Hey Fintech Friends, by This Week in Fintech

We're excited to announce the fourth episode release of our new podcast, Beyond Two Percent!

Beyond Two Percent analyzes the critical questions, issues, and dynamics that affect people differently by gender - and the intersection of those dynamics with finance. This week's roundtable focuses on venture capital, and we're lucky to be joined by Monica Murthy, FinTech Sales & Partnerships Lead at Alloy, and Jenny Johnston Venture Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures.

As always, our guests join our two fabulous hosts, Julie VerHage-Greenberg and Helen Femi Williams. We'll publish Beyond Two Percent monthly - if you'd be interested in joining an upcoming episode, let us know! Reach out to sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com.

SPEAKERS

Monica Murthy FinTech Sales & Partnerships Lead at Alloy
Jenny Johnston Venture Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures
Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Head of Content and Community at Orum
Helen Femi Williams, Fintech Journalist

TRANSCRIPT

Helen 00:16This is the beyond 2% podcast and I'm your host Helen, Femi Williams,

Julie 00:20

and I'm your second host, Julie Greenberg, this podcast is brought to you by this week in FinTech, which is the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events.

Helen 00:33

And of course, podcasting. And you might have listened to our other podcast. Hey, FinTech friends. Well, this podcast series is all about women exploring everything from investing to motherhood, to intersectionality, and so much more.

Julie 00:47And we encourage you to give us feedback on the topics you think we should be discussing

Julie 01:09

And if we were specifically talking about FinTech, the industry could benefit from more women at any level, because women in general have not typically been in the spotlight as a target audience for financial products and services. They're an underserved customer segment with a massive unmet need.

Julie 01:34And that's why this podcast is called Beyond 2%.

Helen 01:37There is a world of tech-driven financial products and services that is yet to be discovered

because of the lack of women leaders in this space

Julie 01:45and through group discussions with leaders in these spaces. This is what we want to explore.

Helen 01:50This episode is all about angel investors.

Julie 01:57

And thank you to our sponsors in New York City FinTech women, FinTech woman's mission is to connect, promote, empower women to advance their careers. They need help from everyone if we're going to make a real change, encouraging male allies to become members and come to our events. Membership is free. And you can sign up at NYC FinTech women.com and follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Jenny Johnston is an investor turned operator. She began her career at Goldman Sachs before traveling to emerging markets. Jenny then joined a bank partnerships team, and today she has a venture partner at Better Tomorrow ventures and serves as a venture partner whe

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We're excited to announce the third episode release of our new podcast, Beyond Two Percent!

Beyond Two Percent analyzes the critical questions, issues, and dynamics that affect people differently by gender - and the intersection of those dynamics with finance. This week's roundtable focuses on venture capital, and we're lucky to be joined by Jillian Williams, Partner at Cowboy Ventures, and Ana Cristina Gadala-Maria Principal at QED Ventures.

SPEAKERS

Jillian Williams, Partner at Cowboy Ventures
Ana Cristina Gadala-Maria Principal at QED Ventures
Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Head of Content and Community at Orum
Helen Femi Williams, Fintech Journalist

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

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Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Speakers:

Nicole Stiller, VP Head of Domestic Payments - North America at Visa
Gil Akos, Co-Founder, and CEO at Astra
Helen Femi Williams, Fintech Journalist and Host of Hey Fintech Friends

Timestamps:

Intro
‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Fintech (0.59)
News (2.00)
Interview with Gil Akos (Astra) and Nicole Stiller (Visa) about payments and their current work
Quick Fire Questions with Gil and Nicole (41.29)
Signals: The FTX scandal happened because of centralization, not crypto (49.40)
Upcoming Events (47.10)

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

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Hello fintech friends! This week, we have a special podcast episode with guest Jillian Williams of Cowboy Ventures, who sat down with Nik at the Money2020 MoneyPot Podcast Stage for a candid conversation on life, the universe, and all things fintech.

KEYWORDS

fintech, people, companies, world, feel, happening, starting, money, bit, absolutely, honestly, big, terms, interesting, durbin amendment, point, build, investor, products, biggest

SPEAKERS

Nik Milanović, TWIF
Jillian Williams, Cowboy Ventures

Nik 00:00

All righty. Hi everybody. How's it going? You've got Nik Milanovic and Jillian Williams recording live at Money2020 In the MoneyPot. Hey there, Jillian, good to see you again. Good to see you as always really excited to have you on the show. Hey, FinTech friends, the podcast that we've been doing for about a half a year now. And it is normally hosted by the fantastic Helen Femi Williams on our team, but she has otherwise occupied in the UK. And so I hope to be somewhat not mediocre replacement for her.

Jillian 00:43

Bet you’ll be great.

Nik 00:46

It sounds like you'll carry the conversation for us both if I mess up. So no pressure. Good to have you on. I think that you're probably like one of the most well known people in FinTech, but for the sake of our audience, who may not have come across you before, we'd love to just get your quick background and overview and what you're focused on today.

Jillian 01:05

Absolutely. That's very kind of you. But I'm Jillian Williams. I am a principal at Cowboy Ventures. We are an early stage venture fund. Seed focused, generalist focused on the US and I focus on fintech. So I've been focused on FinTech for last like seven years. Previously, I was at Anthemis, a FinTech fund, and then was in traditional finance before that.

Nik 01:26

So what brought you into fintech? When you start your investing journey,

Jillian 01:29

Jonestly stumbled into it. I was in financial services, like financial institutions group at Barclays. And it was just like good timing, where they were starting to focus more on fintech. And because of that, I like being Junior there, they kind of just pushed us towards figuring out what was happening in the new like that next wave of tech. And I thought that was a lot more interesting than what was happening with the large asset managers, insurance companies, obviously, now, like, joke's on me, because I still have to deal with a lot of them. But I realized I really love just working closely with the people who are kind of building for that next generation. And so that was kind of my foray into it. I wouldn't say that, like I immediately loved in tech. But when I realized how much I understood it and what was happening in it, I kind of grew to fall in love with it.

Nik 02:21

Yeah, I feel like it's not as intuitively exciting as like some maybe more like consumer friendly areas when you get involved to start with

Jillian 02:29

Exactly when all my friends were like getting free products from their, like, from their companies that they were meeting with. And I was like, Well, no one's giving me free money. I was jealous, honestly.

Nik 02:40

My credit card, my bank account are still held with a like Big Five bulge bracket Bank, which is like embarrassing for me. My head I'm like, oh, maybe that just means that there's like still more banking space for FinTech to capture, capture. But really, anytime I like without my car to pay for something people are like you're a trader. And, you know FinTech has, it's interesting, like talking with somebody who has kind of this longevity of investing background and exposure to fintech. You know, a lot of people have become FinTech investors, for the first time over the last call it like three years, which really felt like an inflection point in FinTech. And we'll get to that in a minute. But you know, myself included, I think that FinTech now looks really different for an investor than it did a few years ago. And I'm kind of curious, like, what still gets you excited? You know, you've seen kind of multiple cycles now in this space.

Jillian 03:30

Absolutely. I mean, you've been around the FinTech space for a while. So I feel like you've been seeing whether it's not directly as an investor about from the outside as an operator. But it's interesting, because I think when I joined in the US in 2016, there were very few people in FinTech, I remember, especially in New York, especially on the female side, there were like probably four of us. And so the same four of us, like did everything together, because I only became very good friends because like, we were the only people who would like talk to each other at any like, honestly events. And so it's funny just to see how much that's changed and how exciting the FinTech world is now compared to Ben. And so I mean, I think it's such a massive industry globally, that even with kind of the growth in popularity, and what's been happening both ebbs and flows in the market. There's, like, I'm still extremely bullish of it. But obviously, the past two years have just been kind of like the Wild West, where, like both in terms of valuations both in terms of like the number of whether it's like the exact same companies all popping up and all getting funded. Or even, like, honestly, probably some unnecessary companies that like you don't need X, Y and Z for like, I don't know, like a new bank for every single thing that giving you rewards and like some things that are probably irrelevant. And so I think that's something that you're starting to see weed out a little bit but I think honestly, that's more of a testament to like the infrastructure that's been built and people realizing what can be built. And so I think what's interesting is like, as that falls away more of the things that are like long term sustainability will continue to grow out of it. And so I think that's what I'm excited about. And also, it's the, like, kind of, in my view, the first time that we're having, like, mafias really come out, where like we have all of these, like, really big companies have been built in FinTech. And now we can have those exciting people that are leaving those companies actually build the next wave and people that I know FinTech really well start to build

Nik 05:37

Our market going to ask you to name those companies that don't need to be built. But it's true, there's like, it's been such a it's been such an attractive money pot from like a founder perspective, because it's almost like you had a guaranteed venture check if you're starting a FinTech company for the last two years that maybe some spaces have gone like over verticalized. But to what you're saying at the beginning of your comment, it is really cool kind of how the composition of people in FinTech has changed over the last couple years to like, it's finally like a hot area to work in. I feel like it was kind of the unloved tech child for a long time. You had to have these like hyper nerds who themselves are just, you know, working in, you know, obscurity at a bank for 10 years and saying like, there's a better way to do this. But when you're competing with like Fang companies for talent, it's like, well, we don't have any free lunches. And we're not working on a problem that your parents will ever know how to understand.

