Rebank: Banking the Future: Recent Episodes
Will Beeson
Financial innovation, technology advances and social changes are sending shockwaves through the financial services industry.
In an age of increasingly rapid change, important questions, debates and developments are unfolding before our eyes. These ideas, and the choices we make in response to them, will shape our future.
Technology is vastly powerful, creating new industries in response to – or sometimes in anticipation of – changing customer expectations.
Rebank explores the trends, developments and challenges that define our age and shape the future role of money, banking and financial services.
In this episode, we’re joined by Luke Voiles, the CEO of Pipe — an embedded finance platform offering credit, cards, and other financial products to a range of B2B2B partners.
Founded as a revenue-based financing business, Pipe pivoted into a platform business under Luke’s directly when he took the reigns in 2023.
Prior to joining Pipe, Luke was the GM of Banking at Square and previously head of QuickBooks Capital, Intuit’s SMB lending offering.
Luke has nearly 10 years of embedded finance experience, especially in lending, and has shaped Pipe’s offering based on his extensive learnings.
In this conversation, Luke and I discuss what makes a good embedded finance offering, the opportunities and challenges in credit, including the economics, cyclicality and risk management considerations, Pipe’s distribution strategy, scaling a fintech platform business internationally and much more.
Mark Garabedian is the Director of Digital Assets and Tokenization at Wellington, a leading US-based, global asset manager with approximately $1.3 trillion in AUM.
Mark has wide ranging experience in trading and financial markets and brings a highly informed perspective to the topic of financial market innovation through digital assets and blockchain. I find Mark’s views to be particularly valuable, because they skew heavily toward the practical, as opposed to the theoretical, informed by decades of hands-on markets experience.
In this conversation, Mark and Will Beeson discuss the transformational benefits of digital assets and tokenization in investments and markets, step function improvements DeFi has delivered and the implications for traditional finance, the specific projects Mark and Wellington are working on today, the path that Wellington, a nearly 100-year-old asset manager, has taken so far on its digital asset journey, and much more.
Alex Gluchowski is the co-inventor of ZKsync and co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs. ZKsync is an advanced Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain network offering privacy and scalability using zk proofs.
In this conversation, Alex and Will Beeson discuss the benefits of zk technology for financial use cases, architectural considerations in building blockchain networks for complex industries like finance, optimal infrastructure for tokenized financial assets and workflows, ZKsync’s trustless network + shared liquidity vision and more.
Kevin Miao is one of the most insightful practitioners at the intersection of traditional and on-chain finance.
Until recently, Kevin was General Partner of BlockTower Credit, a $1.9 billion AUM private credit fund that leveraged public blockchains, stablecoins, and tokenization to maximize capital efficiency.
Prior to BlockTower, Kevin managed a Structured Credit trading desk at Citigroup, focusing on consumer credit, esoterics, and distressed crisis-era securitizations.
Currently, Kevin leads growth at Steakhouse Financial, a DeFi-native advisory and technology business that helps manage the biggest DAOs in web3.
In this conversation, Kevin and I explore the theory and practice of running an on-chain credit fund, the benefits and challenges versus the traditional model, current limitations in on-chain investment management, and potential paths to upgrading finance with blockchain rails.
Steven Goldfeder is the Co-Founder and CEO of Offchain Labs, the company behind Arbitrum, one of the leading blockchains.
Arbitrum’s flagship blockchain, Arbitrum One, is a leading Ethereum L2 in terms of TVL and liquidity and supports applications across DeFi, DePIN, AI, gaming, RWAs and other verticals.
In this conversation, Steven and I discuss Arbitrum’s origins, the use cases that have driven its success so far, and expectations for Arbitrum’s role in the transition of regulated financial activity onto blockchain rails.
Laszlo Szabo is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kiln, a staking infrastructure provider backed by 1kx, Crypto.com, Wintermute, GSR, Kraken Ventures, Consensys and others. Diana Biggs is a partner at 1kx, a crypto VC that has led rounds in companies including Arweave, Pudgy Penguins, Rarible, Wallet Connect and many more.
In this conversation, Laszlo, Diana and Will Beeson break down the staking opportunity and Kiln’s view of the space and also use it as a jumping off point to explore 1kx’s investment strategy.
Specifically, we discuss staking as a crypto primitive, its potential to supercharge consumer and institutional crypto use cases, the investment thesis behind staking infrastructure, technical considerations and more.
