curve and how it changes along with your aims
- the PR process
- the super-importance of a collaboration between the firms strategy and its media comms
- the real value-adding lies in the first stage of the process – as unless your message is spot on you will not be spreading an optimal take for your business
- quantifying/validating messages
- audience
- how to avoid “the tail wagging the dog”
- the PR model form the perspective of being a recipient of thousands of PR firms communications
- what goes wrong and what needs to be done
- two extremes “spam everyone via an intern” to “focus your outreach”
- ignoring the specific media’s pitching notes
- specialised vs non-specialised PR firms and their respective roles, pros/cons
- the general large firm pyramidal model of PR implementation
- local vs global reach
- the importance of eg the interviewee knowing the context in which they are “media-appearing”
- speciating the technical media landscape
- less obvious newsflow for Tech firms
- hiring a PR firm – how to
- “be aware of what you don’t know and arm yourself against that”
- leveraging networks and funders to get a better feel
- when to decide to get PR and when to decide not to
- know why you are doing PR
- relevant track record of potential firms
- boutique, midsize and large firm interviewing and helpfulness of understanding their strong/weak points and use cases
- the generally useful advice for a new senior/important hire of asking them how they would have approached situation that your firm didn’t handle that well in the past
- discovering how much homework the PR interviewee firms have done on your firm
- how much do PR firms cost in general and the main kinds of interaction/usage
- shoutouts for Goldsmith Comms
- team of five plus resources amongst freelancers
And much much more
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One major way of innovating is to move into a domain with transferable and out of the box skills/ideas/technology. This presents obvious opportunities for radical change yet naturally produces equally obvious challenges. In this episode we look at how 4 co-founders created a payments infrastructure Fintech that now connects an amazing 7.5 billion bank accounts, 6 billion cards, connect banks in 144 countries and have 620 employees with offices in 35 countries.
Ani came from FS and so understood not just how money currently moved but also the super-importance of understanding that its an incredibly regulated business.
The other three co-founders came from the telecoms world and had no idea of how money moved. However they brought in what the telecom industry does very well – namely builds at scale, can process small volume transactions and deliver them instantly.
Topics discussed include:
- moving a family from one country to another
- importance of getting outside one’s comfort zone
- the value of cross-cultural working in terms of leading to creative and open thinking
- Ani’s daughter can speak 7 languages (!)
- getting out of the box = getting out of the comfort zone
- importance of asking dumb questions
- “we just challenged everything and today that is probably the main reason we are the fastest growing company in this space”
- the simple Ur-notion behind Terrapay’s foundation was that if an SMS can be delivered to anyone in the world instantly why can one not do the same with money?
- this concept versus the actual time and cost of sending money being waaaay higher than an SMS
- cashing US cheques in the UK – one would never imagine that Fintech existed
- transferability of competences – eg Sales in any domain to be done well needs a deep sense of understanding a customers pain and relieving that
- technology is similar (but different in eg APIs, protocols etc) cross domain – however note various strengths eg of telecoms tech versus FS tech
- the ever-changing landscape of technologies that customers can use
- which parts of the organogram are so key one needs either a co-founder or a super-senior C-suite colleague in order to innovate radically
- the need for confidence to ask “silly questions”
- answers to “dumb questions” that reveal core beliefs in a vertical rather than actual facts
- MotoGP and radical innovation as a case study
- the criticality of binding energy both within the co-founders and within the company
- culture in re
- company motto “stay hungry, stay humble”
- the Navajo and cultural preservation over millennia
- how does one know whether something that hasn’t been done before can be done?
- budget and timescale, business savvy and feel in re
- finding problems that will last long enough to make the huge effort to produce a really radical solution worthwhile and long-lasting
- key takeaways on the experience of doing all this
- “Be prepared for a rough ride… you will have more tough and bad than good days”
- “Try to find simple solutions for a larger problem set”
- WhatsApp as being exemplary of One Great Solution – namely, unlike SMSs, being able to know when your message has been read and this as fundamental to their success
- shoutouts for Terrapay “no consumer knows us but we are the plumbing behind moving money around the globe”
And much much more
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The Governance of FS as a whole affects all of our lives as we saw in 2008 let alone in many individual examples of FS/Fintech businesses failing and losing clients money. In our digital age virtually all of our money is digital and next to no-one sees a share certificate any more so all of our investments are digital. Thus what might appear to be a refined topic for a few is at the heart of all of our lives – money being used for roughly everything and savings equating to money saved for tomorrow.
As a result of this central role of money in economies, Boards in FS have always had to be – lets put this mildly – “rather more careful” than Boards of companies which if they fell over would “domino” not very far. Not only do many FS/Fintechs “take care of” clients money but money itself in the current financial model is created out of thin air by banks.
Add to these long standing issues the ever-increasing burden on Boards as a whole from the always metastasising Regulatory State, ever-greater minutiae in FS per se and the State using companies to enforce social agendas which even a decade ago would have seemed unlikely/bizarre and we have a very challenging cocktail.
Neil has 20 years expe4rience on Boards and Chairing sub-committees of FS and Fintech Boards and is thus well-placed to guide us through this labyrinth.
Topics discussed include:
- Scottish and Irish traditional folk music
- transitioning from classical piano to the accordion
- interesting anomalies re accordions – not least of which one has to fill in the bass part oneself
- musical insights into Scottish vs Irish music
- learning music as “play these notes” vs “play along with us”
- a lot of folk musicians cannot read music
- Neil’s career journey
- the long delay between Basel II and Boards getting with it
- the felt sense of FS Boards vs “normal” companies – cf FS and Sainsburys
- looking after other peoples money – fiduciary duty
- even if you are the equivalent of a corner shop in FS/Fintech you have to have as much governance as the equivalent of Sainsburys – which in retail obviously does not apply
- the need to cope with all that overhead when your Fintech is still very small
- Case Study of innovation/Fintech/regulation
- Banking Alchemy – a broken model of money (see eg LFP085, LFP197, LFP220 and LFP231) leads to a broken banking system which cannot be repaired by any governance as have discussed in many episodes
- a deep dive into unitary Boards vs sub-Committees of Boards
- what has driven this
- the strange situation re independent directors and sub committees where excess do most of the talking yet are technically no on the committee – “it is slightly absurd”
- the volume of “left-brain” stuff heaped upon FS/Fintech Boards absolutely swamps the Board meeting crowding out creativity in governance and business strategy
- a comparison of FS vs Airline regulation
- literally no limit to the amount of over-regulation of FS
- ever-increasing costs to the consumer as a result and higher risk taking as more people in FS/Fintech are doing non-revenue related activities
- management by walking around starts failing in the larger organisation where one is more dependent on management perception/spin
- comparison with quantum world – what is observed by the Board changes as a result of being observed
- the need to get a feel beyond the management information
- what are the powers of a NED individually or in a committee
- the challenge of balancing the need to gain insight and challenge yet not annoy/rile the executives
- the pressure on the Chairman in these circs
- “poking your nose in but not poking your fingers in” as summing up the role of the NED
- 21stC challenges from the whole tsunami of Corporate Governance (and the word literally did not exist from Chaucer up to the 1970s) and “ESG” et al
- the problem of a “free market” solution to governance and the problem of “bureaucratic rules” solution to governance
- NSDAP (“the Nazis”) as the inventors of Corporate Governance in 1930s Germany again – cf now? – to impose their political agendas upon companies
- the abuse of Governance
- Boards and “guidance” re ESG/DIE etc – the huge pressure to conform to something which is not statutory
- the imposition of groupthink by regulators yet regulators say groupthink is the biggest risk for Boards…
- the idea of safetyism and “nothing should ever go wrong”
- “there is no real difference ultimately between corporate control and corporate creativity” [as the longer term risk is the world is changing and the company does not react appropriately]
- the “war on meritocracy”
- the major risk of FS/Fintech Boards is groupthink and agreement re the wisdom of the rules/codes/guidance etc which is imposed upon Companies from outside the Boardroom
- Advisory Boards, Strategy days that are not minuted as important in these circs to have “unruled” conversations
- “Board Champions” as the latest pressure from regulators which break down the whole idea of collective responsibility and power of sub-committees
- Neil’s overall advice to FS/Fintech Board members especially younger folk embarking upon their first gigs
- the importance of human dynamics within the Board – key cruxes
- is it a good trade being an FS/Fintech Director?
- non-commercial rewards in the role
- Neil’s shoutouts for both folk music-ing and his own NED role portfolio state right now
- the Mutual Model of FS as an appealing one
And much much more
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The tech world focuses heavily on the “succeed fast or fail fast” model of tech growth. In part this is as VC firms generally have limited life funds and hence cannot handle slower models but is also as the tech press loves the hype/condemn cycle implicit in this. However generally most businesses do not follow this model. Whilst rapid success comes to a few, for more it takes rather longer and for many its a slow rocky path. After all hottie OpenAI (ClosedAI?) took quite some years to make a noticeable splash.
Ruzbeh founded City Falcon a decade ago and whilst, like us all, preferred rapid success, he has moved into the more marathon development model of the business. I was particularly enamoured of his very human/ethical perspective and clarity of the social costs of the “succeed or fail fast” model – namely that it comes at the price of burning your friends and family and employees just so that you can get onto your next gig as fast as possible.
With a huge desire worldwide to move on from all business being dominated by neoliberalism – you know, the “humans qua just another resource model” (with some virtue signalling perhaps as perfume to cover the heartlessness of seeing people as resources) – this is a good time to dive into the slower model. This slower model is definitely no picnic – the longer you hang out in business or in life the more tsunamis you will have to face.
Topics discussed include:
- Malta as a tech scene with incentives to attract talent
- Malta Enterprise & Start in Malta
- the competition not just for digital nomads but digital business and entrepreneurs in general
- why Ruzbeh chose to move the business to Malta
- 300 days of sunshine every year
- Ruzbeh’s career journey through Tech into Fintech
- Ruzbeh’s original intention re the business re timescale
- pivoting from B2C to B2B and B2B2C
- “There’s no point failing if we have built all this value and have customers coming to us”
- Strategic investors eg EToro
- 48 staff today
- what led Ruzbeh to move on from the failing fast model
- “Why do I need to fail?”
- When is it I should fail?”
- the challenge of clients asking for more versus being clearer on their needs/desires
- the criticality of cashflow/raises for the slower model of growth
- importance of aim… to eg raise $300m to become a unicorn or to get to cashflow positive
- raised $5m over 10 years
- HT to Seedrs
- Case Study in mining of dislocation being ever more likely the longer one is carrying on and need to react to massive changes in business environment
- Two Case Studies for City Falcon of dislocation due to market changes/dislocations
- is success how much you get when you exit or providing a supportive environment for employees who are loyal, hardworking and delivering or some combination?
- prioritising people over money as a founder whilst ensuring a profitable firm
- the pre-neoliberal English model of sacrificing annual p0rofits before you sack people compared to the modern “HR” model of Profits Uber Alles
- desire to hire people who play sports as a proxy of finding people with grit
- the many decision points to quit or carry on
- the importance of being lean but also having staff buy-in to the economics of the business
- caring in business and especially Family businesses
- the relevance of the stage of the Fintech consolidation
- shoutouts of City Falcon
- their interesting latest product Dynamic Company Sector Classification which uses automation to dynamically classify sectors for companies
- thus eg no longer “just” Mining sector or FS Sector but Generative AI subsector
- how this is done
And much much more
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The Founder(s) is(are) at the heart of creating something new that literally never existed before. However they very much do not do this in vacuo needing to entice and hire a team below them but also, less well understood, a team around them. The surround will at some point coalesce into a formal Board (as opposed to a pro forma Board for Day0 – and for many days after – NewCos).
In this episode experienced NED/Advisor/Mentor/Angel Nic Lenz and I discuss experience in this field with particular reference to formerly senior BigCo folk who wish to get involved in the SmallCo world attracted by the creativity, and let’s face it greater fun/thrills&spills but also to educating the first time founder, or potential founder who will naturally realise they need a CTO et al but may think that “the organogram below them and some dosh” is all they need. It’s certainly the minimum viable organisation but is it the optimal organisation for their personal support/challenge as well as the company’s future?
Both Nic and I have seen countless examples of where the right “grey hair or no hair” experienced folk even though very much part-time contributing to the company can make all the difference between success and failure. We also discuss the challenges of transitioning from BigCo to SmallCo – which applies to both founders and venture accelerators – along with mentoring mentors and the key essences of both sides of the venture creator and the venture accelerator equation.
Topics discussed include:
- Nic’s rare furusato and transition to London
- mysteries of the Netherlands and its history and relevance to London capital markets
- Nic’s 20 years in investment banking
- early entrepreneurial experiences
- Nic’s career journey into Fintech
- how to get to understand the very different world of SmallCo after time in BigCo
- the first attitudinal step that needs to be taken when becoming a mentor
- relevance of dating and mating and fishing…
- how to find out what the real needs of a founder are
- how all these concepts such as advising, mentoring, NEDing et al evolved in Nic’s experience
- the importance of “not knowing”, listening and asking probing questions
- the most powerful tool for all Venture Accelerant roles
- never saying “that can’t be done” – how do you know it cant?
- advisors et al need to help illuminate a journey not deny its possibility
- venturing into the unknown – and it is the founder who is venturing into the unknown
- the magnitude of founding as a task
- supporting and challenging visions from a certain perspective
- helping founders get from A to B
- what are the core issues?
- first time founders as special cases
- what does it take to fund-raise?
- the problem set after initial commercial success – the important aspects at this point
- asking dumb questions
- having startup advisors can be transformational – transition from there to Boards
- ways not to see Boards
- the two main practical challenges with being a venture accelerator – Case Study
- the antidotes to the elephant traps awaiting the unwary
- structuring remuneration creatively
- intentionality and aligning interest
- the caveats for the founder/company in dealing with venture accelerators
- what should lead you into this world
- the importance of wanting to help people and businesses go faster
- “it’s extraordinarily rewarding [not necessarily in financial terms]”
- Nic’s personal shoutouts and working in the worlds of Fintech and Cleantech
- who Nic would like to hear from
And much much more
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As always there is a fascinating phenomenon when the globalised world of tech meets the localised worlds of custom, people, rules and regulations. As recently as LFP243 we dived in to the world of tech as a whole in Berlin and today we dive into Fintech in France. Needless to say France is a massive market, well banked and a real venue for Fintech. That having been said there are, as always, some downsides. In this episode we have a fascinating historical, philosophical and very practical conversation about the nature of Fintech in France.
Louis is well-placed to discuss these matters being not only a co-founder of Hokodo which is based in Paris and has more than 100 staff, most of whom are in London.
Furthermore he is very multicultural in a European sense having been brought up as first a German speaker in Champagne and then Strasbourg in Alsace which looks both east and west, not least of which as it has been part of Germany and of France at varying times. He moved from there to Paris and describes the Paris-isation of French students and the de-regionalisation process they go through. Furthermore he has worked in Switzerland – also rather Franco-German as well as the UK. Thus who better to lay out the pros and cons of Fintech in France?
Topics discussed include:
- regional accents and dialects and the trend over time to create one language at the expense of the regional variants
- comparisons with life in Switzerland and regionalism in the dialects
- anecdote of going to a Parisian university
- Louis’ career journey starting in London through Australia and Asia
- the early genesis of the move into Fintech and founding of Hokodo
- Hokodo is headquartered in the UK despite two of the co-founders being bases in Paris
- the genesis of Fintech in France
- the nature of the competitive context in France re existing banks
- the nature of the French regulatory environment
- when Big Banks got into innovation
- regulation and innovation in business lending in France compared to the UK or the Netherlands
- cost of innovation compared to regulatory climate and the resultant levels of innovation
- Eurosceloris as, inter alia, being driven by mass regulation favouring incumbents and protecting them from competition
- John Law and the background to French attitudes to banking, finance and money
- the split of Catholic attitudes to money and Protestant attitudes
- the form between common law and the Napoleonic code
- how the latter started off as A Good Thing but just gets bigger and bigger
- Case Study of Labour Law – ~4,000pp in France ~200pp in Switzerland
- the challenge for founders and even their advisers in simple matters like calculating the number of holidays for employees
- even the accountants get this wrong!
- the degree of centralisation of Fintech in Paris
- the impact of c19 on this centralisation trend
- French history as collapse and rebuild
- “France does revolutions but England does Evolutions”
- the good news about being in Paris
- strong move in France to digitisation
- the main advantage of being based in France
- leading in marketplaces along with Germany and the UK falling behind
- Trade Finance in Europe and France
- the ecosystem and State approach
- VC and PE investment trends in France
- a government body invests in 1 funding round out of 5!
- comparison with the formation of the East India companies
- French tech talent market
- attracting top talent as a startup/scaleup
- shoutouts for Hokodo’s core business products/services
- an explanation of the many layers of reference contained within the Hokodo name
- the B2B trade market and changes taking place
- Hokodo’s international expansion plans
And much much more
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In this episode we take the opportunity to talk to one of the most credit risk experienced men in Fintech who has ranged from a dozen years at seminal Capital One through managing Barclay’s £40 bn portfolio, being CRO at Funding Circle to now founding his own Fintech to mechanise further short term SME liquidity financing, Jerome’s stats are that banks automate roughly 5% of this type of lending whereas he believes the vast majority to be automatable.
We discuss what credit risk is in the age of data, automation and Fintechs and dive into the multiplicity of models used in a credit pipeline not just for risk but for wider business management and portfolio management purposes as well as looking at the parameters of automation versus human input. We also look at Jerome’s experience of what is stable about the models value and what is not over significant economic dislocations.
Importantly there are a huge range of uses of credit models above and beyond the simple case of credit risk and Jerome gives us a flavour of these across his own career – a fascinating stat being the incarnation which had 25 models in operation :-!