Jillian 06:24

Exactly. I remember telling someone that was like excited about some insurer tech company at one point, and they just like gave me the weirdest look. And I was like, I do get I'm the weirdo here. Like, that's fair.

Nik 06:34

Yeah, I don't know. There's something to love about that, though, like unsexy areas, it just feels like there's a better opportunity to go in there and be smart about what can be done better. You're not kind of chasing the same problems that that everybody else is chasing completely agree. And now that like, you know, in the last YC cohort, there are three Buy now pay later companies, which like for me, you know, knock on Buy now pay later, there's like fantastically successful companies and category but I'm like, How much more can really happen in this space in a different way? And maybe we need to like see like a little bit more like normalization in FinTech?

Jillian 07:08

Exactly. And I mean, I know that probably happens, or not probably it does happen in every sector. But that is absolutely something that you're seeing more and more of, and I think that also is a factor because of how much help or easily is, you're able to build FinTech products as well, like an endless we are early investors into simple bank. And like, it took years to be able to build the initial bank because you didn't have infrastructure company is like snaps, unit rides, etc. And now that those exist, you can spin one up in like months. And so because of that, you can have copycats so much more easily that if something's taking off, someone can just be like, You know what, like, that worked. I want to build that. And so you miss that, like, drive that a founder has to like, actually why they want to build something.

Nik 07:55

It's so annoying, honestly, I like where were the service providers when we were building pedal? Well, when we were building funding circle, we could have used like fraud KYC out of the box, we could use like you kids don't understand how hard it was to build a fintech. But I know that you get a lot of time, not just at the conference, but outside of it, and in interviews to talk about FinTech and to talk about your thesis and your path as an investor. And so I was hoping maybe we could use this time to just draw outside the lines a little bit and go off field and just talk about kind of broader themes, especially like those that tie back to this base, but just see where the conversation goes. I'd love that. So thank you for helping me by putting together some really good question prompts for the conversation. I'm super curious to dive in to some of the bullet points that you wanted to cover. And so we might as well just start at the top and work our way through. Let's do it. So for anybody listening, Julia and I kind of talked about what conversation topics we could cover outside of fintech. And she had some fantastic suggestions. And I'm really excited to hear a little bit more on these. And so we have three general question prompts that we're going to try and get through today. And the first one is what are the three moments that defined FinTech in the last 10 years? What were the three kind of biggest inflection points that happened in this space over the last 10 years?

Jillian 09:24

All right, I guess I'll start. I think probably the first one that I'll say is the, I guess, like the passing of the Durbin amendment, because that was in 2011. It's a little off of 10 years ago, but I think that that was just honestly like fueled a lot of what has been been tech revenue for the last 10 plus years. Now, in terms of in terms of interchange fee. I think most recently, probably this past month has been increasing amendments to the Durbin amendment that may continue to change that and interchange fee The revenue hasn't been as loved anymore. But honestly, that created the opportunity for so many fintechs like time, current, etc. To exist without charging their customer and to compete with the large institutions in a way where it's like, hey, these companies are charging you tons of fees, etc. And we can actually give you a free offering. And so I think that honestly just propelled that space from a consumer standpoint, in a huge way. And I think honestly, probably more than any other regulation that I can that I can think of impure, impure, FinTech honestly.

Nik 10:39

Totally agreed. There's a great write up that I read from ao Majola who used to be blocking I think, is a carbon health called like children's urban, but he was just talking about how like that waterfall created. I couldn't agree more. For me, one was, this isn't obviously it's not like people say this a lot. But I feel like the plaid visa acquisition was kind of a watershed moment where for the first time you saw that like, a large scale with a $5 billion price tag that there were a possible existent FinTech and that kind of precipitated, you know, all this late stage activity, all these growth rounds. And then like this back wave, you know, money line nerd while I painted all these companies that went public over the last few years in FinTech. And so now for the first time, you kind of have proof that it's like a multi company category, and that it's a really viable asset class at scale. And that you can just indefinitely kind of tranche up like different companies that can actually still grow. And my guess is, over the next year, you know, in the environment we're in, we'll probably see a lot more m&a activity. And so it's kind of interesting to see how that shakes out with these acquisitions and kind of what that says about the exit landscape, but it feels like that really kind of kick started all this.

Jillian 11:49

It's funny, because when that happened, it was such a huge deal. And then I remember it wasn't like six months later how everyone was like, wow, Visa got was getting that for a steal like that. So well. And then now, like, some people are like, yeah, maybe that should have like, we they probably wish that went through like, who knows now just given how quickly how quickly the markets have changed. And so it's crazy, just how much last like year and a half really, how much

Nik 12:15

It's kind of stuff because like MasterCard that acquired Felicity and I think either acquired, like, has a strategic partnership with like tanking Europe and it's like, yeah, these apply fell through yet. MasterCards got an open banking acquisition now. Yeah, somebody I was meeting with earlier at Chase was telling me that plaid when the acquisition happened was a top five venture return acquisition of all time, which like blew my mind.

Jillian 12:40

That's crazy. I didn't know that. I mean, but to your point, I think plaid in general was also on my list. As just a guest. That's not like a moment. But like, some thing in FinTech, that was huge, because it really unlocked almost everything else in FinTech in a way that I don't think most people actually think about. Because your bank really just owned every single aspect of data of yours. And especially in the US, like there was really no other way of getting that. And for most of the companies that exist now, they usually need Platt or now like there's MX, ethnicity, etc. But like, eventually need one of these companies to be able to exist. And so I think like the existence of plaid and the fact that like, especially early on, now they have more partnerships, but like they were scraping your data, they were being shut down by the banks constantly, like they were doing everything kind of like a backdoor to get into stata was like really huge for growing the FinTech space, and even enabling all of these other apps to exist. And so that's something that I constantly think about that, like how massive of an opportunity to plaid was.

Nik 13:49

Yeah, totally agree. I mean, that's kind of perfectly, you know, one of the inflection points, I guess, or kind of key dynamics that was really interesting to me over the last 10 years is that you have this move down the stack. And a lot of people who tried to solve second order problems and realize they should be working on first order problems. I think Stephanie overt or am is a good example where she wanted to build basically like real time intelligent money movement, and like automatic optimization, I might move in and realize, oh, there's actually like a fundamental problem about like, how money is able to move in real time we're gonna go down the stack and plaid feels like a great example of that. Yeah. What are some? What are some other moments or other kind of big trends that I think

Jillian 14:27

the another one for me is? It kind of goes back to like, Alright, so the Durbin amendment is probably the biggest regulation I think of but other things that have been the big biggest catalysts in FinTech have honestly been like the macro economic. I don't know what the word is, like, macro environment events have been the biggest catalyst. So I think of like COVID FHA is a more recent one has been a huge one, especially in terms of consumer adoption. And just like consumer awareness of FinTech like if you ask most people that like aren't FinTech nerds like us before, like how many of them unheard of chime, probably bear view. And then they went from like, what like 3 million to like 14 niche million users in the span of a year, year and a half. That's tremendous growth. And like more people now know it, they exist or even like Robin Hood, Coinbase, etc, and the growth of those companies. But then you even think back to like, the global financial crisis in 2008. Like, that was the impetus for so many companies start, like, if you look at interviews of like, John Stein from Betterment, like, that is why he started Betterment was like, basically, in response to the global financial crisis. And so many of these companies were like, We need to take back what is happening with the banks, and also this kind of unbundling of the financial stack. It's interesting, now we're seeing kind of like a re bundling. But at that time, it was like, let's build something that we can actually have a better customer experience and build it for the customer. Because it was such a missed like, this, like loss of trust between the customer and consumer. And the banks at that time after that did a crisis.