Luca Prosperi is the founder and CEO of M^0, a stablecoin issuance protocol reimagining how money is created.
We first connected with Luca in May 2023, shortly after M^0’s seed round. Fast forward a year, and the company has now raised $60 million, launched on mainnet and facilitated the issuance of over $40 million in stablecoins with its initial network participant.
In this conversation, Luca and Will Beeson discuss his vision for a new money creation paradigm, institutional product/market fit in stablecoins, why crypto finance is different from blockchain for banks, overcoming the cold start problem in stablecoin distribution and network creation, the direct parallels between traditional finance and the use cases M^0 is building and more.
Nick van Eck is the co-founder and CEO of Agora, a US-based stablecoin issuer backed by Dragonfly, General Catalyst, Galaxy, Consensys, Wintermute, Flowdesk, Kraken Ventures and more.
Agora’s strategy is to build distribution through B2B partners via a revenue sharing model, in which all parties that contribute to Agora’s stablecoins’ success share in the upside.
Prior to founding Agora, Nick worked at General Catalyst, a leading Venture Capital firm.
Nick’s grandfather started VanEck Global, a US ETF and mutual fund manager, in 1955, which informed much of Nick’s thinking about markets and the economy. Today, VanEck Global manages $100 billion across a range of products, including recently launched Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.
In this conversation, Nick and I discuss crypto as an asset class and parallels to gold and other investments, the current state of the stablecoin industry and its future trajectory, Agora’s thesis vis-à-vis incumbent stablecoin issuers like Circle and Tether, Agora’s business model and the details of its go-to-market, and much more.
Lex Sokolin is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Generative Ventures, a crypto and AI focused venture firm.
Lex also publishes research and analysis at Fintech Blueprint, one of the best fintech, crypto and emerging tech newsletters out there.
In this conversation, Lex and I discuss his thesis at Generative Ventures, which invests in the financial infrastructure powering the machine economy.
Lex is a deep thinker focused on the leading edges of what’s currently possible. We're lucky to welcome him back on the podcast.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.
Bhanu Kohli is the co-founder and CEO of Layer2 Financial, a B2B payments company leveraging stablecoins for faster, cheaper payment processing.
Mike Giampapa is General Partner of Galaxy Ventures, focusing on the intersection of crypto and financial services, security & DeFi applications, and developer tooling.
In this conversation, Bhanu, Mike and Will Beeson discuss real economy applications of stablecoins, including payments. We compare Layer2’s performance, economics and business model with traditional payments companies and look at potential applications for stablecoins in financial markets more broadly. This conversation was a fantastic look at a rapidly scaling, real-world use case for crypto and the disruptive potential of blockchain as financial infrastructure.
Edward Woodford is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zero Hash, a B2B technology and compliance platform that allows companies to embed crypto and stablecoins with a few lines of code and no regulatory overhead.
Zero Hash has raised $170 million from investors including Bain Capital, Nyca Partners and Point72, and supports companies like Stripe, MoonPay, Interactive Brokers, Franklin Templeton and many others.
In this conversation, Edward and Will Beeson discuss the most interesting crypto and stablecoin market opportunities in 2024, building digital asset infrastructure, landing blue chip clients, closed vs. open-source in crypto, the leadership ethos that has allowed the company to grow and thrive in a volatile market and more.
Regan Bozman is co-founder of Lattice Capital, a crypto-focused VC firm, and an expert in token launches and secondary trading dynamics.
Lattice manages $80m across two funds, with a focus on early-stage crypto projects. Prior to founding Lattice, Regan and his partner Mike Zajko worked at CoinList, a leading platform for new token launches operating since 2017.
In this conversation, Regan and Will Beeson discuss the current state of retail crypto trading, various interpretations of memecoin energy, lessons for building community with airdrops, tension between VCs and retail token investors, managing a venture fund in a narrative versus fundamentals driven market, the rationale for LP allocation to crypto and more.
Rob Hadick is a General Partner at Dragonfly, a $2.5bn crypto venture fund. Dragonfly’s portfolio is a who’s who of leading crypto projects including Anchorage, Ava Labs, Blur, DYDX, Lido, MakerDAO, Matter Labs, NEAR, Polygon, Starkware and many, many more.
In this conversation, Rob and Will Beeson discuss the recent change in tone in Washington regarding crypto, the implications for the industry as crypto goes mainstream, the next 2-3 years of stablecoin market development, investing in CeFi vs. DeFi, the state of the current crypto VC market, investment dynamics as a top 5 crypto fund by AUM and more.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Rob Hadick.