Topics discussed include:
- Jerome’s background in the Art world as well as Banking world
- Jerome’s career journey through credit in various incarnations
- running a team of 1,000 risk metrics folk
- developing an interest in SMEs
- 7 years at Funding Circle
- defining risk, uncertainty and so forth
- the many different types of risk through the whole lending soup to nuts process
- the balancing act on decisions at each stage of this process
- using multiple models and cross testing them against alternatives to gain greater insight – challenger models
- Barclaycard had about 25 different models for different stages of the credit card process
- keeping the models fresh and tuned
- not using “black box” models
- challenges of models coping with continuous and discontinuous phenomena
- practical approaches to life’s discontinuities in the lending world
- lending versus trading risk in this context
- ranking of risk tends to be stable across perturbations even if the level of risk gets well off
- the commercial importance of the relative ranking in itself to make the lending decisions within a given risk appetite at any point
- experience at Barclays and Funding Circle over significant economic dislocations
- requirements to create a model in the first place
- the role of human creativity and comparison with human decisions making versus a “computer”
- Jerome’s many tests over his career with automated versus underwriters credit decisions and the results
- the requriem3ents for automatable credit decisions in the SME sector – where it can and cannot be done well
- the irony that larger companies have more data but smaller sample size
- Jerome’s motivation in establishing his own firm to do short-term SME cashflow management
- the business model – API- and partner- centric
- leveraging external creativity in this model – cf ChatGPT
- the differing business model viability compared to banks
- decisions in 2.5 minutes
And much much more
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This 2024 New Year Special forms the sixth and final in a series of six (there will be no more) about how technology – and in this episode way wider forces – are changing us directly for the better (read huge software upgrades) in order to overcome, in a velvet revolution, empowered tyrants.
I said in last years 2023 New Year Special that “It is by far the most ambitious, empowering and positive of all suggesting that we use the insanity as a spur in our sides to seek to flee Plato’s cave, escape the Matrix and speed up our path to awakening in search of love, light and healing.”
Well this one jumps that shark and sets out to empower us all to not just be in search of “love and laughter, song and dance” but to create it via giving us perhaps the deepest podcast dive ever (from conventional reality to well beyond) into what creativity is and how we can amplify it manyfold.
How much of today’s, at a narrow level, tech was unknown a century ago? Imagine how much tech in a century from now is unknown today. How do we become explorers of the unknown and make it known?
It has seven sections:
- A Recap of the Series of Six LFP Specials to date
- The Three Phases of Existence of all Form
- Creators
- The Fertile Field
- The Three keys to Unlocking Infinite Potential
- Voices in your Head
- Creating a New World not a New Order
There is a huge shift in consciousness going on now. The old world is dying in front of our eyes. However a new world is arising and there are a phenomenal number of green shoots growing for those who will look and see.
Let us take a journey from disenchantment and toxic metapolitics, and a world that was going down not up way before the globalists started boiling frogs. to a world of re-enchantment and the most noble of missions, playing our part in designing a world that will be a tribute to us and a blessing to not just our offspring but humanity as a whole.
To create the New World we need to dive deep into the well of creativity and bring up a bucket of fresh water. May this episode inspire you to understand your innate, your divine if your prefer, powers of creativity and their infinite potential.
We all live – or are imprisoned – in the world of the known and the assumed.
Creativity and the three tools we examine in this episode (plus for the racey an additional angle to turbocharge personal creativity and life) is the ONLY way in which we ever change anything.
Creativity unlocks the door that traps us in the super-finite known, in the matrix, in Plato’s Cave and releases us to explore that vaaast world which is the unexplored world of the unknown.
Do not think that, as you are just a drop of water, this means you are of no significance. Rather remember that a bucket of water left out in the rain gets filled by nothing other than drops of rain.
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In this Xmas special we zoom out from Fintech to Tech as a whole in one of Europe’s coolest capitals – Berlin. Ivan is a great person to guide us through the scene having spent many years in the Ur-tech hub of San Francisco/Silicon Valley. This also means that he understands both the outsiders perspective on Berlin tech as well as now an experienced and well informed insider.
Ivan honestly lays out both the highs and the lows of being in Tech in Berlin – the good news and the challenges and the somewhat insane (see below) – that he has encountered with his embedded financial infrastructure startup Monite.
A particularly insane quirk of German law is the need to get documents notarised. Ok well so no big deal eh? Well not as such however if you for example do a raise then the notary takes a percentage of the value raised for (a) reading the whole document out to you in German (even if you do not speak German!) and (b) notarising that “yeh he signed it”.
Topics discussed include:
- historical contexts of Germany, a very young country, and Berlin
- San Francisco pre- and post- covid years
- Berlin is Berlin and international as well as German
- is there still a felt sense of former west and east Berlin? What are the differences?
- district-centric view of Berlin
- where startups tend to be based
- Ivan’s career in SF and journey to Berlin
- being in SF during boom times
- the leading continental tech centres Ivan considered
- pre-conceptions/understandings of Berlin from America vs the reality
- what gets taken for granted in SF and what the vibe is
- different vibes of innovation – SF being in more radical innovation
- the more positive developments from Berlin – “finally having a life”
- the major tech sectors in Berlin and particular strength
- tech scene in Berlin starts in the 90s
- German regulation – did they get it right?
- are their actually subsector “scenes” or is entrepreneurial activity centrifugally spread around
- German tradition of entrepreneurialism
- what binds tech firms together in Berlin
- Berlin is roughly 1/3 the population of London
- comparing via looking at the number/distributions of WeWorks
- the city/state/country’s importance or otherwise in creating a tech scene versus it being entrepreneur-led
- Germany does a lot of good things for entrepreneurs but also a lot of total passion killers
- immigration restrictions for talent lower than the US
- what makes it hard to do business in Germany
- super-easy to get fined when forming a company
- the outrageous notarisation fees (as above) and impact on fund-raising
- the difficulties and paperwork involved in a US investor investing in a German startup – the costs can be higher than the raise :-O
- challenges of legalities and difficulties there
- Case Study of trivial business expenses – state checking down to €3 or 4…!
- due to the challenges a lot of startups are forming legal entities outside Germany
- what Germany gets right
- “some aspects of doing business are just absolutely crazy or unimaginable for 2023”
- many things are still mailed not emailed – “insane” levels of posted mail
- well-designed for some activities but not for entrepreneurialism
- the investment scene in Berlin – angles/desires and presence of VCs..
- why German startups never tend to wide-scale success
- the response of successful businesses as a result
- what Ivan would look for now if he were starting again
- global fundraising to overcome local challenges
- what Monite does and where it is going
- what embedded workflows are and how they fit in
- innovating SME finance
And much much more
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Saudi Arabia is a country that increasingly confounds stereotypes and expectations – an example being a YouTuber who has visited every country in the world choosing it for his honeymoon. At the same time it has undergone a phenomenal journey literally in a lifetime from a very low economic standard of living to super-high. As a result, like China, it shares the “relatively blank canvas from which to start Finteching” but equally has it’s own unique issues notably eg in a country with centuries of little wealth and suddenly (on average) excess savings culture and the likes of pension provision are very distinct – or perhaps lacking.
Naif has had a wide and varied career before starting Hakbah a collective savings platform Fintech. Interestingly talking about different social models worldwide P2P was focusing in this “modern” “Western” way on the individual as the “unit of social currency” [and in passing re zeitgeist then became institutionalised on one side (the lending side) and then most became banks). Collective savings were A Big Thing in say the UK for some time where regionally folks would pool savings for others to get mortgages in “Building” (sic) societies. They remain A Big Thing in a still at heart traditional Arabian/Islamic culture.
In this show we dive into some historical and geographical aspects of Saudi Arabia – the 5th largest by land mass in the world in passing. Thence the unique aspects of Fintech in Saudi – one of which is a very rapid pace of development and another a very government-sponsored approach – and finally collective savings in more depth.
Topics discussed include:
- the geography of Saudi Arabia – unique features and aspects one might not expect
- tourist aspects and anecdotal reports from visitors
- 19thC British women travellers to Arabia and the long lasting (and unexpected) consequences of their journeys
- management of national oil wealth by the government as key to the economic consequences
- Naif’s career journey
- the influence of encountering 3rd stage cancer on Naif’s journey and motivation to start Hakbah
- the genesis of deciding upon collective savings especially in a country without a savings culture
- the background to the history of Saudi Arabia and particularly the formation of the country and the central bank
- the long background in money changing due to centuries of pilgrims to Mecca
- the Dutch starting the first bank branch
- the first loan in Riyals
- the central role of the central bank in all finance to this day
- the national remittance system and immediate payments system outside of the “western” rails of visa/mastercard
- the advanced nature of ease of using compared to other countries (UK for example)
- 2018 as the real start of Fintech in Saudi
- the central banks sandbox and first cohorts
- verticals that were established
- moving beyond batches/cohorts in the sandbox to continuous application
- the national strategy for Fintech and government departmental support
- key Fintech verticals with the greatest penetration in 2023
- around 130 Fintechs at present
- target of 525 by 2030
- the complex issue of a lack of savings culture
- the saying ~”spend what is in your pocket and the assistance is from God”
- “more than 70% of Saudis don’t have any emergency savings at all” (!)
- the State provision of pensions meaning that saving in a pension scheme is not the main modus operendi – enjoy life and spend now year by year rather than saving up to enjoy in the future
- short-term savings examples in the culture
- long-term savings culture across the Arab world
- collective savings being traditional and existing in more than 60 countries around the world
- at the end of a cycle no one owes anyone anything (cf debt-based systems where due to the interest margin between save and lend there is always increased debt every cycle)
- how does trust work in the variety of collective savings schemes around the world?
- what is key to establishing trust?
- Hakbah’s model, key design features and very low default rate over its history (less than 0.7% default)
- repayment of debts being historically important in England if not now in the “modernised” culture
- the outlook for Fintech in Saudi
- Hakbah’s plans and future ideas
And much much more
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Why buy alternative assets? Well in extremis what else would you buy? Bonds have finished their ca. 40yr bull market and yield well below the rate of inflation. The FTSE to pick one has gone sideways over the past 5 yrs and is not greatly ahead after a decade. And as for UK property it’s soft at best, Gold is going nowhere and so forth.
Naturally as we have touched on both those phenomena are a function of the nature of money, the ’08 crisis, covid insanity, non-stop war and much more which have all messed with the fiscal and monetary base of major western economies.
Anyway even if you keep a core of say equities in your portfolio there must be something more interesting to buy. Besides the self-styled “elites” are busy hoovering up alt. assets bigtime which tells you a thing or two.
Dan has an investment banking alt. asset background and so, as well as founding Darksquare, is well placed to dive into the topic with us.
Topics discussed include:
- holidaying in Paros
- Dan’s trading background in various categories of alt. assets
- the original motivation for founding an alt. asset platform
- what are conventional assets and what are alternative?
- what is the history of these concepts?
- much more recent than one might imagine
- examples of current alternative assets that individuals might wish to invest in
- diversifying portfolios is a very recent concept from the 19thC only prior to which folks would concentrate their assets albeit across many categories for the well-off
- regulatory angles on who is allowed (!) to invest via such platforms
- sizes of investments, sizes of deals
- yield-focus – eg 12-15% yield per annum
- the three most popular alt asset categories based on Darksquare’s survey
- the whole issue of knowing enough to sensibly invest in different asset categories
- listing hedge funds that invest in individual assets as a diversification within asset type diversification
- the sweet spot between institutional sized deals and not too small for them to exist as there area where these is way less competition and hence more investment opportunities
- liquidity – period of investments and whether one can sell during the period of investment
- how alt assets are financialised ie turned into tradable investments via SPVs – implications
- target durations
- aligning interests between platform and invest6ors by taking fees as slices of the investments not cash
- secondary markets and the implication of being a dealer and owning investments as a platform
- Dan’s view on the big picture of this sector going forwards and the opportunities/challenges
- vintage ferraris, watches et al – the field is unlimited as in essence it amounts to all assets less a very narrow set of ~ equities, bonds…
- cf hedge funds and institutional investors who are way ahead in diversifying out of the narrow oldskool list of financial assets
- Darksquare’s current footprint and plans for the future
And much much more
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Back in the 70s getting mortgages took months – there was a mortgage queue (&before techies get over-excited about how “bad” this was it was one of the factors restraining insane bull markets in residential property). Fast forward and the median mortgage in the UK is granted in 19 business days which is still a long time to wait given the stresses associated with the UK legal structure of buying a house. MPowered Mortgages, a regulated mortgage lender in the UK, have reduced this to a median of 3 days to make a decision and are aiming in the next 18mts to make half of those done in a few hours.
Stuart is the CEO of MPowered (and its sister company MQube seller of AI products into regulated industries more globally) and guides us through this astonishing outperformance. Like many a hardcore Fintech founder he has a long history in FS behind him having been CEO of several banks in Asia for Lloyds Bank for many years.
Even so this is no mean achievement as Stuart himself found out recently when he needed a mortgage but – under the “rules” – was not allowed to use his own company to borrow from.
Topics discussed include:
- Stuarts recent experience of buying a house and getting a mortgage
- running banks in Asia and being a nomad
- the UK Housing market
- managing banks in a crash period
- “inventing the motor car and a regulator telling you you must use a horse for travel as you have a vested interest in motor cars”
- pivoting from prestigious senior roles to becoming a founder
- the stark differences between managing banks and tech firms along with the internal culture
- banning GANT charts and project plans
- autonomy managing businesses 8 hours time difference away from HQ
- challenges of returning from such to HQ
- cofounding a new business starting with just the motivation to do so yet a blank sheet of paper re area/plans
- the business was formed about 6yrs ago
- the value of clear and simple propositions as the corporate mission
- desire for fast mortgages vs certainty – what consumer research shows
- “a mortgage is a necessary evil for buying the house of your dreams”
- challenges of using technology in a highly-regulated world
- challenges of the UK process of buying a house
- importance of surveys and the delay caused by those
- “making fast decisions in the industry isn’t the problem the problem is getting fast access to clean data”
- fixing the GIGO problem
- three types of survey – automated digital, desk-based one or physical visit
- about 50% of the time physical surveys are done – hence the other half are way faster – ~immediate or a few hours
- comparison with insurance price comparison sites
- do loan to value ratios vary depending on the type of survey?
- collecting all the other requisite data for the decision
- anomalies in the input data as a major challenge – using AI to cut through this
- automating data collection
- “when you are filling in our application form which takes around 10 minutes we collate around 19,000 pieces of data (!!!) in that 10 minutes”
- super-advanced autocomplete – only asking the borrower for information not known rather than tons of info your APIs can find
- examples of the type of automated data that MPowered autocollect while you are filling in the form
- the regulatory constraints on tech development
- AI is never used to make a decision rule-based engines are always used for that
- AI is to supplement/replace the human intervention around the nature of data and the inconsistencies
- shoutouts for MPowered and MQube and current products, services and needs
And much much more
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The speed of change is super-rapid and nowhere more than in payments where advance rapidly leapfrogs advance. For the past two years “orchestration” has been The Thing (see eg LFP213 a deep dive into that topic). However now we have the latest greatest kid on the block the idea of curation. If orchestration solved the challenge of the techies namely replacing many APIs with one – a natural leap forwards – it did not solve the businesses challenges with negotiating a whole bunch of biparty arrangements contract et al. Curation promises to fix all that by creating a single counterparty – the curator – as an intermediary.
Aran has a super-impressive long track-record in the payments industry and his latest venture – Paytrix – has impressive backers such as Bain Capital and raised some $18m for an A Series in a tough time for tech raises.
Bootstrapping to be a Tier 1 counterparty is not simple matter and Aran guides us through not just what the curation model is but also the challenges of not slowly walking up the mountain to the heights but getting there super-rapidly.
Topics discussed include:
- holidays or “time with the kids”?
- Aran’s impressive career from leaving school at 16 and enduring the Royal Marines for a whole three days to CEOing and driving B2B payments change
- mixing ideas and reality
- how the 21stC payments trajectory has led to curation being the next necessary route forwards
- “orchestration was basically about making the CTO’s life easier”
- which market segments this works best for
- serving larger customer segments
- their needs
- the business advantages of the curation model for supplier and purchaser
- regulated entities which hold the money as EMIs
- why do ideas get thought of or executed when they are and not before?
- the origins of the idea in a pub
- the easier route for startups is not to get regulated and not to try and interface with Tier 1 Banks who are only interested in mega volumes
- how to get credibility with Tier 1 regulators and Tier 1 Banks
- the importance of your team and investor base
- the challenge of even starting relationships with a Tier 1 bank
- how the flow of funds works
- qualitatively different risks involved in using payments chains
- the similarities/differences with clearing banks such as Clearbank
- the principal things that Paytrix are really trying to do and the gaps in the market as validated with exchanges worldwide
- enabling global businesses to collect payments in markets in which they are not based with the minimum of hassle
- “In the same way that the technical challenges are solved by orchestration the legal [and business] challenges are solved as well by curation”
- Paytrix’s path to developing their technology from start to today
- recruiting 50 techies in 9 months
- a key item in validating development speed
- the future of the curation market and challenges in getting there
- the falling out of commercial interest of crypto as an essential payments input
- where Paytrix is heading and focusing
- what Paytrix needs even more of today
And much much more
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The world is quite a large place but who better to cover the situation and trend in real-time payments than Craig Ramsey Head of Global Real Time Payments at ACI Worldwide who process around a billion payments per day with total value in the trillions of dollars. In this episode we dive into real time payments in the UK, Europe, the US and within the BRICS as well as talking about the next challenge – namely smooth interconnection of local real time payments networks.
Craig has getting on for 40 yrs experience of payments including having started as a Cobol programmer. He has been at ACI since 2000 and has thus seen a very long time horizon on this topic as well as being involved in managing and planning future real time payments programs worldwide.
The topic certainly turned out to be one that was more fascinating than I had previously realised with many moving parts.
Topics discussed include:
- Angel numbers (that’s a new one for the LFP)
- being run over by Presidential motorcades and mistaken more than once for a Hollywood A lister
- Craigs career journey
- many tech firsts in the 1980s
- 2005 as a key date – the genesis of the UK’s faster payments which has been the model for many real time payments systems worldwide
- more than 70 countries have real-time payments systems
- historic payments periods in the UK relating to the speed of a horse
- CHAPS as the first but expensive and restrictive real time payments system that needed replacement
- the US use of planes to fly cheques around the country :-!