Nik 16:02

Yeah, it's super interesting, when you read accounts of the financial crisis, and people talking about how difficult was to recruit at these, like prestige banks afterwards, if you're a smart Ivy League accomplished, you know, could walk and chew gum at the same time, you know, graduate, you could get a job at a bulge bracket bank, and you know, these investment banks were really kind of the premier, like status, occupation, and then all of a sudden that gravitated to like the fang companies and the tech companies of the world. We're making the world a better place, you know, in quotes. But that changed a lot. And I totally agree with you. I mean, the other answer I had in mind for this question was COVID, specifically, as a big macro driver. You know, you nobody knew what a QR code was three years ago. And now, I think we all hope restaurants are gonna bring back paper menus, because we're sick of using them or nobody put a card into a digital wallet before but then all of a sudden, you don't want to touch the point of sale system. And so now everybody's loading up Apple Pay and Google Pay. And I definitely feel like there's kind of a big paradigm shift. Like even like, so many news stories over the past couple years have kind of been FinTech adjacent, like the Gamestop mania, and all these meme stocks, you know, that were facilitated by the Robin Hood's of the world?

Jillian 17:11

Absolutely. I mean, I did teach my nine year old grandfather how to deposit a check on his phone during COVID. I don't think he ever thought he was going to do that. For a second,

Nik 17:20

I thought you're gonna say I had to teach my 90 year old grandfather how to trade options. And I was like, why? I mean, you know, YOLO, honestly,

Jillian 17:30

honestly, yeah, like the money sign.

Nik 17:35

Okay, question number two. What do you think the biggest lifestyle change? We'll see in our lifetime? Is? I'll take a jump on this one, since I think it's only fair not to make the answer first, every time. One of the biggest lifestyle changes, I think we're gonna see is is just kind of the endpoint for globalization. Like, especially since the this is as far out of my domain expertise as you go. So we'll see how many people call me out for being like, very out of pocket on this one. But like, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, you had like a much more interconnected world. And you had this kind of growth of the Chinese economy too. And a lot of manufacturing moved from centers like the US and Europe offshore to low cost areas, and you didn't really have like labor capital, moving across borders as much. But now all of a sudden, especially like with COVID, and as an accelerant, you have more and more people working remotely, like even in larger companies like in a sustainable way, like not on a contract basis. And Bain published like 10 years ago, this report called like a world awash in capital about how capital is moving really seamlessly to investment opportunities across borders, and it feels like something where you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. Once globalization started, it's gonna be really hard to turn that off. And it's gonna be kind of a good test with like, Russia and China now, D dollar rising like whether you get trade bloc's, but it feels like capital, labor or investment should kind of chase the maximum points of return. And borders don't really matter for that. And so I feel like we're likely to see a much more globalized world, you know, kind of regardless of like little hiccups and like geopolitical events over the next 50 years, we're really you're working with an international team, and you're also competing against international competitors, regardless what industry you're in. And you have a supply chain that's diversified between like three different, like countries, like low cost centers, and that's just going to change like, the composition of what jobs are available and where and, you know, maybe it's the case that the best lawyers in the world all you know, are educated like Buenos Aires, Argentina, and so they become like the lawyers for like international corporations rather than like the Harvard Law graduates of the world. The interesting to say,

Jillian 19:45

I completely agree in terms of the long term moving there. I think, maybe this is like I jaded side a little bit, but like, there are a lot of hiccups along the road, especially due to politics that we're seeing kind of like across the world, not just the US, but like all around the world that are kind of trying to be like, very anti globalization right now. And so I think it's interesting to see how that tension plays out in the short term. I think long term, it's really hard to kind of fight that. And because of a lot of the a lot of what you said, but I do think it's interesting to see how that continues to play out. This kind of like back and forth tension. But I do agree with you in terms of like the long term, that's absolutely where we're moving.

Nik 20:29

Yeah, no, I think that's totally right. Like you, you have the pendulum swing, and then it needs to swing back a little bit. There's always a reaction. And I feel like there's a lot of political issues where that's the case where you have like, forward movement, but then you have the reaction, that forward movement, and you think it was Obama who is saying at the end of his term, he's like, you know, what, sometimes things Zig is sometimes things and you have to realize that like the trend lines go in the right place, even if you have setbacks in the way they're

Jillian 20:52

no, absolutely. I think kind of, maybe my first point is somewhat similar to yours, because I'm thinking about a little bit us focus, but I think there's gonna be a really big shift in the like structure of how we think of employment. And I don't actually think of this just because of COVID. And like remote work, but I think so much of our lives are tied to our employer, especially around our finances, like in terms of, obviously, how we get paid, but like 401k, or health care, and everything like that. And that's not necessarily the most sustainable. And then when we think about like, I mean, this is a problem that, like so many people have been talking about, but like to get loans, you basically need to be a typical salaried worker, because it is so much harder for people that don't have that normal structure job, when like, we are increasingly seeing people have alternative income. And even if they have a traditional job, they might be making a lot more money elsewhere, or having two jobs. I think there was like some employer recently that I think it was a big thing on LinkedIn, where like, they fired two employees, because they were having two jobs. And like he didn't know for months that he was they were having two jobs like,

Nik 22:06

it's like says like a little bit more about you as an employer. It's like, are you really getting everything?

Jillian 22:10

Exactly? Like maybe they were doing a good enough job to do jobs? I don't know. And so I think that we're probably going to see some sort of a shift in terms of really like how, and if it's just like the benefits, but how a how we structure employment in the US and what that looks like. And everyone exactly know what that will look like, whether it's like we move away from the typical w two, or that format, but also how we structure a lot of what's tied to it and how we structure all of the like, financial benefits that's tied to it as well, because I think that's just like so prohibitive towards most people, and how we're moving in the world. And so I think that that will be really interesting to see how that continues to play out over time.

Nik 22:52

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, to to kind of like quick fire ideas that that makes me think about your comment is one, the emergence of Dows and web three over the last year, you know, there's a lot of hype, this base grew too quickly, it consolidated again, and we'll see kind of what the long term viability of like dals looks like. But it's kind of the first attempt to re architect like the, like, corporate Corporation structure that we've had new assets like persistent for, you know, hundreds of years. And it's interesting, it's like, do you have this third path from WTS, or 10 eyes? Do you have kind of a spectrum of options available to you, where instead of being a salaried worker, for one company, you are a participant in four days, and you work on four different products, and the amount that you get paid is like relative to your input, and you just kind of like move seamlessly between them. And the other thought I had was, when you talk to people who come to the US, especially from Western Europe, or like Nordic countries, they're always shocked, like you said, by kind of how much of your life outside of work is immediately dependent on like, Where specifically you're working, like not even the work you're doing, but like the company that you're tied to. And there's this quote, you know, a developed country is not one where everybody has a car, but it's one where rich people ride public transit, I feel like that kind of applies here to where the shift in labor classification might mean that hopefully, you get kind of better social services and a better social safety net. And so stuff like having like your, you know, healthcare tied to like we're working specifically isn't as much of like the model that we have going forward.

Jillian 24:24

Yeah. I mean, I think it's crazy that like you change jobs, and like you might have to entirely uproot, like what doctor you're seeing or might not be able to get like a specific procedure because of that, that like doesn't, that shouldn't make sense. So that's wild. But maybe I'll continue because I think maybe like next one is sort of tied to the healthcare system. I think one area and fintech that I've been like wanting to invest in forever is at the intersection of healthcare and in FinTech. And part of that's because like, I shouldn't shock everyone that like our healthcare system is fully broken, and I think like will continue to just get worse and implode upon itself, and so at some point in our life, I kind of hope it does, mainly so that it can hopefully be rebuilt. And actually, in a format that works is I think, one of the challenges as much as I continue to like, look at a lot of investments and really want to make an investment of space, I think that a lot of them are probably more so like, band aids. Yeah. And that, we probably just need to actually fix the structure because none of the incentives work.

Nik 25:31

Yeah. Tyler Durden Fight Club approach, just blow up the healthcare. Start from scratch. Exactly.