Anil Hansjee is a General Partner at Fabric, a UK-based blockchain VC.
Prior to joining Fabric, Anil ran Corporate Development EMEA at Google and then led PayPal Ventures in the region. He has tremendous experience investing in fintech and payments at the venture, strategic and angel level.
In this conversation, we dive deep into payments, covering the existing legacy stack, initial waves of fintech innovation and more recent blockchain and stablecoin-based approaches to improving global commerce.
Anil is incredibly experienced, thoughtful and articulate, which made for a fantastic conversation.
Sunny Parikh is co-founder and Partner at Reflexive Capital, a fundamentals-driven investment firm focused on digital assets across two core strategies: Liquid Trading and Venture Investing. Sunny was previously with Point72, and his partners at Reflexive worked at Soros Fund Management, Thiel Macro and Goldman Sachs.
In this conversation, Sunny and Will Beeson discuss Reflexive’s approach to applying ecosystem to web3 venture, how liquid token and venture strategies can be complementary, valuations in early-stage web3, investing in equity versus token businesses and more.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Sunny Parikh.
Disclaimer: The information provided here is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation to buy, or a recommendation for any security. Nor shall it be viewed as an offer to provide investment or advisory services by Reflexive in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, purchase or sale would be considered unlawful, or be construed as investment or financial advice on any subject matter. While care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information, Reflexive does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of information herein or that it will be current at all times. Please see Reflexive for more details.
Jannick Malling is the co-founder and Co-CEO of the investing platform Public.com. Public has raised more than $300M from investors including Accel, Greycroft, Lakestar, and Tiger Global, as well as celebrities like Will Smith, The Chainsmokers, JJ Watt and Maria Sharapova.
In Public’s short life, Jannick and the company have experienced the COVID market crash, GameStop, the 2021-22 crypto meltdown and rapid interest rate hikes, all while building a community-led finance app for engaged retail investors.
In this conversation, Jannick and I discuss building a community-led business, fans versus users, counterintuitive learnings about retail investor psychology, the trajectory of retail trading activity, running a company that ships product fast and more.
Christian Faes is the founder of Faes & Co, a lending business builder and F2 Finance, a US bridging lender writing loans since 2023.
Prior to starting Faes & Co, Christian founded, ran and ultimately IPOed LendInvest, a UK mortgage lending fintech. Founded in 2008, LendInvest is an original fintech, having lent more than GBP 6 billion to individuals and property developers to date.
In this conversation, we dive pretty deep into the bridge loan a.k.a. short-term mortgage market, the role of technology in lending businesses, Christian’s goal of building a business in the US, the differences between the US, UK, Irish and Australian markets, all countries in which Christian has real estate lending experience, the economics of different types of fintech lenders and more.
Dan Kimerling is Founder and Managing Partner at Deciens, an early-stage fintech VC and investor in Chipper Cash, Treasury Prime and many others.
Prior to starting Deciens, Dan co-founded Standard Treasury and served as its CEO until its acquisition by Silicon Valley Bank. Standard Treasury was one of the earliest players in what has evolved to become the Banking-as-a-Service space. The company was backed by YCombinator, Andreessen Horowitz, and Index Ventures. After the acquisition, Dan became responsible for API Banking, Open Platform, and Global Research at SVB.
In this conversation, Dan and I discuss the strategy of concentrated bets, why he doesn’t want to see every deal, what’s next in startup funding, value accrual in AI and more.
Amias Gerety is a partner at QED with a specific focus on infrastructure, insurtech and payments.
Prior to QED, Amias served as the President’s nominee and as Acting Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. In that role, he was the lead advisor to the Secretary on policies affecting financial institutions, fighting to restore order during the global financial crisis and impacting policy in the years that followed. Amias is a recipient of the Alexander Hamilton award, the Treasury’s highest honor.
In this conversation, Amias and I discuss a few counterintuitive views on venture capital, thematic vs. opportunistic early stage investing, opportunities in payments and more.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Amias Gerety.
Luca Prosperi is the co-founder and CEO of M^ZERO LABS_, a team building a new backend for the banking system.
Luca is a deep thinking analyst, economist and builder, with a background in institutional finance, alternative and credit investments and more recently DeFi lending and governance. Luca publishes analysis on Dirt Roads, a must read for anyone thinking about the construct and evolution of money and associated topics.