- cheque21 as ending that
- important parallel between railroads and payments being quite deep especially around added-values/ecosystem
- different real time payment names around the world
- a deep dive dive into why UK immediate payments don’t always arrive immediately
- payments limits on different systems
- card rails and payments rails
- EU and the US real time payments system
- interconnecting cross-border real time payments – a major trend for the future
- “it should be possible today without interconnections to move money between countries that have real time payments within 30minutes”
- SWIFT’s innovation GPI sped up massively international payments and made them more transparent
- the reasons for these payments being non-immediate
- an important reminder that when you send money “to another country” it never actually moves to that country (but rather that foreign banks account with a bank in the originating country)
- how apparently immediate payment works internationally online when payments aren’t immediate
- examining the card rails and how they relate to a selling merchant
- some countries have weekly or even monthly settlement of such payments :-O
- the new real time payments in Brazil as an example of merchants wanting to shorten the time to receipt of funds
- “payment” in this case being more like a transfer of credit risk from purchaser to say Mastercard
- India’s new immediate payment scheme – UPI and how this gets to even street merchants
- the UK needs an update in its rails to NPA
- ISO standards for payments
- leveraging the best innovations from around the world
- “the BRICS countries are way ahead of us in the UK than what we have right now”
- the potential impact of greater multipolarity on international payments approaches/systems
- “payments will never go out of fashion”
- “ACI is the company that you have probably never heard of but I suggest that nearly everyone has used our services”
- ACI’s services and shoutouts
- the importance of improved customer satisfaction
And much much more
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Scaling any successful technology firm (who can expand so much faster than ~”bricks and mortar” firms) involves considerable challenges. These challenges are only compounded by challenges with surrounding infrastructure which, shall we say, aren’t even around the world. What may be taken for granted in the world’s leading tech hubs may be conspicuously absent in many territories. Thus in many ways scaling in emerging markets is the real stress test for an entrepreneurs ability to overcome challenges, internal and external.
Tosin is founder and CEO of Moniepoint, who provide banking platforms, Africa’s largest fintech by transaction volume ($170bn pa) and were recently ranked the second-fastest growing company in Africa by the Financial Times. Based in Lagos Nigeria Tosin has had more than the average entrepreneurs share of challenges dealing not just with scaling a company but scaling it where the ecosystem isn’t entirely ideal.
Topics discussed include:
- an LFP first – a deep dive into the world of Mortal Kombat
- early motivations in life for a later career in technology
- maintaining challenges in both video games and ones career
- Tosin’s career journey
- considering founding a hardware rather than a software company
- forming Team APT as a precursor helping banks build their technology
- moving into software creation
- pivoting in 2019 to moving to offering the products to consumers as well as banks
- where the concept of “cottage industries” came from
- the main differences between infrastructure in say London and emerging markets which lead to greater challenges
- a Case Study of having to build a card delivery system countrywide from scratch
- network challenges across a country with much lower bandwidths and more expensive data and the impact of that on tech design
- challenges of hiring talent at the right cost
- gaps in skillsets
- challenges of sometimes having to pay “world class rates” for talent eg abroad
- the mismatch of international salary rates in such cases versus compared to emerging markets levels of revenue
- countries Moniepoint have hired in
- the problems in emerging markets of emigration draining the talent pool – challenges of large levels at both ends of the chain
- compliance and finance controls
- challenges Moniepoint met with scaling in these areas and reconciliations – a general problem for all businesses as well
- regulators playing catch-up
- “regulation is a control function which is almost opposite to innovation”
- finding a way to work closely with regulators to ensure they feel comfortable with what you are doing
- exchange rate challenges
- problems buying eg point-of-sales terminals at international prices
- challenges around generating trust in emerging markets – the disconnect between “Low-touch tech” with cultures which generate trust personally
- bridging that gap
- “Be paranoid! The Paranoid survive..”
- a Case Study leading to six months of sleepless nights
- the impact of the Nigerian Central Banks demonetisation on their business
- shoutouts for Moniepoint’s products services
- parallels with Moniepoint in other markets
- expanding into Kenya and East African countries
- Moniepoint’s plans, ambitions and investors along with super-impressive staff numbers
And much much more
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It was not that long ago that business lending decisions took days, weeks, or even months. This lengthy period – and then need to perhaps apply to multiple banks was a severe challenge for many organisations, many of whom over time have gone bust whilst going through such processes.
But what if using the best of technology this extended time-period could be reduced to minutes moving way nearer to B2C BNPL decisions? Even a few years back this would sound highly unlikely in anything other than special cases. However Nucleus Commercial Finance have funded £2.6bn of loans and processed over 100,000 loan applications for over a decade with successful results and now make decisions in less than 5 minutes and aim to get that time even lower.
Needless to say this is no easy task and in this episode founder and CEO Chirag Shah leads us through the journey to that. Key elements are naturally the data – where Open Banking and Open Accounting are the technical conduits to getting data, permission to access this data ahead of the need for a loan and naturally the challenge of ensuring that automated decisions are at least as good as if not outperform those of human credit officers.
Topics discussed include:
- monsoon stopped play
- monsoon patterns in South and South East Asia
- Chirag’s career journey to founding Nucleus in 2011
- the unrecognised root of Fintech in terms of Hedge Funds independence of banks and strong use of technology in the 90s/00s
- Nucleus origin story
- key components of the model
- SME lending even a decade ago in terms of process and timescales
- 6 million SMEs in the UK and monitoring India as a potential but plenty of scope left in the UK
- avoiding trading off decision time for decision quality
- analogy with BNPL’s approach to rapid credit decisions
- lack of credit rating agencies large stores of data unlike with B2C
- main challenges are around data rather than decision
- embedded lending in the SME market
- variable rates of success by Fintechs
- the archaic nature of the data available data at Companies House
- “there are lots of SMEs who can’t produce management accounts”
- using Open Banking and also Open Accounting
- the challenge of accounting standards ever-more muddying the water over the actual business situation
- EBITDA and “adjusted” EBITDAs
- overcoming this by building models based on the raw banking data
- deriving the business’ unit economics
- the roots of these challenges in the 19th invention of “management accounts” breaking with all tradition
- the challenge of getting access to SMEs accounting data before they need a loan decision
- businesses are getting more comfortable with granting access to open data but only when they need a loan
- less comfortable with granting ongoing data
- how Nucleus overcomes this by sharing their modelling of the business performance as a Dashboard with the SME which helps it all the time not just at “needing a loan” time
- how Nucleus overcame the challenge that long term loans make it hard to calibrate models – it being say 5yrs until you find whether your model was making “good” decisions
- evolving to superior automated credit decisions than “human” decisions
- parallel running the system and credit officers for 18mts
- segmenting the SME market
- Nucleus’ new platform Pulse as a decision making tool for the businesses as well as being used by Nucleus for lending decisions
- partnering with accountants
And much much more
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Although the title is apparently three-fold re episode topic the Chinese Fintech market is very different from other markets we have touched upon so far and one that we definitely need to dive into. You will have heard of Alipay but may not know that as long as a decade ago they overtook Paypal to become the worlds largest online/mobile payments platform. They serve an astonishing over 1.3bn users and 80m merchants. Which is impressive. Furthermore – to the super-app point in a radically different marketplace their app – a Super-App, back to the title – doesn’t just do payments but a wide range of functionalities including ride sharing, travel bookings and medical appointments
Like much (all?) in China history goes a long way back. Alipay were founded nearly 20 years ago by Jack Ma as part of the Alibaba Group but later split off. Eva Zhang is CEO of Alipay UK and guides us through this large landscape today.
China is itself either the world’s largest economy or second or about to be first or some such. Even if China isn’t the world’s largest or largest Fintech market I recall Peter Renton founder of Lendit some 5 years ago on this podcast giving us an overview of Fintech around the world (as his conferences covered the world, one annual event being in China) saying that if you wanted to know the future of Fintech just go to China.
So a must-know set of topics for Fintechers. Topics discussed include:
- my appearance on a plaque in the Beijing Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery
- China as a hugely complex place varying much over geography whether people, language or cuisine
- Eva’s experience as a native born Chinese of this variation
- Eva’s career starting in tech and working in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, New York, London
- mixing ~inscrutability of culture with sheer practical focus and being good at business
- ANT Group’s difference from non-Chinese Fintech firms
- Alipay’s origins some 20 years ago in, like Paypal, solving the challenges of ecommerce payments, however thence moving on to solve other customer needs without excess respect for, as it were, the Finance silo although including products such as BNPL et al
- China’s long history of innovation
- WeChatPay story
- evolution as the driving force along with a relentless focus on execution and solving practical problems
- different FS institutional structures on banking in China compared to the west leading to very different outcomes for Fintech
- key geographic areas of importance for Fintech in China
- structure of FS/Fintech regulation in China compared to America
- in terms of understanding the market it is less about sectoral themes (Product push perhaps?) and more about consumer needs (demand pull perhaps)
- evolution through payments being core product, then interest accounts and investments and micro-loans/BNPL
- the Super-App as key
- Eva’s app experience of London needs versus in China needs – the radically different approach
- mini-programs
- getting married on Alipay (!)
- is the Alipay App internationalised or Chinese-centric?
- Alipay Plus in the UK
- open banking in China?
- big areas of investment in China Fintech
- planting trees using the Alipay app
- the future of Fintech in China
- Alipay’s direction
- LLMs
- over 20 offices outside China
- email contact details for Alipay internationally – globalcomms@antgroup.com
- the Zheng He Treasure ships
And much much more
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Over a decade into the Fintech revolution its a rare episode that covers something entirely fresh and furthermore a show that I end up thinking I should check out downloading the app – and not just me – everyone who uses insurance (that’ll be everyone) may well do too. Rnwl promise to take the hassle […]
This is a super-rare episode on a fundamentally different way of assessing consumer loan risk so far into the Fintech Age focusing on an area which is bizarrely massively undercovered namely that of utilising Open Banking Data for credit assessment of personal loans. Furthermore this is a rare example of a Fintech – the parent […]
This is a very unique (sic) in the long history of the podcast in that I have finally found a guest brave enough and kind enough to talk about the experience of business failure as well as the human journey through it. Naturally the LFP focuses on proven successes if only to provide North Stars […]
So rapid is the rate of change in banking and the nature of and control of money right now that today we set a record and have a returning guests a mere 6 months later. Mario (YouTube Channel) first joined us in Feb22 for the gargantuan LFP197 “Money in the 21stC: Ballooning Printing of Fiat/QE/”MMT”/Govt […]
In this episode we dive not just into the world of Islamic Finance and Fintech but the practical lessons we can learn from the world’s oldest “ethical investment” tradition. In particular in an ever-changing world there is always the need to extend and interpret any given set of “ethical finance” guidelines for new circumstances. The […]
The next in our geographic coverage series on global Fintech past present and future with a special bonus of a taste of Fintech in Asia as Michael, a former Fintech founder himself turned VC at Runa Capital had just returned from a three week trip all around the region. Like all regions the US has its […]
Is the structure of regulation in need of refactoring? Do we have a kind of Reg Debt situation – cf Tech Debt – where organic growth has led to complexity, inefficiency and indeed regulations stretched beyond their original purpose?
In this episode Alistair and I discuss some specific examples that would indicate that after as much as a decade of evolution it is perhaps time for a rethink or a refactoring of the reg base.
Integrated Finance was founded when the co-founders found challenges in scaling their prior Fintech startup. Alistair has worked in FS, founded a Fintech and now a Fintech to help Banks and Fintechs so has experienced the regulatory issue in the round.
Topics discussed include:
- robot vacuum cleaners – good/bad? Use cases.
- “endless nuance”
- Alistair’s career journey from FX, through building a banking as a service provider and now infrastructure to help Fintechs and others who need to incorporate some elements of finance scale their businesses more easily
- the challenges that unbundling the banking stack leads to when one needs to recombine it again to deliver a seamless product or service
- the importance of understanding nuances in an industry when searching for innovative startups
- reactive regulation always playing catch-up
- e-money licences as a Case Study of where the explosive growth of the largest Fintechs has outstripped the original intention or envisaged parameters of the regulation
- Revolut and Wise have around 20 million customers each
- operating at scale across multiple jurisdictions and multiple regulations really stress tests the regulation and over-/under- laps
- context of banking regulation and the unbelievable lack of a sustained rise in interests in the Fed’s stress tests – so the challenges of regulation go well beyond Fintech into the biggest Banks
- the “dear CEO” letters from the FCA as a measure of challenges the FS/Fintech industries are facing
- comingled client funds and treating customers fairly as key examples of barometers of issues
- the priority of VC investment is always growth rather than making things robust ASAP and the inflow of VC funds as major factors in this context
- a further context of banks going bust right now
- Railsbank’s challenges as an example of major FinTechs in London running into problems post failed funding raises
- interest rates as the common factor behind bank problems and a tighter funding environment
- which segments of tech are finding it less of a challenge to raise right now
- current focus in Fintechs and how that relates to regulation/compliance
- regtech as being fine but the challenge of buying more and more computer systems and then having to manage them all
- the operational overhead of regulation and tis computers even if one is the scale of a Citigroup
- crypto as another challenge
- the need for greater collaboration – whether mergers of regtech or of shared data or of enforcing more sharing of data
- important necessary new directions for regulation – esp. standardisation
- major example of bad actors where each fintech on its own has to manage the situation but the whole situation would be much easier if the sector shared data in re
- ~”For Fintechs although they are nominally in Financial Services it’s become a compliance game they are in”
- accept that from Day1 as the major imperative and buy-in the necessary products/services
- impacts of marketing/client-led business direction
- the philosophical challenges of linear rules, assumptions and so forth in terms of control mechanism in a world that’s deeply non-linear
- cf the (alleged) attempt in the UK to “level-up” education in the 1970s (via the abolition of grammar schools) ending up with the result being levelling-down
- too big to understand/manage/regulate organisations
- along with the way too big/complex organisations the nature of money is at the heart of all the challenges in FS
- regulators are left to try and manage the mess that cannot be managed from the inside from the outside with linear rules – the cost of compliance with which just further reduce the profitability of the industry and increase commercial pressures
- will Finance per se itself be refactored?
- shoutouts for Integrated Finance
And much much more
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The latest in the LFP’s coverage of Fintech in geographical regions and this fascinating balance between the bottom-up and the top-down, between localisation and globalisation of Fintech.
As always when covering vast territories containing many nations, “regions” contain widely differing conditions, not least of which background of FS structure and infrastructure in the first place.
Said, a partner at Global Ventures, is well-placed to give us a tour d’horizon as not just is his day job being a VC specialising in the region but he was previously a CEO, COO and consultant so he is someone who really understands business in the round as well as being born in Jordan and living in Dubai.
Topics discussed include:
- working on a bid for Liverpool Football Club
- valuing football clubs
- intangibles and goodwill
- Said’s career journey
- the Japanese spiral staircase model of career progression
- where is the Middle East/MENA? Where does it end?
- geography versus practicality from an investment perspective – the latter often including Turkey and Pakistan eg which is a long way away, whilst eg not including Iran
- general background to the region/subregions
- 2022 Tech space VC funding was ~$3.2bn of which just under $1bn went into Fintech
- historically roots in Levant and Egypt where the older tech companies were born
- cross-border as an ancient background
- 400m population in MENA of which 100m in Egypt
- early stage companies often focus on Egypt/Saudi/UAE as their heartland
- Etihad and Emirates as GCC exemplars of quality
- the relevance of geography and historical trading patterns
- general needs across the region and how they vary
- Fintech in the GCC
- trends in the subtypes of Fintech
- affinity to partner with Fintechs to lower cost to serve
- GV’s Fintech in MENA 2020 Report (main bones of which still apply)
- when did Fintech take off in the region?
- a VC community per se in the region emerged roughly 2010 onwards
- some key regional Fintechs
- Fintech in the Levant and North America
- what leads to differences
- key exemplars
- the development of Fintech in North Africa is further ahead the further east
- Fintech and Islamic Banking – some Fintechs offer one or the other or both
- going forwards unique opportuniti9es in the region and “leapfrogging”
- shoutouts for Global Ventures
- what GV are looking for in terms of founders
And much much more
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The majority of successful exits for companies are via trade sale (not that given the media hype you’d necessarily imagine it was anything but IPOs). Furthermore the percentage of companies that list on an exchange is falling meaning, that along with the economic circumstances, private companies and remaining in the unlisted space is becoming ever more important.
In this episode we dive into the whole soup-to-nuts process of how to trade sell oneself, what the stages are, what the obstacles and challenges and what the benefits are. Trade selling a company is an eternally important route to not just realisation but to the growth of the company’s vision being realised. Thus this is a reference episode for something that every founder should understand whether they get to this stage and go this route or another. It’s one that can’t be ignored – least of all perhaps in the current economic climate.
Goji were on the LFP way back in the day in LFP047 in 2016 when the founder Jake Wombwell-Povey was discussing the Innovative Finance ISA and David was employee number one. He moved on to become first CTO then CEO and is now at the last stage – regulatory approval – for Goji’s merger with the giant Euroclear – such a vital component of the whole global post-trade financial infrastructure.
So along the way Goji must have done a thing or two right – IF ISAs hardly being a huge thing these days with so few P2Ps remaining of any stature. Further correlating this is that Euroclear approached them.
Topics discussed include:
- running. A long way.