Jillian 25:36

And so I think that that is probably one of the things that I look at quite a bit because like, both in terms of like how people live their lives, whether it's a one of those spectrum, like some people are uninsured, and or people don't want to be insured, because like, they can't afford it, or people just like, then don't go to the doctor. And then it makes themselves worse. And so then when they have a catastrophic issue that like impacts our healthcare system, even worse, but then just like the impacting costs of our healthcare system, like compounding over and over, is, is insane to me. And it's both like internally within, like, between payers and like how I'm not gonna go into like, how billing is done and things like that. But also, just in terms of like, how consumers operate. And so I think that like, hopefully, I'm not sure it looks like another just like, new presidential health care plan fixes up other than, like, we actually need to do something to fix the entire structure of it. It's interesting,

Nik 26:34

you know, you being a FinTech investor and wanting to look at the intersection of healthcare and fintech, because like just from that description alone, you feel like you can see the parallels there. There's a lot of legacy architecture and regulation that creates a certain system in the way it's set up. And so even if you take a step back and say, Oh, this is actually the Pareto optimal way. To solve this, there's a lot of path dependency for how the system is now where you're going to kind of make incremental improvements within the bounds that you have. And like, it would probably be better to be able to just start over from scratch. But easier said than done. When you have a very strong vested interest from companies have poured a lot of money into lobbying.

Jillian 27:07

Exactly. Yeah, too many people get paid way too much for this to ever happen. So it's a little bit of a pipe dream for me. But we'll go can wish not me that's exactly.

Nik 27:21

Alright, well, I want to make sure that we're staying on top of our time here. What one other one? Oh, man, this is like come given the most basic answers. So this is where you can start tuning out if you're listening in. But another kind of trend that I think is gonna change our style and quality of life is more mass adoption of different like point solutions and AI. You're starting to see

Jillian 27:44

crbc Yeah, exactly. Yeah, as the new hot topic.

Nik 27:47

I'm investing at the intersection of AI crypto. All the buzzwords. Yeah, exactly. please invest my fun to not a general solicitation. But, you know, alright, so like, there's all this hype around these, like consumerize AI products like GPT, three and Dolly and stable diffusion. Now that like, I don't know, if there are like proven commercial use cases yet. So it's like really cool to play around with these tools. But, you know, there's a couple of interesting companies like Jasper that's like building like a marketing specific engine on top of GPD. Three, but not, it seems like early days. And I don't know, kind of how investable a category it is yet because a lot of the market hasn't been proven out a lot of kind of scale, like enterprise use cases are not there yet, are still very early. But eventually, you're starting to kind of see that what a lot of what's considered to be creative work or knowledge work is actually pattern recognition, like it did to kind of an extreme point where even writing a good book, or making an evocative piece of art, is actually kind of just pattern recognition, where if you look at enough, really, you know, vontade artists, you too, can make a painting that kind of looks like it should be, you know, high art. And then for whatever the you know, goal is of art or writing a book or doing anything creative. You can you know, pass off that product and monetize it and do it and automatically do it like this massive amount of scale, within seconds, rather than actually have like a human creative process. And so it feels like there's gonna be a big labor dislocation from that. And all of a sudden, you have, you know, the lawyers of the world who are not as necessary in bulk to be able to put together you know, all the underlying documents for like a large m&a deal or like a take private or, you know, an LBO. And so what the world looks like after that is really interesting. You know, what new jobs and like sectors and jobs crop up after that, and like, is that dislocation, you know, really disruptive to like a huge swath of the population who all of a sudden find that like their jobs are replaced by like aI they can do like or work like more efficiently than they can. War is like gradual and like do you have retraining programs? I think it's it's kind of it's gonna be an interesting question. See that play out?

Jillian 30:09

No, I absolutely agree. And I think that I mean, you see it across the board with, obviously AI, but then automation in general, like I remember even I interned my freshman or sophomore year in college on investor sales and trading. And like, there was like nobody on the equity floor, it was like three people or something like that. And because most of it was automated, and they just didn't need to do anything, like they didn't need to pick up the phones really, like everything was on IV, like Bloomberg chat, like, that's all they need to do. And like, they would talk about that. And I remember there was one guy on there who started his career, like on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, as like a ticket runner. And like, he would talk about how like how much it had changed and how crazy it was for him to see like how basically, his job had been automated away. And to see that now happening in more and more spaces, where to your point, like, you think like a human is fully necessary, and you kind of need that like mental capacity. It's kind of like, it's it's very strange to be like, oh, yeah, no, like, we're actually not that necessary, like reading a book now. Like, have ai do that as well.

Nik 31:22

Yeah. What does it mean, when all of a sudden society progresses, like, in spite of humans, just not needed to like move the wheel forward anymore, it's probably a good time to come out and just admit that my newsletter and my tweets are all written by GPT. Three. I've been on vacation for the last two years. All right. And so final topic. This is actually the question I'm most excited about. I think it's a super interesting one. And I'm gonna let you answer first. Have we experienced the defining moment of the decade? If so, what is it? If not why?

Jillian 31:57

So it's interesting, because like, obviously, we're very early in the decade, but a lot. That's gonna say a lot of s**t. I think I was told. So apologies if I'm not a lot has happened already. In this decade. I was asked this question, actually, like, probably a year ago. And at that point, I said, Yes. Now?

Nik 32:23

I don't think so. And was that COVID? A year ago?

Jillian 32:26

Yes. Now? I don't think so. However, I would probably say that, like, the catalyst for whatever is going to be the defining moment has already begun, and has already been said, meaning like, could that catalyst be like Russia? Is War On Ukraine, starting a much broader war? Potentially? Could that be us going into a much bigger financial crisis and recession? And like, Yes, I think there's a number could be like a much bigger political crisis that we have, potentially. And so I think there's a number of things that like, have already you're seeing like the sparks kind of starting, that I think could be a lot bigger. But I don't think that we've actually seen the climax of it quite yet. And I think that's where I kind of stand on that.

Nik 33:22

I like that I would have totally said, either COVID, or the war in Ukraine is the defining, like, touch point, like this decade? And when you said, No, I was like, okay, maybe I should up my game in this answer a little bit, like Think harder. And I was trying to think back of, you know, think back on what other defining moments and other decades have been, and you can kind of see, you know, in the in odd Suez, like the global financial crisis really feels like it stands out more than anything else, as an example. And so it feels like our understanding of the world order, and like the Pax Americana that we've had, since, you know, most people like the millennial generation have grown up, ended and abruptly shifted with the Russia Ukraine war. And so the outputs of that, to me feel like a very compelling answer for a defining moment of the decade. But if I had to align with you and say, No, there's something that's gonna be even more defining. In my mind, this is like, I want another one of my basic thought boy answers, but we've watched China grow their economy and grow their influence on the world stage over the last 30 or 40 years, and a lot of people refer to it rightfully so as a Chinese miracle. Because if you look at like the rates of extreme poverty, like they've pulled an amazing amount of people out of poverty that if you look at like the skyline of like Shenzhen or like, Shanghai, like over a 30 year period, like it's just crazy how fast it's grown. And you know, the economy has grown by like low double digits, high single digit percentages every year, and now you're starting to see that slowed down a little bit. I'm sure that a lot of it is due to like supply chain issues and COVID. But like, there's probably also some kind of secular slowdown in that growth as well. And so it feels like this decade is kind of could be a transition point between growing your influence and establishing, establishing yourself in the world stage and starting to exert your influence. And what exactly that looks like, I think is could be a defining moment for us politically, like, do we continue to live in like a unipolar world or a multipolar world? You know, do we have kind of another cold? Where where like, countries independently decide who they want to align with and whose model they accept? You know, a lot of the, like soft power influence like the Belt and Road Initiative, does that become hard power and kind of a more, a more kind of like overzealous foreign policy that feels like, it'll have ramifications for like, where we sit in the US and like, our position in the world, and like how we are perceived. And so that, to me is like, it's another like, raise and ensure that everybody's talking about but it feels relevant.