M^ZERO sprang into life recently with the announcement of a $22.5m seed round from investors including Pantera. AirTree, ParaFi, Mouro and Earlybird. The team is building decentralized infrastructure with the vision of ultimately replacing the commercial banking backend, starting with a better stablecoin.
In this conversation, Luca and I discuss the inspiration and vision for M^ZERO, Luca’s learnings from his time at MakerDAO, governance considerations for decentralized institutional infrastructure, the shortcomings of existing stablecoins and his team’s proposed approach, M^ZERO with respect to the current banking industry turmoil and more.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Luca Prosperi.
Sheel Mohnot is Co-Founder and General Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures, an early-stage fintech VC currently investing out of its $225m second fund. Sheel is a former founder, having built a tech-first card processor way back in 2010 which was quickly acquired by Groupon. Since 2014, Sheel has been angel investing and, as of 2016, investing full-time. Sheel is an incredible Twitter follow and constant source of information, insight and entertainment. In this conversation, we discuss how fintech VC has changed over the last few years, the state of the early-stage market today, what separates elite seed funds from others, building social capital as an investor, the investment areas Sheel is currently focused on and more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Sheel Mohnot.
Matt Harris is an entrepreneur and investor and the founder of Bloom Credit, an API platform for credit data access and analysis. Currently, Matt is focused on investing and advising, working with VC-backed founders and advising companies in the credit space. Among other things, Matt is an advisor to Commerce Ventures, writing scout checks and helping the fund make fintech investments. Matt is also an active angel, having invested in 10+ fintech companies including TrueAccord, Karat and HM Bradley and a number of others. In this conversation, we discuss the level of understanding among VCs and founders of the credit business, the inputs to effective underwriting, how to build a great credit business, emerging opportunities like embedded credit and more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Matt Harris.
Stephane Lintner is Co-Founder & CEO of Jiko, a new take on the money storage and transaction layer in banking, a.k.a. checking accounts and cash management. Jiko was founded in 2016 with the mission of providing consumers and businesses with direct access to spendable T-Bills, combining all the benefits of checking accounts with the safety and, depending on the economic cycle, yield of treasuries. Jiko has raised $89m according to Crunchbase, including $40m in October. Jiko offers accounts directly to consumers via an app and to corporates and platforms via API. Jiko owns and operates an OCC-chartered national bank, which it acquired in 2020, and a registered broker-dealer. In this conversation, Stephane and I discuss Jiko’s concept and ultimate vision, the implications for the existing banking model, Jiko’s successful bank acquisition, the relationship with adjacencies like stablecoins and CBDCs, and more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Stephane Lintner
Matt Brown is a venture capitalist and Partner at Matrix Partners. Matt is a founder and operator turned investor, having started two software companies, both backed by Matrix, and then led product for AfterPay in the US in the lead-up to its acquisition by Square, now Block. Matt’s second company, Bonsai, is a vertical SaaS company for micro businesses which evolved from a pure software company into a fintech through the incorporation of financial products, before embedded finance was a household term. Matt is strategic and thoughtful, writing regularly on fintech market dynamics, with a specific focus on payments, credit and vertical SaaS. In this conversation, we discuss Matt’s approach to seed and A-stage investing, BNPL and the implications for digital commerce more broadly, Matt's analysis of payments market dynamics, opportunities for early-stage fintechs in an increasingly saturated market and more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Matt Brown.
Chris Dean is the co-founder & CEO of Treasury Prime, a leading US banking-as-a-service platform fresh off a $40m Series C raise. Treasury Prime is a software company that connects sponsor banks to customer facing fintechs and by doing so powers bank accounts, cards and money movement. Unlike others in the banking-as-a-service space, Treasury Prime describes itself as building a network of interoperable sponsor banks and customer-facing fintechs in a ground-up approach to Open Banking in the US. In this conversation, Chris and Will Beeson discuss the state of the banking-as-a-service industry, Treasury Prime’s approach compared to other software-based BaaS companies and tech-enabled sponsor banks themselves, the economics of banking-as-a-service, the evolving regulatory environment and more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Chris Dean.
Jared Franklin is an investor at Costanoa Ventures. Costanoa is a seed-stage VC focused on fintech, data and developer infrastructure, applied AI and security, specifically B2B. The firm has $1.5b under management across seed and growth funds, including its $225m fourth seed fund. Prior to joining Costanoa, Jared worked in product across fintech and crypto for BillMeLater, PayPal and BlockFi. In this conversation, Jared and I discuss his experience transitioning from operating to investing, the learning curve as a new investor, Costanoa’s approach to identifying and supporting companies at the seed stage, and 7 investment themes Jared is focused on in 2023.