- having worked with a former guest on the LFP who also liked running quite some way
- how best to avoid injuries
- social company and running, running a hundred miles
- being a later developer re extreme fitness
- David’s career journey
- transitioning from being a CTO to CEO
- Goji’s mission to increase access to private markets
- the IF ISA
- motivations for realisations as critical for the eventual choice of route of which way one ‘realises’
- private equity as an exit route
- changes in the private equity markets and how the firms operate
- differing motivations between private equity acquisition and incumbent acquisition
- completing a gap in the coverage of an incumbent as a great trade sale case
- ability to scale exponentially differs hugely between “just IPOing” and – as in Goji’s case becoming part of one of the worlds largest firms moving into their arena
- dating ,mating and marrying as it applies to looking for a Trade Sale parameter
- differing paths to finding a Trade Sale buyer
- grows naturally out of a commercial relationship – banks often use this route – grows more organic — cf after knowing a colleague for years getting into dating and mating – there is a lot of mutual knowledge in the first place
- marriage brokers – investment banks, consultancies, accountants
- increasingly incumbents have their own teams scouring for appropriate acquisitions (as in this case with Goji who were approached by Euroclear)
- planning versus reacting for a Board re exit strategies
- both happen
- “looking good”
- due diligence
- the role of Unelected Power (aka regulators) as being increasingly important in the 21stC
- Goji need to get FCA approval to be bought by Euroclear (?!) which takes 4-6 months (!)
- commercial approach whilst awaiting regulatory approval
- “after the wedding” – life continues
- degree of integration/distance with the new owner
- cultural alignment and importance thereof
- documenting some of the above in the trade sale legal documentation
- incumbents – esp 10 ton gorillas – don’t necessarily want to absorb acquisitions entirely into the Borg Cube but rather retain the benefits of a rapidly reacting entrepreneurial subsidiary
- Goji’s products
- Goji is hiring
- trends in the global marketplaces and technology in re private markets
And much much more
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It is a well-known trope that although failure is a challenge rapid success, though more desirable lol, can be too. In this episode we dive into the fascinating Case Study of Ecospend who went from startup to trade sale to world open-banking payments leaders Trustly in five years. Along the way they beat off incumbent competition for one of the UK’s largest accounts that of HSBCs self-assessment payments. Which as you might imagine amounts to quite a few transactions.
In this show James Hickman, CCO, discusses the journey and the experience thereof along with lessons relevant to all tech firms well outside of Fintech.
The journey starts with the build, then the marketing, then astronomical success, then the operational concerns attendant on having your volumes increase astronomically up all the way to the strategic implications for a business with such sudden success – various possibilities for raises to enable continued scaling or a trade sale and Ecospend checked-out both eventually preferring one route over t’other and explain their thinking in their situation, your firms might of course be different. At the end of the day it comes down both to rational business calculation but also to the preferences and long term aims of the founding team.
Overall quite some story and a tale that the cliche that massive success can be a right challenge/pain isn’t always correct.
Topics discussed include:
- James career in the media including as a media VC
- experiencing the massive tech disruption in the media world
- interest in open banking and pivoting from a long media career into Fintech
- processing £13bn within a few years of founding a firm
- is it risky having no “physical bank” bank accounts
- the pivotal role of getting the tech right right from the start in terms of the whole rest of the business chain that flows therefrom
- “anti-MVP”
- scaling tech volumes
- scalability of systems
- “if you are a small business you should start by servicing a small customer and build from there. We actually did the reverse – we started with possibly the biggest customer we could imagine”
- one million transactions in January
- the super-importance of easy scalability in tech success in general for all tech sectors
- scalability pre the ubiquitous tech infrastructure we have around us today
- people challenges in a tech business
- “business is all about the people”
- operational challenges – making them smoother
- fears of being over-run by customer service requests
- need to genuinely deliver value to buyer/seller and leverage existing societal trends
- “our volumes are growing by 500-1000% per annum and employee base by less than 10% per annum” – an amazing metric for the power of digital if one gets it right
- key success factors
- mindset as importance – “walking the walk” is a rapid transition when competing against the big players
- how easy is it to connect to UK banks in the current schema for open-banking
- strategic implications of massive increases in volumes
- management challenge of operational and strategic challenges at the same time
- central role of the founders vision
- checking out the VC route and lessons learned/advice
- no cannibalisation of product with Trustly who are PE backed and in the same space
- “in these emerging technologies you always see consolidation and smaller players merging with larger ones” – a useful point for many Fintechs (and others) to bear in mind in the current phase of growth/economic climate
- the media focus on “unicorning” as very misleading re the general path of successful startups/businesses
- looking for synergies in trade selling
- cultural aspects of exponential rise in volumes and trade selling – how does one approach these?
- alignment of objectives and cultural alignment as super-important
- shared vision and personal relationships
- Ecospend’s products and services
- “a replacement to cards” – multiple benefits
- the next generation of payments
- going live with Hargreaves Landsdown
- the road goes on forever…
And much much more
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In this episode we discuss VC early stage investment and whether there is a “VC funding winter” as some have called it or whether just a correction. How should early stage founders who want to raise funds maximise their chances of doing so? Few VCs go down to early stage investing but what factors do they look for? Funding is harder to come by right now but it’s still there. What themes and approaches help? Is it indeed a good rather than a bad time to create a startup?
Dr Ric Schaefer is a Partner at Target Global which is a pan-European technology investment firm with more than €3 billion in assets under management. Whilst investing across all stages of the startup to realisation lifecycle they are relatively unique in investing from pre-seed to A rounds.
To date via six global offices they have backed 15 unicorns and also have an investment in Revolut who you may have heard of.
Topics discussed include:
- training for a triathlon starting from a standard level of fitness
- Ric’s career journey from tech through the banking crisis to VC-dom
- ten years of VC and Angel investing
- the experiential difference between BigCo and SmallCo life
- what a VC looks for in early stage investment include:
- people who bring an unfair advantage
- those who have had a successful venture before
- the right vision and clear plan
- those who have the “founder gene” and the drive to solve a problem
- also like to back operators who have been number two or three in a business that has already scaled
- success isn‘t just about money but about winning and building a sustainable business
- examples form people who retire but just wither in absentia a daily challenge
- the focus of early stage VCs need to be on building a big company, not just optimizing finances
- different types of founders who can do the ‘zero to one‘ or the scale up from 1 to 10 or growth from 10 to 100
- preference for founders who can “go the whole way”
- VC funds still have a lot of capital available, but it is more competitive for newcomers
- Non–institutional capital such as crowdfunding and angel investors have pulled back due to more competitive dynamics.
- It is a good time to start a business – there is a wider pool of talent available and infrastructure has been built to enable businesses to be built far faster
- Valuations are more reasonable than the last two years and people are looking more at multiples and the fundamentals of the business
- Ric’s expectation of the best sectors for fund-raising and progress
- Target Global is an early–stage venture capital firm that invests across the lifecycle of businesses, from inception to growth
- invests in consumer, software, fintech, marketplace, and digital health sectors
- has offices in Berlin, Tel Aviv, London, and Spain, and has backed over 100 companies
- VCs invest in relationships and a series of rejections does not mean a no forever
- Target Global is looking to invest in founders with a unique advantage.
And much much more
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Fintech is a Big Thing. India is a vast sub-continent. Naveen Bindal, the co–founder of Enkash which is India‘s largest spend management Fintech, joins us to discuss Fintech in India which was one of the first movers in Fintech worldwide and is now by some measures the world’s third largest Fintech marketplace.
Naveen started his career some 23 years ago as a developer in a credit card company working on payment processing and with banks.
Having been involved in the Indian FinTech space for some 10 years along with his co-founders who each also have two decades in FS and tech under their belts he is well-placed to guide us through its evolution past, present and future.
Topics discussed include:
- why India‘s timezone is 30 minutes out of phase with almost all other countries
- Naveen’s career journey
- the move from being a dev to being a CEO
- Naveen learnt how to be an entrepreneur by working with a startup within an existing organisation
- the principal FinTech hubs in India are Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore
- Mumbai is the banking hub of India due to the presence of the Reserve Bank of India, Bangalore is renowned for its tech talent and New Delhi is an extension of the other two hubs due to its status as the capital
- Fintechs may start in other cities but almost invariably end up gravitating to one of the big three cities
- The Indian fintech industry started to grow following the financial crisis of 2008 and the emergence of e–commerce
- Payment aggregators, P2P lending, payment gateways, digital marketplaces, prepaid cards, and UPI all emerged between 2010 and 2016
- IndiaStack has been hugely influential in Indian Fintech’s rapid development
- it was introduced in 2017-18 to facilitate digitisation and verify the identity of those making transactions
- Aadhaar was introduced, which provided a unique identifier for every individual, and biometric scans for fingerprint and retina scans were captured
- the pertinent/ironic etymology of chosing Aadhaar for the state’s identification system
- are privacy concerns an issue in India over a national identification scheme?
- in 2012, we saw the real growth actually happening where multiple payment instruments, quick checkout experiences sort of emerged, including but not limited to wallets, one-click checkouts, tokenization, and various other faster checkout mechanisms
- demographically about one billion people in India have access to smartphones with half a billion people living in rural areas
- around 70 million SMEs exist in India, and between 70–80 billion dollars of volume is processed on UPI each year
- given the size of the marketplace Indian Fintechs have little reason to expand internationally although different dynamics occur in the pure tech space
- Consumer payments have been the dominant sector of fintech in India, but insure tech and reg tech are also becoming increasingly prominent
- reg tech allows fintechs to access the data needed to verify businesses and individuals
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) provides the regulatory framework for fintechs to operate in conjunction with regulated entities
- embedded finance and open banking will be key areas of disruption in the future in India
- Enkassh provides a platform for CFOs to automate mundane tasks
- it has 150 employees and processes between $3.5–4 billion annually for 9000 businesses
- Enkash is looking for partnerships in other geographies to distribute some of their products
And much more
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There is a real art to how a founder manages his companies equity. If he gives it, or its derivative, share options, away too fast for too little value – whether funding or staff – he will be giving away his creation on the cheap and losing control fast. Vice versa hoarding it to himself will produce inadequate funding and not top-notch senior staff. If this is the spectrum then there is in addition a whole dimension of the terms and conditions over equity schemes – plenty of hidden elephant traps for the unwary therein – as well as what was – back in the day – the administrative nightmare of managing hoards of shareholders and regulations/laws thereto. Vestd who formed in 2014 and have thousands of companies on their platform offer a “guided SAAS” product where the platform is closely allied to tons of experience in re.
Founder and CEO Ifty Nasir formed the company in 2014 after a lifetime’s international career with BP and considerable experience on the internal corporate finance side of deals and equity including at one point hiring Lord Sumption on a challenging deal. He joins us today to discuss the whole “how hard can it be” (as always “harder” and in this case “quite nuanced”).
Topics discussed include:
- the first Yorkshireman on the show?
- Lord Sumption’s office
- Ifty’s worldwide career in BP
- founding Vestd
- experiences with estimating funding costs and how much equity it takes to Angel and to get a business off the ground
- seeing how many times sweat equity went wrong…
- “so many errors are people don’t think about it”
- problems even on day1 of NewCo – case study of a new business and some basic pitfalls
- “Putting together shareholder agreements is the difficult thing”
- agile partnerships as a template
- conditionality as key
- Case Study of the first company I worked for
- the fluidity of equity, salary and time in contributing to the growth of the NewCo
- “there are a lot of really great tools around this – eg Mike Moore’s ‘Slicing Pie’ “
- challenges eve with equity-low,
- cash-rich NewCos in the consultancy space
- the experience of many founders in managing the Cap Table that its no big deal, a spreadsheet for a few years and then suddenly a great panic/problem – dynamics that come from not fully understanding a topic and the risks being run and then those risks crystallising
- the different standards of retaining or not retaining equity when one leaves a company
- definition of Cap Table
- does it include Share Options as well as issued capital?
- fully-diluted Cap Tables
- clearing up the cap tables and how the importance of this has changed the raise dynamics with the advent of firms like Vestd
- the role of technology in changing these whole dynamics
- share option schemes and when one joins the company leading to very variable rewards and management challenges – my experience
- tiers of management sitting around not trying hard any longer as an outcome of a poorly designed lock-in/vesting scheme
- good leaver/bad leaver terms
- the UK’s EMI incentives scheme and the tax incentives/benefits thereof
- 70% of such schemes are “exit only”
- discussion of the challenges of overly-locking in staff and waiting for exits which in difficult markets may be far far away
- tailoring schemes per employee and how much easier that is with platforms
- “guided SAAS” product/service and the regulatory restrictions thereon
- where and when to use accountants, lawyers and Vestd
- Vestd’s plans for the future
And much much more
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AI/ML has been around for a long time but recently hit the headlines with ChatGPT which has broken every tech record in the book for a piece of tech that attracts users faster than any other tech ever. If Generative AI is the hot topic of the day though what is happening behind the scenes with more prosaic Fintech use cases. Tristan who is CEO of commodity price predictors and now Insurtech ChAI first joined us in 2016 for an an overview of AI/ML and updated us more recently in 2019 to talk about then hot-topics. What has changed – what is with Generative AI, what are the behind the scenes factors driving change, how are fintechs being invested and indeed how is investment in Fintech being affected by AI?
We first heard from Tristan a long-term academic and Fintech-er in the whole AIML realm in 2016 for an overview of the topic which has remained in the top 5 most downloaded episodes of all time. In 2019 re joined us to discuss hot topics in AIML in particular prediction, explicability, alt. Data sources and self learning.
Three factors have been driving an astonishing rate of change – computing power (NVIDIA been increasing by a factor of 10 every year in recent years), an abundance of data sources beyond all recognition even a few years ago and advances in computer science – not least of which Transformers (the T in GPT and a leap forward from RNNs), so-called self-attention and RLHF – reinforcement learning from human feedback. In the image space the likes of, GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks), Latent Diffusion Models and the clever use of efficiency gains.
Taking the current eye-catcher as a metric GPT1 was released in 2018, GPT2 in 2019 and GPT3 in 2020 with its offshoot ChatGPT in 2022. GPT3 has 176bn parameters compared to GPT2’s 1.5bn and was trained on 570GB of data compared to 40GB. Huuuge changes.
But this is just the sexiest, most public face of AIML which as a whole has been finally one might say getting somewhere are computing power continues to increase. As we heard in LFP219 the ex-GCHQ-ers at Ripjar have a database of 18bn news articles which they can process. Once one gets to this kind of scale of computing then – even avoiding the unfortunate anthropomorphism implicit in terms like intelligence or learning – if we simply revert to the oldskool term data processing then we are getting to a stage where the results from data processing are truly phenomenal. Even I have shifted to keeping track of the latest developments having been pretty sniffy about the uber-hype of a field that generally failed in most of its initial objectives set out by pioneers in the 60s.
Topics discussed include:
- experiences using ChatGPT – Case Study with monetary policy in economics
- the need to “learn to dance” with Generative AI systems
- comparison with the early search engines – cf now there is a verb “to Google”
- the challenge of tying up Generative AI systems to the real world and hence late to the party and suitable for a subcategory of use cases
- media hysteria in re as a phenomenon
- machines making us machines
- one of the unmentioned reasons behind its success is that much of human thinking/discourse right now is bland and predictable
- Barnum statements
- Tristan’s overview of AI changes over the past four years
- way more pervasive
- field now so broad it’s hard to be an expert in all subsilos
- people no longer afraid of it nor hypnotised by it
- people less sceptical re fund-raising an rather view it as something that should be using it by default
- cloud means that everyone can become a data scientist at much lower entry costs
- Tristan has changed his mind over concern about not sufficiently sophisticated users of cloud AI tools – in particular the leap forwards in user interfaces
- encapsulation
- so many people have used them the interface has been perfected
- the importance however of domain understanding if less so AI understanding
- explicability remains highly important but quite often you can retrofit explanations to an AI system’s output
- furthermore human understanding is generally limited to “Key factors” and “ranked by importance” rather than anything more complicated hence the need to map onto such a framework when explaining it anyway
- how retrofitting works
- the explosion of data sources and the implications – eg satellite data
- implications of this for the field – excess choice isn’t always a good thing even if barriers to entry have been lowered
- spurious correlations in neural nets cf hallucinations in generative AI
- notable examples being that the number of Nick Cage films correlates with the number of drownings in US swimming pools
- autopilot systems cannot be generative systems due to reliability challenges – it doesnt matter if you get a wrong chat response it does if you crash into a tree
- the artificial media hype cycle as well as emergence thereof in social media
- future developments
- hottest tip/best bet – quantum computing + machine learning
- what would be a huge surprise – sentience (a category error as per 2023 New Year Special)
- ChAI developments and moves into Insurtech and productisation for producers in hedging real world exposures
And much much more
Financial Services is all about Finance which is all about money. However almost all FS employees just accept “money” as a thing in the same way they accept gravity. Which is an odd thing if you think about it. Most of the time this wouldn’t matter but at turning points such as we are at now if can be disastrous, What money is and the regimes around it have varied widely over time and space. However it is true to say that Central Banks are a total exception – indeed the ne plus ultra of Big State Centralism (which is leading to so many problems). Most FS-savvy folk know that a dollar when the Fed was created in 1913 is worth a few cents now – not a great testimony of performance whose job is to “protect” the dollar. Few however appreciate the intimate connection between monetary collapse and societal collapse. Examples are however legion with perhaps the best known being Rome (see what I did there re legion? :-D) , Revolutionary France or the Weimar Republic. As the fallout from those were respectively a civilisational collapse in the West that literally took centuries to recover from and two brutal dictatorships we would be well advised to pay attention to this otherwise recherché topic.
Central Banks are profoundly antidemocratic and as we saw in 2008 in the US and the UK chose – unlike Iceland – to bankrupt their people in order to preserve the wealth of banks and bankers bonuses. Prima facie they seem to correlate to the greatest frequency of wars ever, higher inflation and government spending and a de facto tax on savers and the elderly. At a minimum there is a difficult charge sheet for them to address.
Mario who runs the highly successful YouTube Channel maneco64 is a long term student of the history and current practice of monetary policy as well as like me decades ago having worked successfully in the City without having any real understanding of money per se.