Jillian 35:54

No, I like that answer a lot. And I think my only answer, oh, my only rationale for why like Russia, Ukraine, currently isn't is. And again, this a little bit US centric, is because I think a lot of Americans have like a very short attention span. And so like, for awhile, it was like the worst thing ever. And then they kind of forgot about it for a little bit. And I think like, it's come back a little bit, but like until it is, unfortunately, like impacting our day to day a little bit more. People aren't going to think it's like the end of the world. And so I think that's where it's like it needs to progress, unfortunately, out outside Ukraine a little bit more. For it to, at least from the US perspective, be the defining moment. But I do think that Russia invading another country is a huge, huge, like moment in the world. I do think though, maybe it's also more so from my perspective that I do think it can easily lead to more and more of an expansion of of the war globally. And then also, like, there's the risk of like China and Taiwan and things like that as well. That don't seem as far off anymore in

Nik 37:11

this world. So yeah, exactly. Like now, it's like what we thought was unthinkable is no longer unthinkable. Exactly. If you read like early stories of World War One, World War Two, you have all these, like populations that didn't want to go to war. And it was just like, the inevitability of all these, like international agreements that kind of dragged you in there. And I feel like now steps are being taken to avoid that. But to your point, it's kind of hard to tell what steps will escalate things and how, like, what looks like to be to country conflict, spiral and have broader, like more severe international implications? Exactly. Definitely trying to place a premium on good leadership. Yes. Okay, now that we've covered all the easy topics. And I'm sure when this gets published, they'll have million VCs who become experts on the war on Russia, Ukraine. That's my word wrong. But we can we can take the blowback when it comes. I love the idea that you had for a FinTech rapid fire, just power through some questions like popcorn like top of your mind, right. And so let's start. Let's start with a question that I really have no good answer for but favorite FinTech

Jillian 38:26

ad. Recently, maybe this is just because it's top of mind. Cash App has a ad with Kendrick Lamar, Ray Dalio and some comedian his name I do not know I apologize. And it's basically like Kendrick Lamar is like the translator for Financial Services and Financial Literacy between the two of them because like they can't understand each other and it's actually very funny.

Nik 38:53

Yeah, that was wild, who saw Kendrick and Ray Dalio getting into a room together. So I want that podcast that's a podcast you're listening to Well, we talked about this for a second but I was I thought it was really interesting at the Super Bowl a couple years ago and so if I ran an ad about who should not apply for so if i car and I heard some reports afterwards I was like actually increase like their average like, applicant quality but I was just like, wow, like IT tech is like such a like positive and like, like you kind of paper over a lot of like, the underlying, like difficulties like products. They're just like, leaning into it. I was like, That was that was an interesting way. Roleplay Yeah, I guess. All right. Favorite FinTech or finance related

Jillian 39:41

book is probably the lamest answer possible, but like I love Michael Lewis. So The Big Short, like that was the book that like made me want to get into financial services officially. So I'll take that.

Nik 39:54

That's awesome. I want to trade the world. Actually, in the same vein, I would say My favorite book about that terrifying that I've ever read is the ascent of money by now for and and it's like very, like I feel like Michael Lewis is such an evocative writer and Ferguson also has like a great way of just like taking what should just be a really boring topic, like the history of like money movement, and like Western Europe developing the monetary systems like actually make like super engaging. More recently, I am a big, this is no secret to anybody who sees my twitter but I'm a big fan of Sofia Goldberg is the founder of word answer. And I picked up her book Field Guide to global payment systems. And yeah, it was really just easy to understand. And also kind of like, maybe appreciate, like how much domain expertise you build up in FinTech like, oh, yeah, like these are actually like, not accomplices, like everybody, like comes out of the womb, knowing

Jillian 40:46

Oh, yeah, and actually making it where people can understand like, that's like the payment stack is very impressive. And that making it interesting as well.

Nik 40:55

Yeah, totally agreed. It's a Christmas present, I'm getting for all my family. Getting invited back to Christmas. All right, FinTech app or product that you use the most.

Jillian 41:09

I would say. I don't want to say lame, but sorry. Marcus and betterman are probably the two I like automated to take to my paycheck every two weeks. So I'd say probably those two.

Nik 41:23

They love that. I mean Fintech is FinTech, even if you're getting it from Goldman Sachs. I mean, my answer is equally lame. It's like, it's definitely Venmo I think just you know, real time instant peer peer payments with my entire network, it just made my life so much easier. I have an issue actually, where I created a merchant account for this week in FinTech because we had to accept like Venmo payments at events way through. And they're like, threw me into like a, like a bottomless rabbit hole of KYC for my personal Venmo account, cuz like they're both linked to like the same, like, Chase Bank profile, even though they're two separate accounts. And so like, there was like, a little period where I went without Venmo. And I was like, this is awful.

Jillian 42:05

I had to, like, ask people to pay back your friends.

Nik 42:09

That was like, honestly, like, you think it'd be awful because like, people can't pay me back. But it was like, even worse for me. Like when somebody was like, Yo, can you hit me up for dinner? And I'd be like, can I write you a check? Or can I send you a zombie? Like, what kind of sketchy stuff? Have you been doing that? You know? I just realized how much I relied on it. All right, number one item on your FinTech wish list. I think

Jillian 42:31

it would be in like, there are some companies kind of trying to do this. But it'd be something that like, told me how to optimize my finance better, but at the point of action, and like, I hate no offense to anybody, but like, I hate PFM. Like, I don't want to see how poorly I'm spending my money. Like I know, I am not good at it. But like, at the point of me buying something, tell me what I'm supposed to use? Is it better for me to use? Like, which credit card? Is it better for me to use a affirm? Or is it better me to do X, Y, and Z? At the point of me getting paid when I move money into betterman, Marcus or anything else like which one is best for me to do and optimize? Or like doing it at that point of actual action, I think is the most impactful versus, like, just kind of giving me advice later on. I just don't

Nik 43:20

$200 at restaurants last week. Yeah. Like I know,

Jillian 43:23

all my money goes to food. That's not helpful. I'm not going to change that.

Nik 43:27

Okay, but who's released here? I actually have the exact same answer as you. I would love just an app that tells me where all my money is at any one time all my money like all three or $49. But like we're all my money, is it any one time and then like has a little flag that can tell me if something's not being used ultimately, like, you've got this much sitting in a digital wallet. Like you should be like, you know, investing in like, you know, T bills or something like while it sits there. Yeah, exactly. Okay, most underrated FinTech founder. Oh, God.

Jillian 44:01

I don't want to do anyone that I've I've invested into

Nik 44:04

Silla portfolio. So I will ignore that.

Jillian 44:06

This might be a little bit top of mind because I saw the person today. But I'd say two of my favorite fin tech founders, just because they're like two of the nicest people are Tommy Nichols and or Sigrun. They're just like, really great humans. And Allah is a great company.

Nik 44:28

I totally agree. It's been. It's been awesome. Like watching. We like beta, that company pedal. And I was like, Oh, this is like an interesting tool. And it's just grown so much. And I feel like they are so intentional about how they grow and structure the company and what they do and the kind of environment that they're trying to create their workforce and I'm a huge admirer of theirs. Absolutely. Oh man, this is like also top of mind, but not a company that I've invested in and I just want to shout her out but Daraja clued in her co founder of her right foot They're kind of in the same mold. Like, I feel like they're intentionally working on a problem that matters to a lot of people debt repayment, and doing it in a thoughtful way with a good product and kind of the right mentality. You know, do to reach out to me one point about making introductions to prospective investors to diversify, you know, her own cap table, and I feel like caring about that, like, not just like, that you're getting money in but like, where your money is coming from is like a level of intentionality that like I kind of hope to carry and like really respect,

Jillian 45:31

absolutely, Stephanie's her, Patrick, or I'm also really paid a lot of attention to that. And that's something I respect so much.

Nik 45:38

Yeah, I totally agree. So shout out to all of you. Okay, we're coming towards the end here. But who would be the mayor of FinTech town?

Jillian 45:50

I think this probably changes. But right now, it's probably the founders of stripe. I'd say they're just like, consistently the top dogs in FinTech. And I've really changed. FinTech probably the most in general. So shout out to Patrick.

Nik 46:07

Yeah. And they'd like to it was such a positive attitude to I feel like they're very, like, positive. So we're not going to get involved in petty infighting, we're not going to compete. We're going to layer climate into all of our products, which we don't have to do we have, you know, an oil Geyser of payments, revenue, and yet we're going to be intentional about what we see as bigger social issues. I love that answer. Mine is much more shallow. It's based on like, Twitter activity following alone, but I feel like it's hard to make a case against shield mo note.