I’m joined by fintech and web3 luminary Lex Sokolin, Head Economist at ConsenSys and author of the Fintech Blueprint, for a discussion about the embedded finance value chain. As listeners know, this is a topic of great interested to me, and I was happy to have the opportunity to dig into it with Lex in a conversation that we’re releasing through both of our platforms. In this conversation, Lex and I take stock of the BaaS and embedded finance space in a moment of market dislocation to see what it reveals about what works, what doesn’t and where the next opportunities are. If you don’t already subscribe to the Fintech Blueprint, I’d highly encourage you to do so for the best analysis in the industry. For an example of their content, check out the post for this episode on rebank.cc. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.
Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) has been the subject of much excitement in fintech over the past few years, together with the related but more general concept of embedded finance.
It powers companies like Chime, Robinhood and Coinbase and can include products like checking, savings, debit cards, credit cards, lending and more.
In this episode, we read an essay analyzing the BaaS value chain, which we argue is not currently in equilibrium and predict will evolve.
Read the article here: https://rebank.cc/the-baas-value-chain-is-broken/
Rex Salisbury is the Founder of Cambrian and GP of Cambrian Ventures. Rex is a key figure in the Fintech ecosystem, having started Cambrian as a product meetup in 2015 and ultimately growing it into a community of 15,000 newsletter subscribers, 5,000 meetup members, 1,300 founders and now an early-stage venture fund. Along the way, Rex spent two years at a16z as a partner on the Fintech team, backing companies including Deel and Tally, according to TechCrunch. Though only having just closed the fund, Rex has already made five investments, including in Keep Financial, a bonus management platform started by Kabbage founders Rob Frohwein and Kathryn Petralia. In this conversation, we discuss Rex’s approach to fundraising as a solo GP and factors that contributed to his success, raising and deploying a fund in the current market environment, Cambrian’s investment and value creation strategy and much more. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Rex Salisbury.
Marieke Flament is CEO of the NEAR Foundation. NEAR is an emerging layer 1 blockchain specifically optimized for usability, along with speed and security. NEAR was founded in 2018 to improve on aspects of layer 1s then in existence. In its short history, NEAR has built an extremely strong institutional backing and vibrant developer community. NEAR has raised an impressive $530m+, according to Crunchbase, from an incredible list of investors including Tiger Global, FTX Ventures, Jump, Alameda, a16z and many more As CEO of the NEAR Foundation, Marieke is responsible for ecosystem development across developers, entrepreneurs, investors and users. In this conversation, Marieke and I discuss competition among L1s, NEARs efforts to establish a foothold as a newer protocol, developer and investor motivations in selecting blockchain infrastructure, opportunities and potential risks deriving from NEAR’s institutional investor base, prevailing web3 developer and entrepreneur sentiment given current market conditions, balancing growth and community stewardship as an emerging L1 and much more. If you’re interested in this space and want to go deeper, we recently published a deep dive analysis of NEAR, available to Premium Rebank subscribers at rebank.cc. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Marieke Flament.
Giuseppe Stuto is Managing Partner of 186 Ventures, a $37m seed fund launched in late-2021. 186 has made 10 investments since inception, following on from over two dozen angel investments Giuseppe and his partner Julian made over the past few years. Across angel and seed investments, Giuseppe and 186 have invested in UiPath, Chainalysis, Ponto and dozens more. Prior to starting 186 Ventures, Giuseppe founded Fam, a group video app that was acquired by DraftKings. In this conversation, Giuseppe and I discuss seed investing in a bear market, differentiating as a seed investor in a competitive space and themes 186 is currently focused on.