Mario joined us a year ago in LFP197 to discuss “Money in the 21stC: Ballooning Printing of Fiat/QE/”MMT”/Govt Debt, CBDCs, Crypto, Dedollarisation, Hyperinflation, Gold”. In this episode Mario:
- Mario updates us on what has happened over the past year re money and multipolarity and where this is all going
- we dive into an assessment of – simply put whether Central Banks Are A Good Thing
- Mario outlines what he would do to rebuild society and money if in a parallel universe he was Governor of the Bank of England or indeed if western money and societies collapse and need to be rebuilt
- Mario looks forward to how Gold is becoming more important in a multipolar World. Central Bank buying of Gold was at its highest level in 2022 since 1967 and China has started releasing monthly purchases thereof
Topics discussed include:
- Skiing this year in Switzerland
- the moves in China re money, gold, exchanges over the past year
- multipolarity growing rapidly – Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia
- comparisons of the UK losing global dominance of sterling and the US and the dollar right now
- the catastrophic impact – even to the US – of its freezing of Russian Central Bank reserves in 2023 – a jumping the shark if there ever was one (even in WW2 the Reichsbank Reserves were not frozen…)
- A thousand years inflation in England and the huge correlation between inflation and war and having Central Banks
- who controls the Central Banks? The fact that opinions differ widely in itself is a great pointer to a democratic deficit
- Central Banks and permanent war
- cf sound money, small government, no wars, peace
- permacrisis allows ever-more land-grabs by the State
- the median wage of the bottom 10% in the UK is lower than in Slovakia
- drilling in to the phrase Central Banks – the Bank of England’s role has eg varied hugely since its formation in 1694 – there are many possible roles of a Central Bank
- the fractional reserve and creating money out of thin air existed vestigially from the start
- “lumbering the debt from the monarch to the people” – prior to the BoE the monarch was personally responsible for war debts – the BoE was the start of a process of moving war debts from the accounts of the King who started them to the people who didn’t
- monetary policy in Anglo Saxon England – shaving of coins and the role of Kings in producing standardised money
- William Cobbett (see below) who 200 years ago wrote of how having a Central Bank makes fighting wars much easier
- AHM Ramsey a critic of the BoE who wrote a critique forecasting doom from the possibility of Private Banks to create money out of thin air in an inverted pyramid
- the origin of the expression “pay through the nose”
- what is the opposite of having Central Banks? How would Mario operate as the Governor of the Bank of England?
- multiple options at a detailed level
- the opposite of monopoly is competition
- abolishing legal tender laws
- challenges of transitions between monetary policy regimes – and in large part hence Napoleon and Hitler
- 16thC as private money worldwide and the origin of the London money markets
- comparisons between revolutionary France monetary situation and western economies today
- Alan Greenspan, future Federal Reserve Chaiman:
- “An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites
statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense-perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire — that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.” 1967
- “An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites
- Mario’s Crystal Ball for 2023 and future trends
- China and Russians motivation
- Maneco’s sponsor shoutouts:
- Affiliation with @ITM TRADING, INC. FREE Gold & Silver Wealth Strategy Call With Lynette’s Team https://calendly.com/itmtrading/maneco64 or call 866-989-4368
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- Use referral code Billy or maneco64 at Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments: https://www.milesfranklin.com/
- and last but not least we don’t even have time to dive into the Bank of England’s role in the demise of PM Truss via its announcements and timings and handling of LDI issues for pensions where even US State Federal Reserve officials have commented that this is obvious (see The Critic article for example)!
- Recommended books:
- David Graeber’s “Debt – The First 5,000 Years” (amazon.co.uk) especially on the inevitable collapse of fiat monetary schemes going back to the Bible
- William Cobbett “Paper Against Gold; Containing the History and Mystery of the Bank of England, the Funds, the Debt, the Sinking Fund, the Bank Stoppage, the Lowering and the Raising of the Value of Paper-money” (1815)
- Cobbett wrote the first volume of 28 Letters while in prison for two years (1810-11) for opposing the flogging of some militia men. It it a history of how Britain funded the war effort against Napoleon by increasing the national debt, suspending the use of gold, and using paper money. Cobbett also chronicles the economic hardships imposed on ordinary working people by the disruption of trade, war taxes, and inflation of the currency.
- Two key book references on the connection between monetary policy and social collapse:
- “Fiat Money Inflation in France” Andrew Dickson White (free pdf)
- “When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany” Adam Ferguson (amazon.co.uk)
And much much more
Increasing automation is what the tech revolution is about – by definition. In this episode we dive into this topic starting at the highest levels – Government intelligence community quality tech at GCHQ (where Jeremy and his four co-founders had been long-term employees) and the immense value of technology transfer between state and private sectors. We then move through some of the more challenging questions of definition of terms (super-relevant for computers and their usage by business) and that these terms (eg crime, terrorist et al) vary per location – a real challenge for global enterprises.
Finally we move on to a particular speciality of Ripjar (who recently completed a $37m raise) – adverse media screening – which is not – as it sounded to me – a PR function but rather the automated processing of billions of news articles for credit/regulatory/business relevance re, as it were, early-warning/detection of say credit or regulatory or ethical problems with clients while these are still over the horizon rather than at the front door (or inside it) of the business.
Topics discussed include:
- bearing crosses – jetlag and karaoke/Christmas parties
- GCHQ roots and centre of the highest levels of technology and smart folks
- BBC Micro (computer) and Defender
- GCHQ one of the three intell agencies in the UK
- the impact of 9/11 and the “war on terror” – esp at a technology level the nature of the hugely challenging questions of automation of intelligence gathering from internet content
- defining terms – the importance, slipperiness and relative nature around the world – theory and practical impact for clients
- adding to the above styles of media writing vary per geography as well multiplying the technological challenge
- major focal points of crime for Ripjar from the hardcore to the softer end like corporate malfeasance which can be much more relative
- the realpolitik is that companies need to follow local laws and regulations as well as add on their ethical layer (if they have one lol, not all do…)
- from a practical perspective re solutions Ripjar give the flexibility for clients to define/search as they wish
- what is like working at an intelligence agency
- the multiple challenges of transitioning from a government intell agency to a startup/commercial environment
- the challenges of a life spent focusing on criminals – from Nietzsche’s “stare long enough into the void and the void stares back into you” to not implicitly as a person seeing the whole of humanity as potential criminals
- the value of creating a startup in this context
- intell agencies culture of spinning-out and being open or not – GCHQ and Israel agencies as Case Studies
- helping governments understand the spread of ISIS propaganda and giving the ability to take down horrible material
- tracking the emergence of online extreme behaviour
- the huge range of industries that Ripjar has worked with and how this broadens their perspective
- the core relevance of the FS industry in terms of setting good practice/leading edge approaches to data and criminality
- data siloes as a real issue
- ransomware – including situations where it has been deployed to hospitals or emergency services :-O
- the connection between some ransomware activities and State-level players
- detecting and analysing ransomware
- how data sharing would make this sphere so much the better
- adverse media screening
- wide use cases
- automated reading of news articles and screening them for risk factors for the business
- early-warning signals in open-source material
- the 40 year database of 18 billion news articles
- the challenge of the narrowing of the overton window on leading topics to – in western media at least – key The Current Topics having no diversity of angle
- broadening this to a bifurcation – Brexit, Trump etc
- what percentage of practical issues are grabbed by this phenomenon
- the ability to potentially measure this change in discourse over recent decades
- probabilistic measure of what might be “the truth”
- practically-speaking for lower-level credit-related events say there may not have been a narrowing of the window and indeed eg with reporting of court cases there was not much breadth in the first place as that tends to be factual
- 0.9% of total news articles in the database have relevance to topics Ripjar’s customers care about
- measuring/modelling a “3D Overton Window”
- the time-factor in interpreting data and the evolution of data at a practical level for banks
- fake news
- Jeremy “fully expects ChatGPT to be used to write media articles in the future”
- the need to include this in the algorithms/approach and to filter out machines created information
- commercial shoutouts for RIpjar and Labyrinth their decision-support platform
- 71% growth in their business in 2022
- longer term plans
And much much more
This 2023 New Year Special forms the fifth is a series of five about how technology is changing us directly and indirectly by empowering tyrants. It is by far the most ambitious, empowering and positive of all suggesting that we use the insanity as a spur in our sides to seek to flee Plato’s cave, escape the Matrix and speed up our path to awakening in search of love, light and healing.
Sound like a cool topic, a worthy goal to you?
It has five chapters:
- Metapolitical Awakening
- Psychological Awakening
- The Wasteland and the Grail
- Existential Awakening
- A Magical New World
There is a huge shift in consciousness going on now. The old world is dying in front of our eyes. However a new world is arising and there are a phenomenal number of green shoots growing for those who will look and find.
Let’s take a journey from understandable disenchantment and toxic metapolitics, through an examination of the deepest roots and causes of this disenchantment in ourselves, in our civilisation, in our hugely increased use of technology, to a world of re-enchantment.
Don’t choose the old world, fear and control, choose the new world of love, light and healing…
Share and enjoy!
Ricardo is a Brazilian serial entrepreneur who joins us in this show to give us an overview of the key features of Fintech in Central/Southern (aka Latin) America. The region includes the worlds highest valued neo-bank which has reached an astonishing 65 million client base in less than a decade – most of whom never had a bank account before, so amazing things are happening down there.Which are the major players out of the nigh on three dozen countries? What are the trends. What historical and geographical features lie behind the patterns we see? How do Latin American Fintechs expand beyond their home territory?
Pismo is a Brazilian Fintech who provide core banking technology globally and who raised an impressive $108m B round last year… it only seems like yesterday that $10m was an impressive for a B.
They have offices in many countries around the world and for example power N26 neobank in Europe.
Topics discussed include:
- Brazilian proposals
- the recent Brazilian elections and a brief overview of Brazilian politics
- what gets Brazilian annoyed re the lumping of countries into Southern or Latin America
- quick historical overview
- was Brazil discovered “by accident” or “on purpose”?
- decomposition of Spanish empire vs Brazil remaining whole
- different ethnic proportions depending on the relative histories of Latin countries
- as with much of global politics now there are high levels of polarisation and plenty of craziness
- right-leaning candidates tend to be more pro-multi-polar world
- Ricardo’s career journey from investment banker through to serial entrepreneur
- Banco Garantia Brazil’s emulation of Goldman Sachs
- the impact of a visit to Californian Finmtechs
- funding Pismo in 2016
- are Central and South america different regions?
- where does the Caribbean fit in?
- migration between neighbouring countries especially in Spanish-speaking Southern America leading to business connections
- Braizl is very separate from the rest of the demi-continent due to linguistic differences
- what does the American phrase “Hispanic” mean? Is Ricardo a Latino as he doesn’t speak Spanish?
- Mexico, Brazil, CHile, Argentina as the major players
- Lat Am population is ~640+m
- Brazil is ~215m and Mexico ~130m – so together they account for half the population of Lat Am
- Brazil has about 60% of total investments in Fintech
- many countries too small to attract Fintech investment
- regulation varyong greatly and leading to very different outcomes
- Brazil being lax in re has led to greater creativity
- 55% of Lat Am population are “underbanked”
- during the pandemic there was an increase in the use of cash :-O
- Brazilian Nubank (formed in 2013) – the world’s highest valued neobank (~$65bn) – is Lat Ams largest bank with ~65m regular clients, 80% of whom use it as their primary bank account, and most of those didn’t have a bank account before
- the lower limit for Fintech banking
- the major role of the Brazilian regulator in not being strict that led to this explosive performance
- examples of Argentina and Fintech
- Chile and digital wallets
- Mexico is the second most important market with strong regulation framework
- two major divisions of Fintech in Lat Am – “payments and rails” and “lending structures”
- corruption and political stability and consequent economic stability
- expansion within the region
- very little global expansion – Nubank and Pismo are more the exception than the rule
- as a comparative Case Study it took Pismo much much less time to deploy their system in India than it did in Argentina
- geography counts way less than other factors in Fintech establishment
- an overview of Pismo’s products and services and many offices around the world
- Pismo’s current direction
And much much more
Share and enjoy!
What actually is due diligence? How does it work and how should you if you find yourselves approaching one best prepare for it? Barr Blanton CEO of Crosslake Technologies, whose strapline is “private equity and management teams trusted advisor for technology”, and half of whose business is doing due dil joins us to outline what due […]
All sane Fintechs will have a security system to try and keep out as many attacks and fraudulent would be clients. However the nature of the attacks and frauds is getting ever-more hardcore. As Martin says in the show back in the day to rob a bank you would have to take significant personal risk […]
Swiss Kickstart Innovation are highly active in enabling deals between Fintechs and incumbent FS – when we recorded the podcast for example they had facilitated an extraordinary 300 negotiations in the prior 10 days. As we haven’t dived for many years into the whole challenge of young Fintechs managing to close deals with incumbents whose […]
Payments orchestration is all the rage. But what is it, and amidst all the hype is it all it’s cracked up to be? Good questions and who better to ask than serial entrepreneur Kristian who founded Cellpoint Digital back in 2007 to do precisely what became known today as payments orchestration and indeed their website […]
Africa in general narratives is all too often treated – like many matters – as a super-low-res jpeg, more as if it were a place, one which is complex and widely misunderstood, or not even understood. Africa is, of course, in reality it is a vast continent of a billion people, over 50 countries and […]
Incumbent banks – as Fintech has found in the past decade are rather safer from having huge slices of their business nicked than many Fintechs have imagined. However Allica Bank, established by some pretty experienced individuals have a plan. In this episode we dive into that plan along with quizzing Conrad, who was last on […]
Africa is one of the lynchpins of Fintech’s origins – key origins being Zopa’s invention of P2P borrowing/lending in 2005 and mPesa’s mobile money+ in 2007. In this episode we take a look at more recent innovation in Nigeria, Africa’s largest country with a population of over 200 million. Piggyvest who launched in 2016 and […]
Chargebacks – the ability to retrieve your money from your bank spent when spent via a card in case of dissatisfaction after a purchase and an inability to resolve the situation with the seller – are one of those rare items that affects everyone from consumer through to merchant and including naturally the financial system […]
Many founders establish businesses and only later realise they are hard to fund. Others aim to create “fundable businesses” yet lack the passion for a long journey. Somewhere along the spectrum is a happy medium which must be balanced along the growth curve as phases change and different types of funders come and go. In […]
The Fintech wave spreads ever wider – and in the case of retail financial markets as Nicky puts it if you can buy a book at midnight why can’t you buy a share? It’s a good example of how the digital paradigm has changed customer expectations and oldskool ideas about limited “market hours” – there […]
Financial services – whether mainstream or alternative – depend entirely on Trust – trust that the pieces of paper and coins in your pocket will be taken in exchange for goods (no longer 100% true), trust that a piece of plastic in your wallet will “tap and pay”, trust that you do “own” those securities […]
Over time the Fintech wave reaches ever more complex topics. FX per se was one of the earlier low-hanging fruits to be digitised – a simple, near immediate transaction that everyone understands as they do it all the time when going on holidays. However its taken much longer – a decade or perhaps two – […]
“P2P”, invented by Zopa in 2005, was one of the main unique business models that was at the core of the early success of Fintech businesses in disintermediating banks and offering better/cheaper/faster experiences to both lenders and borrowers. Over the past nearly two decades P2Ps have had many fates – variously succeeding, going bust, committing fraud, […]
Scandinavia (Sweden/Norway/Denmark) and the Nordics as a whole (Scandinavia +Finland +Iceland) have massively outperformed most parts of the world in Tech and Fintech when considered compared to the relatively small sizes of the populations. Why is this and where is it all going? In this episode Erik who was part of creating the world’s first […]
The fact that today we are talking to Aman, the co-founder of specialist Fintech Corporate Finance boutique Royal Park Partners which has done over 30 transactions is a great sign of the maturation of the Fintech market. In this episode we discuss the origins of Fintech Corporate Finance in Europe – not that long ago […]
Investment risk has changed radically from what regulators and the media propound. A prime example is that with negative real interest rates and at the end of a secular 40 yr bond bull market the idea of bonds being “low risk investments” is nuts yet widely followed in asset allocation. Furthermore as we touched on […]
Technology pervades our world more than ever and conditions us and our existence ever more. But I believe it is not well-understood at a philosophical level, nor are its impacts at an existential level. Two great thinkers about technology and its impact on man, society and civilisation in the 20thC were Oswald Spengler and Jacques […]
Gold has been much in the news recently with Russia putting a Gold-floor under its currency to spectacular effect (almost as if desire for infinitely printed fiat paper is wearing off…) and offering to accept payment for exports in Gold the US sanctions/de-SWIFTing/and theft of Central Bank Assets (never happened in history) has spectacularly backfired. […]
There are at least 70 cities in Europe which have at least one unicorn in them – a very different pattern from the US/UK ecosystems. Over 20 of these cities are in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). There is thus far more to CEE than a place to near-offshore your tech or dev team. In […]
Where money in major economies is and where it is going is very concerning right now – look at the list of issues in the episode title, let alone the impact of the ongoing globalist putsch and UN Agendas 21 and 2030. This is a topic that will affect not just FS but the lives […]
Fraud is sadly as old as humanity. However the digital age has created a huge arms race – on the one hand a massive increase in fraudulent attempts, on the other ever-stronger defences. Traditionally anti-fraud was a complex B2B sale but in the digital age where b2b and b2B sales outnumber by far B2B sales […]
In this show Patrick Dunne joins us to discuss how Boards changed in the 80s/90s/00s as a prelude to the significant shifts in Boards happening, and needing to happen, today. As the world changes massively and as tech changes only-ever accelerate how does this change what Boards are required to do, how they do it […]
Civilisation I believe is at a crossroads. The globalists’ road has a stench that we can smell from the crossroads. Their dystopian future has been designed for far longer and in far more detail than anyone who has not researched it would ever imagine. It is no secret, no paranoia, and is documented in the […]