Jillian 46:40

You know, I had a feeling you were gonna say him, for I

Nik 46:42

know, I'm too much of a fanboy. But I just feel like, he also I don't know. He He's older than I am. I'm 33. And he has the intellectual curiosity and energy of somebody who just learned about what FinTech was yesterday. And it's like really hard to retain that over time. Like you get kind of calcified. You get set in your ways you like develop beliefs, and it's something that I admire a lot, but like I see it, like, kind of go into like, how many people he wants to meet how he engages all of them and like to me, that's like, just going out and shaking hands and kissing babies and being being mayoral. Absolutely. Okay, we have three minutes. So we have three questions. So let's close the rapid fire. If FinTech were a movie, who would the bad guy be?

Jillian 47:26

I would say, you could argue like the regulator's for when they stop things from being able to happen. You could argue the bank sometimes. And also, like I think lenders are kind of oftentimes don't have really great intentions with consumers. So those are like probably my three that I'd say. Cuz you can always argue that they could be the bad guys.

Nik 47:50

Yeah, I feel like it's a play to another question we have, but I feel like there are a lot of non incentive aligned with customer products that exists in the traditional financial world. And crypto definitely and and fintech. And so being able to like understand kind of weed out those customer adverse products, I think would be like the thesis of like the FinTech movement. If you want FinTech to be around, you need to weed the bad guys out. Most transformative slash impactful FinTech

Jillian 48:21

I'd probably have to go plaid or stripe.

Nik 48:25

Totally, for reasons already discussed, like they just facilitated this whole ecosystem. This is like a little bit like outside of like my, like tight aperture, but I'd say UPI in India. Now it takes in Brazil a little bit, but like it's crazy, like how much innovation and building has been enabled, like government backed initiative for payments rails, like is the government of India, the number one FinTech innovator the last decade, you know, probably not, but like, it's just crazy how much has been built off of that.

Jillian 48:54

And pace. It was another one I was gonna say, Well,

Nik 48:57

yes, absolutely. I mean, like pick up like how big like the, like Pan African remittances ecosystem is now in terms of companies and like different quarters, and it's all from a pace. It's insane. Okay, last question. Why don't get down here? Is all FinTech net good for the world. No.

Jillian 49:18

No, I think that I think a lot of companies even when they want to necessarily do good, don't necessarily always have the best intention for the consumer. And I think it's very given that we are dealing with people's money, I think it's very easy. Whether or not there's intention behind it to get people in trouble because you're dealing with money. Other people don't know how to manage their own money. And so you can easily get people in trouble in that way. But then also, oftentimes, business models are not necessarily aligned with consumers as well. And so that can be a challenge.

Nik 49:52

Totally. I agree. Maybe a weird question or way to answer to end on but you know, finance is a tool the end of the day and the tool can be used for good and it can be used for not good I think it's our role as stewards of FinTech to make sure that we're moving more resources towards the good side. So, thank you for coming on to the show today and talking a little bit more about how you're making FinTech better.

Jillian 50:11

Absolutely. This has been fun. Cool. All right. Thank you are You didn't hit record

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Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro
‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Contagion (0.50)
News (1.47)
Interview with Dezzy about their experience and current work at Aku (5.75)
Quick Fire Questions with Dezzy (35.36)
Signals Fintech Founders: Vergo’s Rich Kane on fintech competition & entrepreneurship (38.08)
Upcoming Events (47.10)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends!

My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Dezzy

And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.

Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!

I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that too!

Also, friends, I did want to say I'm so happy about the number of people who've reached out if you've listened to this podcast, who've engaged in it, and I did want to let you guys know that from December onwards, we're going to be looking at the guests for 2023. So if you know someone interesting, or you think you would be great for this podcast, please do feel free to reach out to us.

Fintechionary: Contagion

According to Investopedia, contagion is the spread of an economic crisis from one market or region to another and can occur at both a domestic or international level. Contagion can occur because many of the same goods and services, especially labor and capital goods, can be used across many different markets and because virtually all markets are connected through monetary and financial systems.

The real and nominal interconnections of markets can act as a buffer for the economy against economic shocks, or as a mechanism to propagate and even magnify shocks. The latter case is typically what economists and other commentators refer to as contagion, with a negative connotation likening the effect to the spread of a disease.

News

🚀 Product Launches

Royal Bank of Canada rolled out Swift Go, enabling businesses to send real-time low-value cross-border payments.

📰 Other News

Small businesses are increasingly turning to Zelle for payments, to exploit a tax loophole in which Zelle banks say they don’t have to disclose transactions to the IRS.

Visa is providing pay-by-face technology and animated virtual credit cards to this year’s World Cup, while Italy's Sella Group is piloting a biometric recognition credit card that lets people make payments using their fingerprint.

Experian was tapped to run Singapore’s buy-now-pay-later credit bureau.

The Australian Stock Exchange is writing down A$250 million in its shuttered project to replace market infrastructure with a blockchain.

The Bank of Japan, meanwhile, is partnering with top Japanese banks to launch a digital yen next year.

India’s Bank of Baroda will provide collateral-free loans to small businesses who install solar panels.

Goldman Sachs paid a $4 million fine for mis-labeling ESG products.

It’s not just startups: FIS will cut 1,000s of jobs from its workforce of 65,000 to trim costs.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Klarna launched an open banking product to let startups access open banking services at 15,000+ partner banks.

Plaid launched an ML-based transaction fraud and risk engine named Signal.

Pan-African payments firm Flutterwave launched $endmobile, a remittance payment app for the diaspora.

B2B payment app Balance launched a Shopify integration to let merchants add self-service B2B payments.

Enterprise cash management platform Trovata launched a free version of its cash management platform, used by companies like Square, Eventbrite, and Krispy Kreme.

Nomi Health launched a real-time healthcare payment app.

Remittances provider Wise issued a plastic-substitute eco card.

Bump partnered with Mastercard and cards-as-a-service firm Highnote to launch the Bump Creator Card for creators, which along with routine benefits like no monthly fees or credit checks, takes web3 assets into account.

📰 Other News

Pipe, the buzzy revenue-based-financing marketplace for software businesses, announced that the leadership team is stepping down as the company looks for successors.

TrueLayer will power Coinbase’s open banking payments product, and is looking at stablecoin interoperability. Meanwhile, Coinbase Wallet released a new safety feature informing users of what the impact on their balances will be when they make a transaction, to prevent currency scams, and Uniswap overtook Coinbase as the second-largest exchange trading ethereum, after only Binance. Are DEXs finally replacing CEXs?

Binance, for its part, started a recovery fund for exchanges with distressed assets, while digital currency trading firm Genesis is shuttering entirely.

Elsewhere in stablecoins, you can now pay with USDC via Apple Pay (!) and Cardano’s regulated stablecoin, USDA, is planned to hit the market next year.

UK banking-as-a-service provider Griffin moved its sandbox out of beta and the US’ Varo Bank became the first neobank to join the Zelle* payments network.

Payments provider MoneyGram partnered with Bahranian superapp Beyon on real-time payments. Iceland’s largest telecom Síminn expanded into payments by using Enfuce’s card-as-a-service.

Google is removing all unlicensed Nigerian lending apps from the Play Store by January.

Fintech partner bank Evolve re-stressed to customers that deposits are safe, regardless of its FTX relationship.

NuBank parent Nu Holdings reported a $7.8 million net profit for Q3. Revolut hit 25 million customers.Credit-building app StellarFi crossed $1 million ARR and launched from stealth.

Fintech banking app Dave wants you to know that it is not bankrupt.

Swedish neobank Juni laid off ⅓ of all staff and Indonesia’s GoTo Group laid off 12% of all staff.

Recently-launched accessible credit app Nirvana Money is now shutting down. Immigrant banking-focused providers Stilt and related embedded banking provider Onbo have shut down. And, in an upset that nobody could have seen coming, right after raising $50 million, anti-woke neobank Glorifi is shutting down.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friend Dezzy!

Adaeze ‘Dezzy’ Onwumere is CEO and Co-founder of Aku, a payments-led digital bank based in Lagos, Nigeria. Aku currently serves over 70,000 micro merchants, and is on a mission to build wealth at the base of the pyramid.