It’s great to be back after taking nearly a year off from regular content to build and launch BELLA. The break wasn’t really planned, but between launching the business, having a son and moving to LA all while dodging COVID, it was unavoidable. But just because we weren't publishing, doesn’t mean we weren’t going deep on fintech. The team and I built and launched BELLA in less than twelve months, and we’re aggressively scaling it now. In the background, I've continued to trade views and break down strategy with the world’s leading founders and investors. Over the next few weeks, we’ll share some of the most topical discussions we’ve had over the past year, and we’re also working on new content that you’ll start to hear and see. Right now, we’re especially interested in embedded finance, DeFi, M&A, new takes on traditional consumer finance products, payments, e-commerce, digital investments and, as always, digital banking. We’re always looking to talk to great people in those areas, so please shoot recommendations our way. We’re still figuring out the podcast schedule, which we expect to be less frequent than weekly. We’ll be increasing focus on our newsletter, especially our premium content. Sign up at bankingthefuture.com/subscribe. In today’s episode, we’re joined by Tilman Ehrbeck, Managing Partner at Flourish Ventures, a venture firm focused on improving the financial health and prosperity of people around the world. Flourish invests in segments including Challenger Banks, consumer and SME lending, personal finance, data analytics, insurance and financial infrastructure in countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Flourish has invested in companies including Chime, Aspiration, Tandem, Grab Finance and more. I find Tilman to be extremely thoughtful and a great communicator, and he’s doing hugely important work. This conversation helped me better understand how impact-oriented VCs like Flourish balance purpose with financial returns in the highly competitive venture space. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Tilman Ehrbeck.
Today, we’re joined by Shamir Karkal, co-founder of Simple, the first digital bank in the US, and now co-founder of Sila.
Founded in 2009, Simple was the original digital bank, conceived and built to give people more control over their money. After a few successful years, Simple was acquired by BBVA for $117m, under whose ownership it operated until early-2021, when it was shut down.
Simple was loved by its users and mourned following it’s closing, in what was a sad moment for fintech.
Today’s breed of digital banks, including Chime, Varo, Current and others, inherited a lot from Simple, who pioneered the space. However, few of Simple’s most popular features have been replicated by other players.
In recent years, we’ve seen huge user growth achieved by fintechs offering banking to previously underserved customers, especially those living paycheck to paycheck. Nonetheless, Simple leaves a powerful legacy, and many lessons learned, for the entire fintech industry.
In this conversation, we go deep on what worked and what didn’t for Simple, why it never hit escape velocity, why its users loved it so much and how Shamir and his co-founder Josh engineered life changing payouts for their employees through the BBVA acquisition.
We also discuss Shamir’s current company, Sila, which is building programmable money for the next generation of fintech companies.
For all of our past episodes, and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Shamir Karkal.
Today, we’re joined by Viktor Nebehaj, Co-Founder of Freetrade, a free stock trading platform in the UK.
Founded in 2016 and launched to the public in 2018, Freetrade has grown to over 500,000 users in just over two years in the UK alone. For the full backstory, check out our episode with Founder Adam Dodds from February 2019, available at bankingthefuture.com.
In this conversation, Viktor takes us behind the scenes at Freetrade over the past few weeks, during the Reddit-fueled runups in Gamestop, AMC and others, as the company struggled with partner-imposed trading halts and FX throttles. We also discuss payment for order flow, margin lending, rapid user growth and Viktor’s views on the good, bad and ugly of free stock trading.
If it seems like I care deeply about this subject, it’s because I do. Investing is one of the most important things people can do to support their long-term financial well-being, but the industry is characterized by unnecessary complexity, conflicts of interest and information asymmetry that can make it hard for people to get the best outcomes. Companies like Freetrade, Robinhood and others have a tremendous opportunity to break up entrenched industry dynamics and bring access, education and tools to the masses now that they're mainstream in their respective home countries.
Welcome to our much anticipated first episode of 2021, and what a start to the year it has been. Last week was a trainwreck as Gamestop, which was initially bid up by Redditers in an attempt to punish Wall Street, crashed back to earth when the very free brokerage platforms that purport to democratize investing for the 99% shut off trading in the most active stocks, benefitting hedge funds at the expense of retail investors. As wild as the events of the week were, they are merely a symptom of something much deeper: latent hatred for Wall Street and the traditional financial system that repeatedly and seemly unfairly rewards a small number of people at the top. Precisely because of this feeling that the system is broken and doesn’t serve the people, fintech is flying. Robinhood, Chime, Cash App, Coinbase, Affirm and Klarna have built insane user bases, because they are catering to huge swaths of Americans left behind by the incumbent industry. These companies are the future of retail finance in America for sure. What will their impact be? I’m joined by Lex Sokolin to discuss these topics. Check out all of Lex’s work at fintechblueprint.com For all of our past episodes, and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com. Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.
Today, is a special episode, of great personal importance to me.
I have been learning and studying and training in fintech for years, both as a founder and through this podcast, where I’m able to have conversations with the most visionary and impactful founders, CEOs and VCs in the world of fintech.