With the long-planned centralised ID (via pretext of “medical passports”) juggernaut bowling down the road towards us and ushering in a Western version of the Chinese Social Credit Score where your Human Rights, rather than being God-given, become a function of your obedience to ever-more politician-decided criteria it seems a great occasion to discuss what […]
In the hundreds of incoming requests to be on the LFP there are few that truly stand out as something fresh and innovative that I haven’t heard of countless times before. Tulipshare is one such rara avis being the first on the show who do GovernanceTech. They are a broker-dealer through which you can buy […]
Creating a global firm without raising equity is rare but possible and an important route with many advantages for certain types of business. which many young entrepreneurs are relatively unfamiliar with. Ben Richmond founder and CEO of RegTech CUBE certainly knows this path intimately and shares with us his insiders experiences having built CUBE from […]
Serving the sole trader or microcompany is super-important right now as economies and indeed societies continue to try and build themselves back from the ground up after widespread government actions in 2019 which massively favoured MegaCo and governments never-ending pork-barreling monetary printing presses at the expense of the little guy. In this context we define […]
In this episode we cover the super-big picture from the fascinating origins of the US pension market which is barely a century old through the complexities of the current market with some 40 million Americans having no access to a retirement plan and looking into the future how official advice over so-called “low risk investments” […]
This episode is a sign of the state-centralist times. Fintech grew in a very different world from our ever-expanding State, super-high tax-burdens, massive regulation et al. However why should SMEs leave all the food on the table for better-resourced BigCos to take? Especially when it falls into that vital category of “non-dilutive funding”. In this […]
Every startup in the tech world is after a “realisation” – or put in other terms a point in time at which someone puts a real as opposed to notional valuation on your firm – when you sell out in whole via a Trade Sale or in part via an IPO. But how do you […]
is it possible to do Customer Service well whilst not going bankrupt employing thousands of PhDs in Customer Service at megabucks? And back to an old favourite of FS vs Tech why do we even need it if the tech quotes works unquotes? In retail FS or even FS as a whole Customer/Client Service is essential. […]
Currency Cloud are one of London’s oldest Fintechs being founded over a decade ago. As they recently sold themselves for £700m to Visa – in cash – they clearly know something about the entire startup-realisation process. Big time. One of the aspects whose importance grows along the journey which co-founder Richard shares with us is […]
In this episode we have an awesome deep-dive by Gert into what Network-based Finance is – a super-cool topic even Google doesn’t know about (within an hour of this LFP release it became the only example :-O). We cover how, in a sense, it inverts the whole “Open Banking” paradigm putting the opening of transactions […]
I can think of very few UK Fintechs that dominate their sector as successfully as CapitalRise who have something of a monopoly of being the only independent prime real estate property finance provider. Not only that but to date they have an unbeatable 0% loss-rate on loans that have returned ~9%pa to investors. The Credit markets […]
How one engages with a Bank and how Banks engage have always been essential aspects of FS which is a complex ecosystem of specialists. This is – like much – all-changing right now. ClearBank have recently published a report entitled “How well are Fintechs served by banks?” which provides some depth to this topic. Simon […]
What kind of value-add most helps founders and their companies? Or if you prefer what sun, what rain and what compost makes founders trees fruit better and faster? It’s a vital topic for the economy. QED Investors is a leading VC firm focused on investing in early stage – hence their knowledge of growing seedlings […]
Richard has an astonishing 50yrs experience in investing in young companies and helping to grow them, starting with 3i in the 1970s when they were next to the only institutional provider of development capital through to being a former chair of the BVCA and this year having released a thoroughly updated version of his book […]
Fintech is increasingly getting well beyond providing the simplest of transactions and deep into the complex end of FS. Supply@Me Capital are listed on the UK Stock Exchange and recently acquired Singaporean firm Tradeflow Capital. They provide inventory financing by securitising manufacturers’ and trading firms’ inventory in a very interesting fashion leading to a new […]
Two topics this week… What are the major trends in Insurtech in the US, UK, Europe and China? Secondly Small Business insurance, general liability professional liability insurance and so forth can be hard to acquire at commercially sensible terms and thus many contractors or home repair folk end up giving up on potential work as […]
Way back in the day LFP002 was with matchi.biz who were creating a marketplace to connect innovative firms with incumbents who needed that innovation so the idea of a connection function or market has been around for some time. As matchi.biz were acquired by KPMG in 2017 they were clearly not only successful at creating […]
The recent report by Ron Kalifa, for the UK Govt to identify priority areas to support the UK’s Fintech sector and maintain the UK’s global reputation in re, gives us an excellent opportunity to zoom out from that to discuss The Past: why Fintech so successfully started in the UK; The Present: how well the […]
Behavioral Signals aims to “turn your conversational data into actionable insights for your business” via the automated cross-cultural detection of emotions in the audio of conversations. This is a super-new front in machine language recognition and usage one which has to date been rather simplistically approached but one which as we all know every day […]
Back in the day when business was more monocultural in many dimensions, and indeed today in more monocultural societies, “culture” was implicit and did not need explicitly defining. However in the modern, ever-more globalised, ever-more multicultural world binding together a group of people, possibly in different countries into one coherent entity is an ever-increasing challenge. […]
Stocard are perhaps Europe’s most successful Fintech measured by numbers of users – they have over 60 million users of their App (which gets 4.7* on Google Play) and process an amazing 2 billion transactions per annum – a phenomenal achievement. Their users save some 2-5% on average on their shopping and in some countries […]
nChain are part of a small consortium are working on a project with the Tuvalu govt to put all of its records on a digital ledger – aka Blockchain, thus becoming the first country to do so. Tuvalu, comprises 9 islands, has a domestic revenue of $60m (a chunk of which comes from its ownership […]
Little more than a couple of decades ago IT was a very back office function in large FS organisations. Now it has completely inverted to become centre-stage in roughly every dimension of being in business, FS included. Tony Clark, serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of NextWave Consulting has over thirty years experience of large City […]
2020 has been crazy and 2021 doesn’t seem to be breaking the trend. The LFP New Year Special is traditionally an occasion to looks back to the prior year and forward to the next. However given the seismic changes in Governments Governance of the people and the ongoing cultural revolution I thought we should take […]
Venture Capital is nigh-on essential for many ambitious, big-build, fast-scaling Fintechs and Techs in general. Fund raising is essential. Thus how the VC market is evolving is of the utmost importance to ambitious firms and founders. In this episode Josh Bell one of the founding partners of leading London-based European-wide VCs Dawn Capital who have […]
Andy Rear was until recently head of the innovative Digital Partners, MunichRe’s London subsidiary which pretty much invented Reinsurance (/Insurance) As A Service (which he covered way back in LFP074). In this episode he rejoins us to present evidence that Insurtech is actually changing an industry. Andy himself is off to do Non-exec-ing and a […]
Capital-raising is an absolutely core-skill for entrepreneurs and their growing businesses – and every tech business de facto needs to grow (margins low and intense competition). Peter Keenan, CEO and co-founder of merchants-payments provider Apexx Global, has raised capital in a total of five companies and thus talks to us from a position of considerable […]
Open Banking started a far greater wave, The ability for people to share ever-more of their financial data – not just current account but everything from mortgages to investments to pensions data promises to revolutionise the world of FS and people’s financial lives. In this excellent conversation Keith gives us a tour d’horizon and a […]
The alignment of economic interests between buyer and seller is much spoken about but little done. Over two and half years ago when Tobi was first on the show he spoke about the idea of aligning Laka’s interests with their clients. Now we hear this narrative all the time but rarely is it deeply true. […]
All Fintechs in one country will have long since sorted identity/AML/KYC and so forth. But what happens when they need to scale in other countries or even go global? Like many things in Fintech this was a hard challenge only a few years back. However now it is made much easier by the likes of […]
In a world ever-more focused on transactions and digitisation what place is there for relationship-banking? Apparently not a lot, yet the market-leader – SVB – wholly embraces this approach over the whole journey from Startup to FTSE. In this show we discuss what relationship banking means in the 21stC for one of the hottest sectors […]
Payments are being revolutionised. One of the most fascinating examples is Ripplenet – Ripple’s approach to inverting the old model of slow large payments to super-fast, immediate, small payments (the general trend) which will change payments forever. Ripplenet “an internet of value” is used by over 300 Financial Institutions in more than 45 countries, as […]
What is called Venture Capital is most of the time actually Venture Equity – the predominant funding model for Startups/ScaleUps. But in many sectors, Fintech included, some UnlistedCos are Very large – valuations in the billions. These are no small companies. Traditional corporate finance theory says (correctly) that equity is expensive and should always be […]
Draper Esprit are one of London’s longer-established VCs and with investments in the likes of Revolut, Transferwise, Thought Machine, Seedrs, Crowdcube and Freetrade might know a thing or two about Fintech. Draper Esprit, like Augmentum who we had on the show last year are also a listed AIM and thus also can offer finance not […]
Marwan joins us to discuss global payments for small businesses. He has been in payments for many years and was first a founder in 2002 so speaks from long experience of both. Veem is a global payments network used by small businesses around the world which allows them to pay their vendors, suppliers and contractors anytime, […]
The Tech press is full of unicorns – but these are almost always “on paper”. Those companies that someone has bought for over a billion – be it a trade sale or IPO – are far rarer. Clay Wilkes has created both starting with just an idea. Galileo Financial Technologies which he co-founded, powers 95% […]
Iwocapay is a new business venture from iwoca, one of London’s leading Fintechs, to offer payment terms as a service. Metaphorically this is a cross between a domestic version of trade finance – helping finance a supply chain – with an oldschool (and rather harder to get these days) bank overdraft – ie a flexible […]
Cuvva have some hundred employees, 400,000 UK clients and 5% of the short-term UK car insurance market which is a phenomenal achievement for any Fintech in any sector. In this episode founder Freddy Macnamara joins us to discuss how price comparison websites have changed the insurance industry, the regulatory review of pricing in re and […]
Online payments are expensive – directly for merchants and indirectly for consumers as the price is obviously higher due to the merchants having a ~3% cost of payments. But in a world where I as a consumer could pay you as a merchant directly from my phone if you simply gave me your sort code […]
One thing serial entrepreneurs learn if the value of a Good Board in helping drive business success and avoiding car crashes along the way. The ne plus ultra is having a great Chairman. Brian Basham has founded many businesses and chaired many businesses. In 1976 he founded the Broad Street Group with £100 he had […]
The trend in recent decades has been to ever-more flexible working contracts – be it gig economy, independent consultants or the freelancing/project-based work that sits in between. Gig-ers have a company app to engage and pay and indies a company around them. Freelancing et al have always been challenging to administer for both the buyer […]
One reason that as the Fintech revolution proceeds Fintechs can do more ambitious things is that there an increasing number of back-end service providers that they can plug into. In this episode Joanne Dewar, CEO of back-end payments services provider GPS – who work with 40 issuing banks globally, and operate programmes with 90+ APIs for over 100 clients (including Revolut, Starling Bank and Bo) in 60 countries in 150 currencies – joins us to share her experience of what drives success in this sector for both the B2C front-end companies and the B2B back-end providers. GPS is furthermore a rare example of a profitable Fintech – which are always good to talk to.
Back-end providers have been with us for a long time – Currency Cloud, who executed most of Transferwise’s FX transactions for quite some time were back on the show years ago.
Time moves on though and by now we have plenty of data where partnering/outsourcing worked well and plenty where it did not.
What are the key factors of success? How is it done well and why is it done badly?
Topics discussed on the show include:
- juggling family and business life at home; how kids are coping compared to adults
- kids greater adaptability
- Joanne’s career journey
- GPS (almost?) unique journey from Founder-funded straight to Private Equity-backed skipping all the usual steps in the middle!
- the value of VC stages in establishing more sold Board practices along the way
- unusually with the Fintech space GPS was profitable
- the long genesis of GPS from 1999 onwards in related markets until it set up the kind of back-end services it needed itself
- bold ambitions from the start – they called themselves GPS (G=global) even when they only had one client
- you need scale to be a processing platform given the huge fixed costs
- first 3rd-party customer in 2013 when GPS were around 15ppl in UK (&devs in India) – now 200ppl in total including dev teams and >100 clients
- recently opened offices in Singapore and Australia and soon to open in Dubai
- why partner/outsource? In GPS case to do it yourself would require >£10m and 2-3yrs to setup. Given challenge of time to market this is just not feasible, let alone for it not being “easy” to do well.
- speed to market important otherwise someone else takes the opportunity
- the key is “true partnership” not selling cheaply, not deciding too fast, too superficially
- you need to have an idea not just of what you need today but what you might need tomorrow
- mistakes – trying to do it too fast, trying to do it too cheaply, not having a long term vision
- need to overcome the challenge of vast potential and complexity on day1
- “one-stop shops” can be fast to get to market with but metaphorically if you buy a bicycle you are locked-in forever more to certain top speeds
- how GPS helps clients with that challenge of getting a proof of concept to market when they themselves weren’t the fastest route to market – a creative solution
- comparison with Agile project challenges
- the realpolitik challenges of theory meeting practice
- comparison with WordPress templates and websites
- how GPS copes with a huge variety of customer types – the importance of initial starting point packages and later customisation
- how the whole issuer-merchant workflow operates – a GPS does not hold money but the score; the other role of issuer-services
- the many services needed in the above workflow
- why fraudsters target startups
- GPS works not just for Fintechs but established organisations
- GPS growth-plans
- looking for issuer banks to work with
- why London has led the world in Fintech
And much much more
Share and enjoy!
In LFP152 we took a strategic look at the post-Covid landscape. In this show Julian Cork, COO of Landbay, guides us through the tactical responses by one of the UK’s most solid Fintechs – £1/2bn buy-to-let mortgages written to date and zero losses.
However as to risk “the past is not necessarily a guide to the future” and in a market that has frozen it is very challenging to operate.
We cover many aspects starting with a background to the UK BTL market and the strategic shifts that were already in play right through to the importance of maintaining not just business dialogue between staff but that important social glue social dialogue too.
Topics discussed include:
- memories of shaking hands even just a few weeks ago
- ensuring some space between work and home life when working at home
- the division between the super-busy and becalmed workers of the world right now
- listening to the LFP in the Australian outback and how seminal that was to Julian’s career
- Julian’s career journey
- changes that the government had made to BTL market in recent years (mortgage tax relief, stamp duty, tightening of lending criteria) and how that impacted the market
- main move is a growth in limited company borrowing and shift to portfolio landlords from single-property landlords
- 17% of landlords have 5 or more properties which equates to nearly 1/2 of all private tenancies
- 45% of landlords have one property and that’s about 20% of tenancies
- private rental sector, about 5 million units, is about 20% of UK housing stock
- been growing since 2006 and private has recently overtaken public rental sector
- according to RICS another 1.8 million rental properties will be required by 2025
- ~£260bn of BTL mortgages in the UK (!), about £30bn is “specialist BTL” Landbays area of expertise – held in SPVs or limited companies, multi-occupancy, small blocks etc
- Landbay is forecasting that as a result of all the changes the specialist percentage of the overall will increase in forthcoming years
- the impossibility of calculating risk when a market has stopped trading
- no price transparency – also makes it a huge problem to underwrite new debt
- forecasts vary wildly re property prices going forwards
- we don’t live in a free market world right now – much more WW2 command and control
- mortgage holidays and changes in rental rights
- Landbay’s changes to its staff – some furloughing (esp in underwriting and sales) , small salary reductions across the board
- the challenges of having zero visibility on the future as the government has not announced the plans
- “We have to plan for the worst and hope for the best” – which of course slows all companies down and hence the economy
- how Landbay are approaching the whole range of staff issues right now
- a whole range of tools they use to help communication
- the importance of remembering that people are human beings not just users of technology
- the importance of “inessential” (ie social) communication as well as business conversations
- shoutouts for mortgage brokers – Landbay’s goal is to be the provider of choice
- shoutout for investors looking for high quality assets
- how long before handshakes return to business meetings in London?
And much much more
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It is a cliche to say “the world changed forever” but macroeconomically and microeconomically it has – not because of the C19 virus but because of governmental responses to it. As the landscape for Fintech and indeed all firms has changed for – well decades at this rate in this show I do a one-off 30,000 feet overview of its impact on four key dimensions – societal, governmental, economic and liberty.
These will be the backdrop for the new world which Fintech must cope with – or for many right now try and survive in and only later get back to thriving in. Also we have all read too much at a detailed level so something setting the big picture scene for the next few years will keep future episodes from always coming back to the big picture.
The narrative of the show connects dots that we all know to give a 30,000 feet view. Three more recherche sources are:
Poll on collapse in confidence in UK mainstream media
Robert Kennedy Jr’s article on Gates appalling vaccine damage in the 3rd world
Rockerfeller Foundation 2010 Paper outlining the “lock step” scenario highly similar to what we are seeing now
Live long and prosper – stay healthy and restore your liberty an wealth as soon as you can!
As we have repeatedly heard profitability is a major challenge in Fintech. In this episode Tim Nicolle CEO of Trade Finance Fintech Primadollar describes his journey to working out the necessary building blocks to profitability. As someone who has had his own businesses for some 30yrs he has had more experience than most with these challenges.
Despite only being founded in 2015 Primadollar already has an astonishing 12 offices around the world so is well placed to also talk to the globalising of Fintech in this Brexiting year (albeit temporarily (?!) on hold due to a well-know virus of course).
Staff numbers are around 50, one-third in the UK and around two-thirds abroad.