Prior to co-founding Aku, Dezzy worked for the Econet Group, where she spearheaded their pan-African payments strategy, integrating payment partners across 18 African markets. Before leaving the Econet Group, she oversaw product development, commercial strategy and operations at Sasai Fintech (formerly Cassava Fintech), Econet’s fintech subsidiary. As Chief Operating Officer, she was responsible for the development and launch of the Sasai social payments platform.

Dezzy has a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Helen 06:05

I feel very honored that you would spend your birthday talking to me about FinTech on a podcast. That's amazing. That really shows your commitment and your dedication to the industry. Absolutely.

Dezzy 06:18I'm very happy to be here.

Helen 06:20

We're very happy to have you. And I think the best place to start is just to know a little bit about you, like who are you? Where are you from? What is your story? What is your story,

Dezzy 06:31

Boston, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here. My name is Dezzy. I am co-founder of Aku a Nigeria-based payments lead digital bank. And in terms of my story and how I got here, it's a very, very convoluted story, but I'm from South London. I'm Nigerian, actually Nigerian, raised in South London. So I was raised in Croydon. I went to live in the UK up until I was 18. And then went to university in the US did university in the US. After graduating, I moved to South Africa. And I worked with a company called the eConnect group and spent almost seven years doing FinTech before FinTech was sexy. And the FinTech I was doing was very unsexy. FinTech, it was mobile money. I was hired by the chairman and founder of the eConnect group as a gentleman He's fantastic. And as a mentor, he used to make me do very uncomfortable things. He used to say, impossible for you to get sand in your boots. And he shipped me off to Zimbabwe for months. And I would just like to stay in Zimbabwe. I call in, in like, like, informal retailers learning how, you know, people can use mobile money how to scale mobile money, how to scale agent networks. And that was really my, foundation, I spent the early part of my career in South Africa. And Zimbabwe, really learning the inner workings of mobile money payments in Africa. And I rose to the ranks and became CEO of their social payments business. I did that for a while. And then met my co-founder.

Actually, I met my co-founder on Tinder but he wasn't. He was actually just trying to start a business. convincing me to move that's Nigeria to do this. He was like, frequently calling me to pitch this idea. And I just, I was I was, I was being challenged. I really enjoyed what I was doing. And, I always wanted to move back to Nigeria. But I was very happy where it was. And I was growing. But then I got to a point in my career where I started at a business school. So I, I, when I got into business school, I applied with the rounds. I played one, one. And so I got in pretty early. And I had a lot of time between almost a year between the time when I would start business school. And the time when I got in, I decided that was a really perfect window to do something a bit riskier. And so, I quit my job and moved back to Lagos. And I decided to do this wild thing with this crazy guy that I met on Tinder.We found ourselves in The Office of the Central Bank of the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and we pitched him a software solution. And he said, fantastic. So he said, fantastic, solve my problems. And that was kind of that, was it. And it was literally me. And one person we hired, a lawyer, and then it's diskless, she's fantastic. She's still with us. And we didn't have a single engineer, anyone and we, and we started that way. And we built out a dev shop. And we did that for a couple of years while I was in business school. And then in 2021,, we shut everything down and decided that we were going to focus on building a bank. And that's what we did. We applied for a banking license in May of 2021. And we got our final approval in May of this year. So that's how I got here. And it's, it's not I guess, far from glamorous, but it's been. It's been. It's been challenging. It's been interesting. It's, it's been, it's been a very, very edifying experience, I would say, Oh, my

Helen 11:19God, I think that might be the best kind of sound or origin story that I've ever heard. met on

Did you guys at least got a date?

Dezzy 11:28

No, no. So we met on Tinder. And then he was working for a big technology company with a regional role across Africa. So he comes to Johannesburg. And we had swiped me whilst he was in Johannesburg. And I wasn't on Tinder at that time. And then I remember this literally the day before my bed. I was like, Oh, it's my birthday. And I'm setting goals. And I swiped him. But by the time I told him, he was not in he was no longer in South Africa. And so we just started talking the phone and it was like, but look like twist. Ended up getting married. In. I know, we ended up getting married during the during the pandemic in 2020. And October 2020.

Helen 12:24. Congratulations

Dezzy 12:27yeah. So one of my cofounders is my husband. Wait.

Helen 12:32I'm trying to keep up. I'm trying to keep up. You didn't get married to your co-founder. But one of your co-founders is your husband. Now?

Dezzy 12:38got married to my co founder. The one that I met on Tinder.

Helen 12:48

the story is just got way better. This is incredible. So you met on? Oh my gosh, wow. I don't know how Tinder is not sponsoring Aku. Not only that was that what not only did you guys get married, but you also started a bank at a whole bank. That's incredible.

Dezzy 13:12

And then our other co founders, a longtime friend of mine, we were friends. We were friends whilst we were in South Africa together. He was working. He's a senior software engineer who is working for another of the big tech companies in Johannesburg. And then we have been friends for the time he joined us. We've been friends for almost 10 years. So it's like it's a solid partnership.

Helen 13:41

t's great to speak to someone from Nigeria, but I'm thinking about like. But I'm just thinking about, like, as someone when I was younger,, navigating just the system itself is like, is mental. And I can't even remember how I navigated money. And the money looks so old. , the money it's like 100 years. So I guess I I guess I kind of have a question about that. Like, how did you navigate creating a bank? In a country I know from, you know, even personal stories can be quite difficult to navigate. You'd need to know so much just to even work out what's going on. And sometimes things aren't going on, and you're just running with it. You just have to go with it. So yeah, like, how did you do that? Or are you still doing it?

Dezzy 14:45

I'm definitely still doing it. There are so many things that are confounding to me every day, about the experience of the everyday Nigerian, The things that make life difficult, the things that ought to make life easier but don't necessarily. Yesterday we had we had training for. So our business works because we have field agents who go out into the markets and open bank accounts to the agents. They're calling on putting our registration agents, just understanding things that I knew but didn't know the extent of so. Literacy. Yeah. Literacy, the big a big issue in this market. And I know that I was supposed to prepare hot take or that this is the thing that I actually wanted to, to share. I what we've been told in Nigeria was about why in other African markets, mobile money, financial inclusion rates are actually much higher than they are in Nigeria, in a market like Kenya and, PESA is huge. In Zimbabwe, you have ecocash. Even in a country like Ghana, which is just next door close, you have MTN Momo, and those mobile money solutions have caused financial inclusion rates to grow astronomically in Nigeria. We haven't really had that level of success. And then people think that the reason for that is because of regulation. Previously, the telcos were not allowed to participate in mobile money or financial services at all. That changed earlier this year. . And nothing much has changed. And if I were to offer heartache, I would read I would say that the biggest barrier to financial inclusion and to tech adoption in Nigeria is not regulation. But it's actually facts literacy. Literacy our official literacy rate is around 60%. But on the ground, you will find that it's much lower than that. And so in terms of how we approach products development, that's always something that's top of mind for us, how do we serve a people for whom literacy puts the challenge huge. But then, to your point, I was in this training session like yesterday. And I realised that even for the people who are supposed to be more tech-savvy, who are supposed to be people who are creating accounts for people using smartphones, it's still an issue, still an issue for a lot of Nigerians. And so in addition to just being like, very, very crazy place to navigate in terms of Lagos is crazy. Super congested. So many people, everybody's hustling. They're also just like certain, like fundamental things that make during tech here. And there on a mass level, very challenging. Things that people take for granted being able to read menu options. Being ableto navigate your way through a smartphone or a registration process cannot be taken for granted in our market. And it creates a the need to be very, very creative and empathetic in product development and problem-solving. So it's been a it's been wild, but it's

Helen 18:15

no I can imagine. And like when I think of that, it's funny with literacy or like, language, I always find like language, specifically Nigeria is so interesting because English is officially the official language, but the reality is like on the ground. I mean, if you want to call that English , if you want to call pidgin English sure like you can, but you know, no one's speaking English the way like, you know, English isn't the Oxford Dictionary language.

Dezzy 18:45

You're looking to serve a population as speaking. Nigeria has like, over 350 different languages, right? Yeah, exactly. Do you have to get down to that? is a natural level. So we do English we do Pidgin. We do Elsa, Yoruba. We're big in, in a quiet bomb is one of our big markets now EBO as well, of course, as well. But in a quiet room is one of our big markets. So you have people who speak in local languages there. And, like you, you absolutely have to, I think that also to your point, just adds another layer of complexity.