For the past year, I’ve been channeling all of this experience and insight into a new company, called BELLA, that is leading with digital banking in an effort to create positive change in the world.
BELLA launched in the US on November 30th, and everything has been a blur since then. Taking a new consumer company into the world for the first time has to be one of the most thrilling experiences that exists.
In today’s conversation, I’m joined by Angelo D’Alessandro, CEO of BELLA and my co-founder, but more importantly close friend and mentor, to talk about what we’re building.
We cover our backstory, Angelo’s approach to building teams and brands, BELLA’s vision and offering, the influence of Rob LoCascio and LivePerson, the state of the world in 2020 and the implications for startups and brands going forward and more.
For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Angelo D'Alessandro.
Andrei Cherny is the Co-Founder and CEO of Aspiration, a socially conscious bank challenging the traditional banking industry ethos.
Prior to founding Aspiration, Andrei worked as a speechwriter for Bill Clinton, authored books on public policy and war history, served as Assistant Arizona State Attorney General, held senior positions at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Center for American Progress, and more.
In 2013, Andrei co-founded Aspiration, a socially conscious banking and investments provider that lets users set their own fees.
Aspiration has raised $200 million in funding and attracted over 1.5 million users.
In this conversation, Andrei and I discuss the factors that have contributed to Aspiration’s success, the takeaways for the industry, the company’s future plans, and more.
To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Andrei Cherny.
Today, regular contributor Lex Sokolin and I are joined by Anne Boden, Founder and CEO of Starling Bank, one of the original wave of app-only digital banks in the UK.
Starling has built a diversified bank and achieved profitability for the first time in October, a rarity for digital banks.
Originally a retail-only offering, Starling has built out business banking and banking-as-a-service offerings and now serves a wide varied of customers.
In this conversation, Anne, Lex and I discuss Starling’s path to profitability, lessons for other digital banks, marketing and customer acquisition, and Anne’s new book on Starling’s first seven years.
For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Anne Boden.
Ali Niknam is the founder and CEO of bunq, a fully licensed digital bank based in the Netherlands and available in 30 countries across Europe.
Prior to starting buns, Ali founded TransIP, the largest domain name and web hosting provider of the Netherlands.
Ali is the sole investor in bunq, having invested €80m in the company to date.
As of July 2020, the bank had €650 million of user deposits.
In this conversation, Ali and I discuss the economics of digital banking, the decisions bunq has made around economic sustainability and scale, takeaways for the broader digital banking industry and more.
To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ali Niknam.
Pierpaolo Barbieri is the Founder & CEO of Ualá, an Argentinian consumer fintech taking South America by storm.
Founded just three years ago, Ualá has already amassed more than two million customers in its native Argentina and recently expnanded to nearby Mexico.
Unlike consumer banking offerings in many developed markets, which compete with incumbent banks, Ualá’s main competitor is cash in markets in which as many as half of adults are unbanked.
Ualá has raised just under $200 million since launch, from leading investors including Soros, Point72, Goldman Sachs, Tencent and SoftBank.
As if building the modern financial infrastructure for Latin America weren’t enough, Pierpaolo is a Harvard and Cambridge educated Historian and Economist, published author, macroeconomic advisor and regular contributor to publications including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and more.
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Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Pierpaolo Barbieri.
Ryan Gilbert is General Partner at Propel Venture Partners, a Bay Area venture capital firm backed by BBVA. He is also as of very recently CEO of Olympus Acquisition Corp, a $750 million SPAC that listed on the Nasdaq in August.
In this conversation, we look at why SPACs are coming back in fashion, pros and cons of SPACs versus traditional fundraising and listing routes, Ryan’s plans for the future of Olympus and more.
To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Ryan Gilbert.
We’re joined by a pair of fintech analysts, Max Friedrich of ARK Invest and Lex Sokolin of ConsenSys, to break down Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO.
Ant, a spinout from Alibaba and the parent of Alipay, one of China’s leading payments companies, filed papers to IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
In this conversation, Max, Lex and I break down Ant’s business, from the origins to today, discuss growth opportunities and potential headwinds and explore the multi-faceted relationships between Ant and other big tech companies and national governments.
To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin
Today, we’re joined by Lex Sokolin to talk through a few interesting developments in the world of fintech.
M&A is a continued trend in fintech, with the most recent candidates reported to be UBS and Credit Suisse, the latter of which is also in the news with a new digital bank. Will their effort somehow be different than the abortive attempts of their international peers, including JP Morgan Chase in the US and RBS in the UK?