Topics discussed include:
- small-world syndrome – Tim and I last met some 30yrs ago
- why how well new graduates made tea and coffee was a good lead-indicator of subsequent performance
- Tim’s proliferating of children as well as businesses
- Tim’s career in securitisation and his first company in the late 80s
- his first business and the tiring nature and non-constructing nature of a consultancy as opposed to product business
- In 1998 Tim and his business partner founded Demica which is today processing $100bn p.a. of trade receivables
- Innovating too early won’t make you any money
- The lesson Tim learned was “it is the market that makes you rich, the market that makes you successful”
- how to translate that into practical business strategies/attitudes
- the need for there to be a door you can push on, open and walk through – otherwise a business will find it very tough…
- “companies that are raising capital are generally not profitable by the way [as that’s why they need to raise capital]”
- several pivots in Primadollar and the importance of having to be in the flows to understand the data on the market and hence where the “openable door” is
- Tim’s 6 years in Russia
- “we do a really simple thing – when an exporter puts goods on the boat he give him the money and the customer can pay later”
- historic rectangular correspondent banking model cf Primadollar’s triangle model
- business experiences in Bangladesh
- Wonga and searching through a data space to understand where to plant your important seeds
- recruiting business partners via listening to the London Fintech Podcast
- finding local staff – how to do it
- the important question to ask in emerging market recruitment
- localisation vs globalisation
- the choices in how to sell more…
- sacking clients – a good business needs good clients
- Primadollars USP re business model and execution
- separating revenue growth from cost growth – successful productisation
- the challenges of squaring customisation with simplicity and transactionality
- inserting your product in other people’s value chain
- the structure of world trade – providing finance for shippers and thus displacing banks
- FAAS – Finance As A Service model
- “listen to what the market is telling you and don’t look for excuses in your product, sales teams etc”
- meta-creativity – the importance of Tim listening to many podcasts to take the best creative ideas from a number of sources and combine them into a unique model
- “standardisation is everything here”
- Primadollar will do an equity funding round at some point in the next year or two
- how do you create what doesn’t yet exist?
And much much more
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The largest financial transaction of your life is also your last – dying! Get it wrong and Boris gets more money for vanity bridges and your relatives are left with a mess on their hands and potentially plenty of squabbles. Get it right and it is smooth for them and you minimise being taxed twice on the same income.
The whole death-related industry – wills, probate (executing wills) and cremations is super-undigitised (98% is still offline). It is into this gap that Dan Garrett co-founder and CEO of Farewill has stepped.
Farewill get 4.9* from >3,000 reviews on Trustpilot so must be doing wills well.
This is a super-important topic – if any of you out there don’t have a will you should get one and now it has been made digitally convenient there is no excuse. You can do it on your phone.
Topics discussed include:
- where is Haggerston
- construction projects East and West
- HS2 crazy cost (~10x the channel tunnel :-O)
- Dan’s career journey from manufacturing through engineering, design and Japan
- his experiences in Japan which led to founding Farewill
- his pre-work organising 15 funerals and getting a qualification in will writing and probate applications
- in OECD economies the death industry is an $80bn market but only 2% of it is online
- reasons being inter alia an avoidance of the topic of death until after the fact – this is the main design/brand challenge for Farewill
- smoothing the journey – cf moving pensions out of DB schemes
- Farewill have three products – wills, probate and cremations
- cremations are a nation-wide Farewill product vastly undercutting existing rates at £1k compared to an average price of £4,800
- cultural differences eg cf Eire
- “About 10% of the UK wants a non-traditional funeral but about 80% ends up with one”
- cremation product collects body, unattended cremation and then handing of ashes to the family for their own ceremony as they wish
- the importance of an inventory of assets
- the challenge of digital bank accounts et al – if you were run over by a bus tomorrow how would your relatives know eg that you had a Monzo account?
- the explosion of Fintech is only making this harder – every day there’s a new digital place to put your assets
- in the UK there is a vast £15bn of unclaimed assets
- customers really like Farewill’s addendum to their wills which is an inventory of assets as everyone wanders around slightly anxious in the background that no such list exists
- this is a big driver of their high net promoter score
- digital archives and challenges therein
- £90 to make a single will, £140 making a will for two people – it takes on average 12.5 minutes
- a team of specialists check the will within 24hrs and 40% of people get feedback/suggestions
- 20-somethings are very underrepresented, marriage, kids, buying a house, divorce tend to be triggering events
- the huge margins in funeral parlours and the impact of Private Equity players
- overall this has led to huge inflation in prices – doubled in ten years
- last year despite a CMA enquiry into the cost of funerals the price still increased by a further 9%!
- wills need to be signed with two witnesses and also exist as a paper version not just digitised
And much much more
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Today the LFP has Dan Kiernan as guest host and instead I am in the guest seat to discuss my long in the making recently released book on the Unlisted Board The Realpolitik Of The Unlisted Company Board – Making Your Board An Engine Of Growth. This is a behind the scenes account based on […]
Do you known that William Russell’s – the 692nd Lord Mayor of London – first trip was to the US to promote Fintech and that he is perhaps the first Lord Mayor of London to have visited all the regions and is well up-to-speed on regional Fintech? No me neither before we spoke. However his […]
In this Brexiting Age the UK must turn its thoughts once again worldwide – how does one do business around the world? How important is localisation vs globalisation? What role does culture play? Aneesh Varma is the founder of Aire, one of Fintechs longest-standing credit-rating firms who have scored over $10bn of VAR to date. […]
Charlie is one of London’s greatest serial entrepreneurs – with ground-breaking the Student Room and Market Invoice under his belt, as an MLRO he saw the huge gap in the market for using AI/ML to solve both the Financial Crime problem and businesses problems in risking prison if they get it wrong. Thus he formed […]
In this show we review a decade in Fintech. Although the earliest Fintechs were formed around 2004/5 (WorldFirst, Zopa) many big names formed around 2010 (Funding Circle, Ratesetter, MarketInvoice). The LFP formed started covering the scene in mid-2014, the year of the first London Fintech week and the year that the Fintech word first hit […]
So far Fintech has lionised technologies – APIs, Open Banking, AI/ML and so forth. But from a different perspective these are just glues to connect things that haven’t been connected before to make new propositions not previously possible. Although this has been touched on so far – marketplaces aren’t the best example – after all […]
Michael conducts the most in-depth analysis of Companies House data on UK Fintechs that I am aware of. That earlier this year he partnered with KPMG and Google on his Fintech Funding and Financing study says a lot. So what can we learn from a decades’s data on UK Fintechs? Well first that only five […]
Capital Markets is the beating heart of FS – far higher tech and far more hardcore than just bank accounts and it is by definition the most complex area. What can we and Fintech learn from the super-big boys working in this world? FIS systems process an astonishing amount of $9 trillion moved around the world […]
Open-banking hype has generally focused on the consumer marketplace. However SMEs can potentially benefit more especially as they currently pay for banking services. Accounts and transactions can be consolidated improving cashflow management and payments can be made at a far lower cost and far faster as well as cool stuff like including “pay me” buttons […]
The Retail Credit Bureau market has been in place for decades but disruption is coming to the market in the shape of Credit Kudos who help people make faster more accurate credit decisions. They have proved that this new source of data enables better credit decisions. Formed in 2015 in anticipation of ‘open data” (a superior […]
Not many Fintechs dominate their sector let alone in one of the biggest markets in the world. PrimeRevenue was formed in 2003 and is the largest non-bank supplied of Supply Chain Finance in the world (working capital finance for global trade). They facilitate more than $200bn of payments per annum for 20,000 clients. In this […]
Today Shameer Sachdev founder of Growth Gorilla and I have a wide-ranging conversation about marketing. I’ve done it for over 30yrs and Shameer runs a growth marketing agency who help innovative start-ups, scale-ups & established businesses catalyse growth.. So between us we cover most angles, oldSkool and newSkool 🙂 You may have noticed that “build […]
This takes not just the biscuit but the whole packet. We’ve interacted with computers via switches, via punched cards, via teletypes, via audio. But Trulience have taken this to the next level – imagine a video version of Alexa that also responds to your movements (eg maintains eye contact as you move round the room. […]
A super-important overview today. Data is just information is the standard line. Correct but not what matters in the real world. In the real world a regulatory announcement has consequences in organisations and requires actions – be it changing client agreements or operating procedures. What if we could use tech to go beyond the “regulation […]
Change creates positive and negatives. The digital world means newer generations will grow up far more tech savvy. On the shadow side as we have touched on in passing a few times the digital world has been a created a nightmare for mental health in the young. But there are many dimensions of challenges – social […]
Tristan was last on the show some three years ago in LFP063 which has been solidly in the Top5 most downloaded episodes of all time even since. Today he joins us to update us on what is hot in AI/ML – and there’s a lot 😉 – along with predicting commodity prices. Tristan is now […]
This week’s topic is all about getting jobs whatever your age or stage. Maybe you are in a Tech firm of some sort – if so how long are you likely to stay where you are and what’s the best way of getting your next gig? If you are not in it and wish to […]
Britain needs both megabuilds but also a specialised SME property project finance market. Mike Bristow CEO of CrowdProperty a P2P based in Birmingham offers (to both sides) development finance loans and improves risk-returns by disintermediating the SME property finance market. We also debate whether P2P itself is morphing into asset securitisation for institutions (and to […]
All businesses employ people, generate salaries, products and services and sometimes even profits without which modern society could simply not exist, Thus all Fintechs “do Social Good”. However in addition some focus their profits and services on the most disadvantaged members of society. We look at this “social benefit” sector in this show along with income […]
Ten years ago Jeff and his co-founder came up with the idea for Equity Crowdfunding and seven years ago Seedrs became the UK’s (world’s?) first regulated Equity Crowdfunder. In this episode we revisit the origins of the concept, what it was thought to be then and how it has evolved with the person who can […]
Today we merge two fascinating topics – the Gold Medal for a startup – the Public Listing and innovating in Venture Capital to provide more patient capital. Our guest who connects these two is super-serial entrepreneur Tim Levene who listed Augmentum last year and is a real Fintech insider being on the Boards of Iwoca, […]
There is no end to Fintechs reach – this week to the most fundamental industry in the world – Farming – easily forgotten but without which we would all die soon. 90% of the world’s commodities cannot be hedged exposing producers to huge risks. Stable are merging AgriTech with Fintech to enable producers to hedge/insure […]
Almost all investment has collapsed onto a simple idea of maximising your return. But what if you don’t want your investments to harm society and the world? What if you want to help the world and make a great return? What then? Into this gap steps ethical and impact investment. Tom is CEO of Tickr which he […]
As we heard in LFP069 Financial Advice costs a packet these days – for most folk it’s simply uneconomic. But FS is a complex topic for those who have spent a lifetime in it let alone those with no experience. We all have debts, assets, cashflow, pensions, and many tax complications swirling around in a […]
FinTech = Fin + Tech. But what is tech? No really what is it? We all see the word so many times but only a small minority of the population around the world have actual experience of what Tech is. In this episode we dive into software and software development from the earliest days up […]
What is it actually like being an Entrepreneur? Despite being experienced and having an MBA Ruzbeh Bacha, CEO of personalised news aggregator/filter CityFalcon has found that the reality is very different from expectations. What is it really like? How hard can it be? Media narratives are of some startups achieving amazing success with amazing amounts […]
Strategy is the heart of all business success. Will Wynne has built two great businesses under his belt which have evolved over 12yrs and 5yrs respectively to be champions in their sectors. Based on this experience he shares with us how Strategy evolves, what the key points are and what you do when you keep […]
Trade Finance – a $9trn pa market – is possibly the most important transaction type in FS – a huge number of our possessions will have come round the world in a container and needed financing. Tradeteq is turning Trade Finance form a banking closed-shop into an investable asset class via Securitisation As A Service. […]
Creativity springs eternal. Here is yet another new topic, one that no one could have imagined even a couple of decades ago. Litigation crowdfunding gives litigants a new source of funding and investors a totally new investable asset with non-correlated returns. Cormac Leech CEO and co-founder of Axiafunder walks us through this complex landscape. Litigation […]
Today the super-important topic of “What VCs don’t know about Entrepreneurs; and what Entrepreneurs don’t know about VCs”. Steve Findlay is a great guest to have to discuss this as he has been a long-time VC and now founder/CEO (Bond Mason and AAA Reserve). How can this culture divide, objective divide be best managed? How […]
It’s time for the New Year Special and we tackle what is surely the most important topic of our times – “Is FS + Tech Ushering In Orwellian Tyrrany Rather Than Freeing The People?”. The BigTech giants increasingly act as public censors with the modern equivalent of Nazi book burning, Big FS firms and Fintechs […]
App Banks are all the rage and you can go round the world on their cards. However move to another place and you soon find you need a bank account. Norris Koppel founder of Monese is on a mission to build a Global App Bank that will enable you to have local bank accounts at […]
How are the changing tides and winds in newFS vs oldFS lending? How are the incumbents and newbies doing? How is the balance of institutional funding of P2P and retail going? What’s the best way to succeed? When does accepting institutional funds turn into just being a front-end for oldFS? Landbay only do buy-to-let mortgages […]
We all know that investing in the top P2P has been a good plan. But do corporate bonds offer better risk-adjusted value? Historically you had to have megabucks to buy bonds, or invest in a unit trust. However now WiseAlpha are Finteching the Corporate Bond Market and making direct investing available from as little as […]
Financial crime affects us all – oldFS, newFS, citizens. How can businesses control and minimise Financial Crime? We are joined today by Vishal Marria whose data-driven firm Quantexa has grown super-rapidly and works in this area as well as on other big data issues. Their clients include HSBC and Shell and despite being founded only […]
Bought By Many are one of the UK’s oldest Insuretechs from when it was nigh on impossible to launch one and to do so meant one was laughed at. Now BBM have over 600,000 members in over 320 specialist insurance groups. They get a super-impressive Feefo trust rating of 4.7/5 from nigh on 6,000 reviews which is great […]
This is the most important topic for our democracy. What is the constitutional position of regulators? Are they a 4th branch of the State or subsidiary to the existing 3 (executive, legislature, law)? Amazingly no-one knows and modern constitutional law textbooks make no mention. Is the spirit of Magna Carta which set in train the restraint of […]
You may not be rich, you may not be “sophisticated” but what kind of Stalinism is it that means The State can order you re what you can and cannot do with your money?!? The entire ethos of “P2P” – the heart and most successful sector of Fintech – was connecting ordinary people, enabling lenders […]
Using “P2P loosely there are over fifty to invest in, all with different standards and approaches. It’s a “fragmented and complex” market. Professionals do much due diligence before investing. How is an individual investor to cope? One strong contender for The Answer is “Aggregators” who do the due diligence, sign you up with said platforms […]
TransferGo‘s slogan is “Send money around the world. Fast. For just 99p” which is a super-cheap flat fee. In terms of price they deal at a variable 2+% to flat 0.45% (above £1000) on top of the mid-market rates with a known price when you deal. They also transfer in under 30 minutes and have a 96% 5* rating on […]
Nationwide is the largest Building Society in the world with 15 million customers, 1 in 4 UK households have an account, which makes over £1bn profit per annum and is entirely owned by its members (customers). If it were a company it would be in the FTSE50. In this wide ranging conversation Tony Prestedge discusses how […]
Nick leads innovation at Barclaycard who in 2017 processed some £250bn of payments. We go back to 1966 and the start of credit cards and continue the narrative through the present into the future. Cards used to be perceived as bits of plastic that we all still recognise. However as FS gets ever more digital […]
Metro Bank are well known for being the first new UK high street bank in some time but that fails to uncover how radically different there concept is. In this episode Chief Commercial Officer Paul Riseborough joins us to describe how different they are and how the integration of physical and digital can lead to […]
On the show this week we have a bumper edition – the future of leveraged trading, online/in-app education, IT Dev, user experience design, new ESMA rules – and much more, Responsible for this fireworks show is Ivan Gowan CEO of multi-award winning capital.com. who have125 staff and over £30m of capital. In the previous episode LFP105 […]
The ultimate disintermediation in FS is for folks to directly buy shares/binds directly and cut out the whole investment management industry as we know it. Even better if it’s cost free to deal. This amazing proposition is becoming real as Freetrade’s core offering gets rolled out to its first users and we are joined today […]
Michael is the author of “The Fintech Financing and Performance Report” and expert on strategy and innovation in financial services. In this show we dive into the third edition of his report and dive into the critical and fascinating topics of how UK Fintechs have funded themselves, what their valuations have done over time and attempting to measure their performance.
We are all used to seeing big picture, top-down reports saying a gazillion dollars has flowed into Fintech since a week ago Tuesday and hence taking it all with a pinch of salt.
However Michael’s “Fintech Financing and Performance” report [available via Clarus Investments] is hardcore stuff being based on data held at UK Companies House (where in passing its essentially illegal to knowingly file incorrect data).
Topics discussed on the show include:
- the many reasons behind the media reporting obsession over financing as opposed to tech/FS components
- Liverpool FC as a conversation piece in Egyptian business circles
- strategy and corporate venturing at Lloyds TSB
- the origins of Michael’s research into Fintech
- the current version covers 39 Fintechs, mainly B2C with four or five in each Fintech subsector
- statistical accuracy vs measuring different phenomena
- data extraction and costs of accessing data at UK Companies House
- timeliness – report and accounts are up to 9mts behind whilst financing has to be much more currently posted
- the average 1st round (Seed) raise is £688k for an average of 26% of the company
- the trend over time is that more recently formed Fintechs raise more money for less percentage of the equity (ie higher valuations); early Fintechs raised comparatively small amounts of money
- the sample has had between 4 and 5 raises each and typically 300 days between financings – ie the average Fintech is fund raising more than once a year
- performance – the average loss in Fintechs after 3yrs is £1.6m
- only one company, Transferwise, has broken even (inc companies reporting in Yr 5, 6, 7)
- pressure on management teams to get nearer break even or float increase over time
- Ratesetter as a case study – for the first five years it was conservatively managed and even broke even in one year; this changed after a big fund raising in 2015 with consequent credit losses further down the track
- the 39 companies in the sample have raised a total of £1.35bn as of end Q1 2018
- based on their last round of funding their total valuation is £4.3bn
- all of the companies in the sample have increased their value per share and the average increase in value is 19x, the median is 6x
- Transferwise on paper has increased 193x, Funding Circle 127x
- the median IRR is 92% – ie the median is that Fintechs in this sample have doubled every year in valuation
- scepticism/caveats around the concept of “valuation” – it’s not (you’ll have to listen) “the value of a company” but the price a deal was done at
- comparisons with options rather than BigCo valuations; VCs after the ones that go mega and expecting some blowouts – so in practice it is more like a lottery ticket which ends up as zero or a substantive amount
- 87% of the companies had Angel investors in their Seed round
- you can’t really do valuation at this stage – how Angels do price them in those circs
- crowdfunding tends to produce slightly higher valuations
- quantum physics distributions and valuing small companies
- the challenge of managing VCs who enter at different rounds as the valuations are rising
- terms around raises and how this qualitative aspect changes the picture
- most of the sample have simple share structures – one share class
- Square (in the US) “ratchet” – the last round of investors were guaranteed more shares if it floated at less than the price they paid; not uncommon for the last round of investors pre-IPO
- benchmarking UK Fintechs versus Square as a benchmark; nine companies in the sample have >5yrs and report revenues; what the comparison of these with Square at the same stage is
- none of the nine companies stack up against Square
- new phenomena are exits (not in the sample) – eg ClearScore (trade sale to Experian) and iZettle (sold to Paypal)
- VCs are starting to look for exits – how this relates to fund life, timings, and rounds
- ICOs en passant as a mechanism
And much much more
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Once upon a time P2P was a simple thing. Now it’s more accurate to see it as online lending and borrowing. Models vary, regulation varies, the most successful platform was started by a bank, direct lenders have wholesale flows in funding retail or corporate outflows, others have just retail funds and others mixed.
Quite a complex state of affairs and in this episode Christian Faes joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about where this all came from, where it is and where it is going.
Lendinvest itself is no longer a P2P in the current definition but an online investment platform which is itself only one of their many channels.
Topics discussed include:
- some grown-up conversations around socially pertinent topics
- reviewing the Nicky Morgan gender attack/PR stunt on Fintech in February; the challenge of numeric target in a world when most stay at home parents are women; gender uneveness of outcome higher in more gender equal societies like Sweden
- the racism of the anti-racists – Heritage England, an £88m taxpayer-funded government body’s apprenticeships for non-white people only (:-!)
- identity politics being weaponised and emphasised by politicians for short term advantage whilst weakening society
- Lendinvest’s challenges of hiring talent and having work visas rejected for talented folks they’d like to hire
- this related to the immigration topic – perhaps ~600k gross and 200-300k net people immigrating per annum; mystification around the clearly poor criteria for decisions (as many immigrants remain unemployed whilst one’s who would have an immediate job can’t get visas?!)
- cricket!
- P2P past – expectations/ hopes/misunderstandings; theses, VC perspectives
- P2P present – brand expansion for the likes of Lendit, AltFi reflecting the excitement moving on elsewhere
- “now we see its not that easy to eat a bank’s lunch”
- Marcus – Goldman Sachs platform in the US having done ~$3bn in its first year
- mortgages moving online
- “Fintech is just Finance”
- “a lot more reality has set across the sector now”
- “when you look at all the platforms out there no two are the same, they all have different quirks”
- Lendinvest are not in regulatory terms a P2P – but rather an online investment platform (the main reason being they pre-fund deals) which is in itself only one of their channels
- Lendinvest’s journey with their platform
- tube ads and mainstream marketing as an expensive way of acquiring retail investors
- how much do retail investors really understand what they are investing in?
- P2Ps as being pure platform, capital-light model
- Lendinvest skin in the game
- the commercial differences in valuation and profitability between the two models
- “originate to distribute” models and the need to scale; winner takes all
- balance sheet lenders
- what is P2P+ here for in 2018?
- borrowers – have a convenient online experience – relevance varying across sectors (eg consumer loan market is saturated with lenders/offers/online/app offers)
- lenders – social aspect of lending to people unintermediated by a bank and so getting a better return
- Lendinvest do one month to 30yr mortgages online for buy-to-let
- relative returns and value across lending verticals
- deciding to invest in P2P+ now rather than in the past
- “it’s not easy for people looking at this now to understand what the nuanced differences are”
- financial literacy
- the value and not of “capital at risk”
- app banks as having had a lead in the past but banks catching up
- commodity businesses across sectors
- valuations in that sector as relating to the sell-out value to a bank as a customer acquisition strategy
- “for us becoming a bank is just giving up”
- challenges of having to turn into a bank
- the Bank of England’s attitude to new banks has changed
- a shakeout in the next few years time into survivors and a graveyard of those who never achieved profitability and ran out of investors
- Lendinvest for borrowers – “a one stop-shop for property entrepreneurs”
- short-term bridging finance – the original and still dominant product; the average mortgage in the UK takes 3mts Lendinvest can do it in 14 days
- development finance
- buy-to-let product
- Lendinvest for lenders/investors
- funds as in fund management managed out of Luxembourg
- online investment platform for sophisticated investors
- mainstream institutional funding lines
- London Stock Exchange retail bond program for retail investors
- explanation of the retail bond structure (£500m program, tranche 1 £50m, tranche 2 £40m so far)
- Lendinvest’s recruitment, opportunities and aims
And much much more
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App Banks are following many courses with many motivations. Who better to guide us through this ever more complicated maze of motivations and destinations than Ricky Knox, Founder and CEO of Tandem Money/Bank and serial entrepreneur sans pareil.
inter alia (alia being things like Insead) Ricky founded GSM Systems in 2003 (where he remains non-exec chairman) which now has partnerships with >170 mobile operators in >70 countries.
In 2005 he founded Small World Services taking it from inception to a Top10 global money transfer businesses with nigh on $5bn annual turnover.
Not content with these laurel leaves he founded the well-known Fintech Azimo in 2012 which does remittances to 198 countries globally, has half a million customers and more than 270,000 cash pick-up locations worldwide.
In 2015 he founded Tandem Bank, which (another inter alia) bought Harrods Bank – which certainly makes it a standout in Fintech as a whole, let alone in the App-Banks sub-sector.
All of which background (and more not included!) makes him ideal to discuss whether the current crop of App Banks are going to turn into real businesses – you know those businesses that are self-supporting and whose revenues are higher than their costs
Topics discussed include:
- dancing
- the genetics of entrepreneurship; Ricky’s grandfather having eg founded the Cincinnatti Bengals (!)
- in the 80’s entrepreneurship was just starting to become respectable
- the early 90’s in strategic consultancy and Silicon Valley
- blockchain cf 90s internet bubble
- the Pareto distribution and does success make success easier? “It definitely gets a lot easier”
- VC-ship being a great education in pattern recognition re good businesses and seeing mistakes other people make
- INSEAD and value of the network there
- GSM systems started with his brother
- Clarity FX, the sale of which led to funds to start other businesses
- the necessity of learning
- when Ricky enters a new industry he tries to find the one, rare, person who can explain how the industry works in 5 minutes
- what keeps a serial entrepreneur going?
- the value of a rest in the middle
- “entrepreneurship is a bloody difficult way to make money”
- “it’s definitely one of those things where you have to enjoy the game”
- the immense value of seeing it all as a game – this as a motivation plus more recently driving social benefit
- Small World remittances, now a $5bn turnover business
- UK retail banking is the largest single industry in the UK with revenues of around £53bn
- banking is not very international – eg with HSBC you have to start from scratch to open a bank account in different countries
- the lack of a truly international bank – cf tech giants where one platform fits all – is a huge opportunity
- in the UK 86% of all current accounts are owned by the Top 5
- not that many bank licences in the UK are actually aimed at the UK consumer
- most “challenger banks” founded ~5yrs ago that successfully built big businesses and IPOed are not challenging at all but rather filling niches that the big banks left behind
- the importance of differentiating between “oldskool banks that happen to have tech” and “tech businesses that happen to do banking”
- Monzo, Starling, Tandem and Atom make up the App Banks with Revolut essentially in the same category (and there are hundreds of pre-paid card providers). cf N26 in Germany (similar to the Monzo model). Revolut is the furthest ahead
- the motivations strategies and directions of all these vary – you’ll have to listen to the show to find those
- Ricky’s analysis of each of the 5 app banks…
- the ratio of developers:total staff as a good measure/proxy for how “tech a bank is” [Tandem is 67/104 compared to an old bank where the ratio is faaar lower]
- “In terms of strategic advantage the mobile interface bit is only a 2-3yrs advantage”
- “in a normal business you have 90% BAU and 10% change; in tech it tends to be more like 90% change and 10% BAU”
- thus tech businesses are able to move much faster
- Revolut has the fastest development cycle having teams of 8 people implementing different products in an agile fashion in parallel
- a discussion of the bottleneck imposed by the small size of a phone screen – how much functionality can actually be fitted into it without it being overloaded. Context dependent/analysis-prompted content
- Tandem can already switch broadband, mobile phones, energy providers to improve your Finances..
- Money-making models –
- Revolut – freemium fee for service
- Monzo advertise “free and always will be free” (Tandem will not be free forever)
- Monzo/Starling’s marketplace model and challenges with that over conflicts of interest as with price comparison sites
- sell-out to a buyer esp if there is no real profitability in sight
- Starling making money from payments services
- “old-fashioned” spread between assets and liabilities – the importance of balance sheet size in this context
- Tandem’s balance sheet compared to Monzo/Starling in this context
- Ricky’s belief that balance sheet or a fee will predominate over marketplace as a revenue source in the future
- the ease of copying anything from feature to strategy
- the juju of how an app bank buys Harrod’s Bank
- insights into Harrod’s Bank and it’s integration into Tandem
- “We essentially raised money and got a bank with it”
- Tandem’s margin arithmetic and importance of the credit card product cf debit card that the other App Banks use
- “The truth is all these businesses will need to move towards balance sheet if they are going to keep a banking licence”
- Tandem as being a step ahead in this game (other than Atom who are not such a tech business per se)
- customer engagement (“The digital Nirvana”) – Revolut 30-35% customers engage on a monthly basis; Monzo 60-70%; Tandem 82%monthly active users. Atom, selling mortgages one might only look at it once a year.
- a shoutout for the new LFP sponsor Capital.com and Blue Motor Finance who have recently been named in the FT1000 as the fastest growing FS company in Europe!
- an outline of the Tandem products that might be of interest
- 0.5% cashback on any expenditures abroad
- Tandem has a marketplace and is always looking for partners as well as new customers
And much much more
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An Insuretch insider said to me “if there is one firm that is doing something truly radical in insurance its Laka”. Aha. So here we are – Laka on the LFP. Laka are re-slicing and dicing the paradigm that led to so much in lending/borrowing but has never really got out of the hanger in insurance – P2P. This despite the fact that the historic roots of insurance – and its current core model – rely on pooling risks.
Toby joins us today to revisit P2P insurance ab initio and to tell us how Laka are reinterpreting the paradigm to come up with some notable twists – not least of which if there are no claims in your pool in a given month you pay nothing. Oh and you don’t pay up-front either. Nor will you pay more than conventional insurance. And there are more differences as we hear in the show.
Sound interesting? I thought so.
Topics discussed include:
- Krav Maga and martial arts training
- the great value of running away no matter what level you are at
- Toby’s career journey from summer interning in insurance to moving on and corporate finance/studying around the world to Laka
- Laka is a Hawaiian Goddess of Prosperity and Hula Hoop dancing
- Chinese ways/culture around being a student – studying in Singapore
- the first Insuretech P2Ps were formed 2010/2011
- “We have moved on quite a bit since then, the regulator is more open, more engaged right now, the insurers are opening up, Insuretech has become A Thing which has led to money, talent resources flowing in.”
- the supportive surround/ecosystem in general – eg Anthemis fellowship, Startupbootcamp, FCA sandbox
- “if you look hard enough you can get what you need”
- P2P – cf )P2P-lending/borrowing versus P2P-insurance
- P2P insurance a group of people with something in common forming a pool, more often than not with an underlying insurer (to cover larger losses)
- which is remarkably similar to the conventional insurer-reinsurer market
- many variations on the model
- the importance of the social control element
- insurers have to pay out but would rather not pay out – Terms and Conditions being complex and there being an asymmetry of power when there is a claim “the law is strong on the weak and weak on the strong”
- mis-incentives and the PR cost of paying for over-playing the “unreasonable insurer” game
- conventional insurers do not like paying claims; conversely Laka only take a fee when there is a claim
- with Laka you only pay in months where the pool had a claim
- “cycling is a cyclical product” {groans}
- your stop loss, your worse price is around market rate – so any good experience of low claims will reduce this total cost of insurance
- credit risk by not taking insurance premia up-front and management thereof
- behavioural economics – on “emotional high-value assets” such as racing bikes folks will tend not to default compared to say on a washing machine
- the emphasis of community cohesion/accountability
- slicing and dicing the insurance deal in a different way
- regulatory challenges when you approach them with neither a square or a circle
- the choice between being a membership club away from regulation or being a regulated entity – pros and cons
- the importance of human beings being tribal animals
- sub-groups within a gross group – slicing up cyclists for example
- connecting people, rating by game-ification
- moving away from “postcode pricing”
- Laka are rolling out new products in the summer
- the thriving ecosystem around cycling and spreading faster of referrals in such tribes
And much much more
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Time flies when you are enjoying ourselves and for todays special celebration we have one taboo topic and one private topic so ideally suited to a solo act. For the main course we get a peep into my upcoming book on the Fintech Board – or more broadly the development of a SmallCo Board as it matures. A topic I have been researching for many months with over three dozen folks who are experts on this topic including over two dozen leading UK Fintech CEOs.
For the starter course we have a dive into a February attempt by a UK politician – largely successful to bully some UK Fintechs into having gender quotas for their boards. Without a law, a regulation, just pure PR pressure and bullying. A shocking incident that – unsurprisingly virtually every one of the dozen or so (pretty random) London Fintechs kept its head well below the parapet on and just went along with.
Short notes and especially links:
- “British Government refuses to say whether proclaiming divinity of Christ is a hate crime” – Catholic Herald
- “Fintech firms among those pressed on gender equality charter” – AltFi article
- “Banks [MB & Fintechs] given until Friday to detail commitments to Women in Finance Charter” Daily Mail Article
- some highlights from the last four years
- Stephen Pinker’s new book: “Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress”
- Christian Faes’ Tweet on Nicky Morgan’s PR pushing of a Gender Charter in FS/Fintech
- My comment on the altFi article link:
- 1) Putting aside the PR stunt angle of “catching firms out” what is this constitutionally? It is not a law debated and passed by parliament. It is not a regulation. But woe betide you if you dont conform. This is plain statist/political bullying.
- 2) Interestingly there are no equivalent “initiatives” in sectors dominated by women [primary school teaching, therapy et al] asking them to have targets for men. How is this “gender balanced”?
- 3) All this gender-ism we are seeing totally ignores peoples’ free will and preferences when choosing career (hence uneven outcomes as above). In the UK in A level computer science 90% of sitters were boys, 10% girls.
- 4) Pressuring Fintechs to enforce social engineering (without a debate in parliament) can only deteriorate the meritocracy that is entirely the case in every Fintech I have ever met – they need to succeed so much they hire whatever person is best for the job – regardless of gender/ethnicity/whatever – if penguins were the best coders there would seriously be a rush on London zoo to get that competitive edge.
- 5) this has become such a hot potato (hysteria started post last US election) that folks refuse to even mention it on the podcast – even in passing. What kind of a world do we live in when folks don’t feel free to have and to share their opinion?
- 6) as has been shown by research (which, being a father of daughters, I keep an eye on) being constantly exposed to the narrative that the world is against you and that you need affirmative action to survive in it is deleterious to girls’/young womens’ mental health which is already arguably worse than it ever has been across all of history (suicides in young people having tripled in 30yrs). Identity politics is absolutely not cost-free, consequence-free.
- animus and anima possession
- Jordan Peterson’s viral interview with Cathy Newman on YouTube
- Police force kicks out all-male choir after it refuses to accept female singers
- Christina Hoff Summers “The War Against Boys: How Misguided Policies Are Harming Our Young Men”, “Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women” [¬ mentioned in the podcast but a relevant article from 2014] “Wage Gap Myth Exposed – By Feminists”
- Warren Farrell “The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It”
- Jonathan Pie YouTube The Wage Gap
- [not mentioned in the podcast but a relevant article] “Wage Gap Myth Exposed – By Feminists”
- Niall Ferguson “White Men Are Bad?”
- Microsoft To Ban ‘Offensive Language’ And Monitor Your Private Account
- several chapters from my upcoming book on Fintech Boards – you’ll have to listen or buy the book later in the year
And much much more
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Next to no new Fintechs, and no Insuretechs see themselves as building the “full stack”. Rather for many, once one has a product the secret is successful partnering.
Jimmy Williams, CEO of Urban Jungle, an Insuretech for the renting generation has developed a succinct a methodology for partnering success and shares it on this show.
Urban Jungle also have some pretty heavy-hitting Fintech Grande Cheeses backing them so sound like they are onto something good.
Topics discussed on the show include:
- how people discover particular podcasts
- the benefits of oldskool media
- driving from London to Capetown
- rescuing 7 vicars at night in Uganda
- making helpful friends early on in one’s career
- founders of early Fintechs vs later Fintechs
- Insurance is the most expensive keyword on Google – $54 per click :-O
- you can’t give away insurance for free due to regulation
- two flavours of advice (a) what startups can do that incumbents can’t, (b) golden rules that apply to all companies
- *1. MOVE QUICKLY*
- Incumbent – eg 3 month internal approval process
- important to refactor underlying process before one digitises; boil it down until a junior person can implement in an afternoon
- Urban Jungle – get partners testing things with customers within a week; minimise cost of saying ‘yes
- *2. BE OPEN TO PARTNER NEEDS*
- need to know what you will do and what you won’t – if you do everything then its more like consultancy than having a product
- *3. BE DEVELOPER FRIENDLY*
- APIs etc
- *4. BE AVAILABLE*
- need to provide human bandwidth at your end to fix problems when they arise – as they will
- invest enough in the partnership to make it work..
- *5. COMMERCIALLY AWARE*
- different market have different requirements, priorities
- “its much more successful when we are important to our partner”
- *6. SHARE LEARNING*
- what has worked well, what has not, each time round one starts with a larger body of experience
- a shoutout for which kind of customer and partner Urban Jungle is looking for right now
And much much more
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