Klarna raised $650 million at a $10.6 billion valuation, making it the most valuable private fintech in the world. Why is Klarna successful where OnDeck and, arguably, Kabbage weren’t?
Lastly, we venture into Lex’s realm of digital assets, with MasterCard’s fun new toolkit to help countries test Central Bank Digital Currencies and Kraken’s newly granted Wyoming bank charter.
To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.
Mike Massaro is the CEO of Flywire, a payments technology company fresh off a $120m Series E led by Goldman Sachs. Matt Harris is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and one of the smartest fintech VCs on the planet.
Both Mike and Matt have been on Rebank before, in episodes I highly recommend everyone check out.
In this conversation, we dig into the embedded finance opportunity and Bain Capital Ventures’ prediction that we’re at the beginning of a platform shift that will be as big as the Internet, Cloud and Mobile.
The combination of Matt’s investor perspective and Mike’s insight at the helm of a leading payments company make this a fascinating discussion.
To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Massaro and Matt Harris.
We’re joined by Lex Sokolin to break down recently published annual reports from Revolut, Starling and Monzo, three of the leading European digital banks.
There are some fascinating insights to be drawn from the documents, especially in the context of the broader global fintech market.
This is rich subject matter, and we surely didn’t cover everything. You may even disagree with some of our analysis! Let us know.
Please get in touch with thoughts, opinions and corrections. We’ll share all the high quality communication we receive with the entire community.
To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.
Rob Moffat is a partner at Balderton, a leading European VC, with investments including Revolut, Nutmeg, Wagestream, Zego, GoCardless, ComplyAdvantage and many more.
In this conversation, Rob and Rebank co-host Aman Ghei discuss the state of the venture market, fundraising during a crisis, the most interesting new business opportunities in fintech and much more.
To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Rob Moffat.
The fintech world is not taking the summer off. New developments are coming fast and furious, from fundraisings to product launches to government intervention.
Banking for brands startup Bond raised $32 million to capitalize on the exploding trend of B2B2C banking.
Samsung Money launched, leveraging SoFi’s infrastructure. As SoFi again seeks a national banking charter, they could become the de facto leader in this space.
Kabbage and Intuit launched small business bank accounts as extensions of their already deep relationships with SMBs.
And WhatsApp is trialing all sorts of financial services in India just as Chinese fintech super apps are being banned from the country.
For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.
Mike Cagney is the Co-Founder and CEO of Figure, a full stack financial services blockchain company with consumer offerings in market or on the way in lending, banking and more.
In late-2019, Figure raised $103 million at a $1.2 billion valuation and continues to grow.
Prior to starting Figure, Mike co-founded and ran SoFi, one of the most successful consumer fintech companies ever.
In this conversation, we discuss Figure’s routes to asset origination and capital markets disruption, Figure’s previously unannounced consumer banking and payments offering, lessons learned building and scaling multiple billion dollar companies and more.
For all of our past episodes and to sign up for our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
To subscribe to Lex’s amazing work, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Cagney and Lex Sokolin.
Oliver Hughes is the CEO of Tinkoff Group, one of the world’s most successful digital banking groups with over ten million customers.
Tinkoff is publicly listed, which brings clarity to its operating model in a time when many noteworthy consumer digital banks are pursuing customer acquisition at the expense of profitability.
Oliver has led Tinkoff through three financial crises, so brings experience and perspective to the current COVID crisis.
This is a fascinating discussion about unit economics in digital banking and winning business models with a CEO with thirteen years of experience in this game.
For all of our past episodes, and to sign up to our newsletter, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.
To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Oliver Hughes and Lex Sokolin.
Chris Skinner is one of the world's most authoritative voices on the future of banking.
Chris is a writer, speaker, analyst and commentator covering all things digital banking. Chris has published multiple books on the future of banking and fintech, including most recently ValueWeb, which in Chris's own words explores "the open-sourcing of financial services using apps, analytics, APIs...and blockchain."
Chris is on the Advisory Boards of a number of companies including Innovate Finance, Moven and Meniga. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand, Next Bank, City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance. The Wall Street Journal named Chris one of "The Top 40 Fintech Influencers Globally." If that wasn't enough, Seth Wheeler, Brookings Guest Scholar and Former Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House, called Chris “one of the most authoritative voices on Fintech anywhere.”