Helen 19:26

Yeah. So it's funny, it's like, it's like, it's hard to kind of look at literacy, because there are like, over 300 languages spoken, and are still spoken, because it's like, I mean, I don't even necessarily like I honestly don't even know if they're all like if all of them are written languages, or if some are just overall, because, you know, like, historically, that's kind of how they were created. And so, it must be quite challenging trying to kind of navigate you've got, you've got English, you've got Pidgin, then you've got like, the main, you know, you've got the languages that the majority of the population to speak, and then you've got a lot of like other languages that other people speak. And then there's dialect and region and stuff like that. So I guess then, how do you sort of, like if we, if we were to look at, like IQ in like 5 years, like how do you kind of see that kind of onboarding process or getting people into the FinTech financial revolution in such a complex country?

Dezzy 20:24

So one thing I think, for us from an onboarding perspective, the human element is critical still, right? Which is unfortunate when you think about tech, because you really want tech to like scale, by itself. But for us, because of the barrier. We do need human beings to assist, at least in the onboarding process, and then we can scale up to that to some degree. So I, until we have this fundamental shift, which is really interesting, because if you look at Nigeria, there are FinTech businesses that are pretty successful, that are super lucrative businesses that I don't know if it will say names, but businesses that basically offer a form of assistance, Assistant transactions, right, Agent banking businesses. And what these businesses do is they have human beings who facilitate cash in cash outs, who do bank transfers on behalf of users who pay billson behalf of users in a market like Kenya, that kind of business is kind of unheard of, right? Because everybody has a smartphone, feature phone or smartphone. And everybody initiates their transactions autonomously on their devices, as well as to Nigeria. Until we fix the the structural problem of education, we're not gonna, we're not going to be able to eradicate human touch, at least on putting points until we get to the level of a Kenya that has an 80% literacy rate, or Zimbabwe, that has an over 90% literacy rate, or even a Ghana that has also illiteracy rate of 80. Nigeria is just not any of those countries. But I also I mean, we absolutely have kind of ambitions. And so I think, to me, having worked in I worked in Zimbabwe, I also oversaw product development for Burundi, less to two and I think something that I understand very clearly is that there's nothing like homogeneity in Africa, like no two countries have the same, and that's very helpful is helped us helped us in how we think about credit in Nigeria. And I, I hope that it will also help us as we look to expand to other countries in the future.

Helen 22:33

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, no country is the same. But even within one country, it's so it's not homogenous, even within the country. So you have to be you have to customise everything you're doing. So specifically, but yeah, I mean, I'm gonna kind of like ask you some questions, a little bit more about you. And things you've done, I'm actually going to ask you questions that our previous guests have put up. So there are a lot here. So I'll just ask,

What was kind of like your oh st moment in your career? So you can take that either way. Somebody will take it as like, what was this eureka moment where you were like, this is the thing that I want to start, this is what I want to do, the problem that I will solve, or you can take it as a time in which you messed up, and then you're like, oh, st, and it was like huge.I'll let you decide how you want to take the question.

Dezzy 23:36

I think I had, I had two ownership moments. I had one ownership moment when I was working as econect group. And I had one doing staff stuff. And I did that when I was working, extending into fintech. I didn't it was nothing intentional. I was in a grad scheme. It was rotational. I did. I was working at a telco and somehow found my way in FinTech and just kind of like, okay, at the time, I'm, I don't want to date myself, but that was like 2012. And, like, it wasn't. It wasn't really like an aspirational thing. At the time. I didn't even know that the term FinTech had fully had Sulli proliferated at that at that time. But I started into it. And I just kept, I was really interested and just kept growing. And there was a day when I was running something. A payment gateway was a Pan African payment gateway product. And we didn't have a product owner. And somehow, I fell into this work. And as I was building out a niche, I had this mammoth task of onboarding payments, payment partners onto the gateway. I call Estate Team African markets, it felt like a task that was that was impossible, I think, impossible for the team that we have a team working with very small team. And somehow, I think just out of like sheer zeal and just like a passion for this payments thing, I was able to do it in a really short amount of time. And I think my I think my team also surprised that how quickly I was able to mobilise all of these partners, big partners like M PESA. Big banks, across the continent, other telcos, I was like, very effectively able to negotiate deals. And at some point, when people will really like, You did all of that in such a short amount of time. After that, oh, s**t, like, I really like this. So all along, I have been doing this FinTech thing because I've fallen into it. But at some point, I realised like, I really actually love this space, and you're going to manage on board everyone so quickly. Yeah. And I was I was having the time of my life, actually, to be honest. Fantastic time. And I love this. And then the second or ship moment I had was when I had gone to a concert event. And I like I'm very, I'm actually a very private, very introverted founder. So like, coming out of myself, and my shell is something that I'm increasingly doing. Interestingly, I'm not an American, an introverted person. I'm just an introvert and just found I'm actually a big extrovert.

Helen 26:36That's interesting. Why do you think that is?

Dezzy 26:38

I think, I've been told that kind of this is that agenda theme? Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not really interested in productizing. Myself, you know, or like, making myself a personal brand, like a brand. I'm not really interested in being a brand, personally. But I am just aware that like, in the space that we're in, as founders, oftentimes just kind of, kind of, it's almost like expected. A

Helen 27:08

I don't know, I was at this like workshop a couple of weeks ago. And to be honest, it seems all very obvious. But it was like, I just, you know, when you actually think about it, and you're like, Oh, this is actually very true. And then it was Google, like, I am remarkable workshops. It was like about women. And they were saying like the way women talk about their careers. For instance, they'll always be like, well, I fell into it. And then this, this happened, and this happened. Like it's never like, I intentionally, set out to do this. It's always like, oh, you know what, it was a group effort, like, and even within our conversation, when you asked me about what I did, I was sort of like, oh, yeah, I like I literally did what I said, like, and I recognised it. Yeah. It's never like conscious. It's never like, Yeah, I did this thing because you want to seem and make it seem like it was a group effort. And like you are that remarkable in like what you did it? And, and I think it goes the same with like you talking about, like, the things that you do IQ and stuff like, you're like, I sit behind this brands because that's kind of how we're trained to think. And we don't want to seem like we're bragging. But then equally, it's like, if you brag, like, who dies, do you not mean, like, you should just say

Dezzy 28:18

that's actually true. And I also got it. Yeah, you're right. And I'm like, I'm growing into that I almost the more I have conversations with my team, they're like, listen, you're doing us a disservice by not putting yourself out there. And so I'm like, Okay, I'm trying. But the oshiete moment that I had was I had gone to an event. And there was a was it was not a startup event. It was an alumni event to my business school. And I met, I met a woman who was a, who was an investor. And I like, because I'm like, not that person. I won't immediately launch into a pitch when I see an investor because it's not really my sorry, my, my vibe. And so she asked me, what do you do? And I said, Oh, you know, I'm a startup founder. And then she said, he said, I don't really, I'm not currently, I'm not currently actively investing. And I was like, Okay, I wasn't going to pitch though. I was I didn't feel bad, but what do you do? And I told her, and then I showed her a product and I, and that she was like, Oh, I would like to invest in that. Oh, have you waited? Oh, I just, you know, I just met you. And she was like, I would like to invest in that. And that was like early on. And what was interesting about that was there are different kinds of investors. But this is somebody who one initially told me that we're not actively investing I guess, maybe, maybe they weren't, maybe they were. But also somebody's like on the ground too. understands the space here in Lagos, I found it so compelling after seeing seeing a demo seeing the product. And I was like, somebody who told me they were not interested, is now telling me very, very passionately, how interested they are. And I wasn't even pitching for me was like, Oh, s**t, like, like we're doing something. We're doing something right here. And so from an entrepreneur's real journey perspective, that was, that was a big moment. For me, it was something small, right? Obviously, we've done fundraising and tipping like big wins. But like, startup life is like, kind of the ghetto, like, so hard. And small things like that. I just like reminders that you need on the journey that you're, you're actually doing something that makes sense. And so that was that was also a very, very big but small ship moment for me.

Helen 31:01

No, I love that because it wasn't like it just happened so seamlessly. And someone basically saying like, yeah, we can see the meat of the product. There you go. And if you're I mean, you weren't like pitching. So that makes a lot of sense. That's cool. And yeah, and it's not like you didn't put in the work to do that. It's just like you naturally kind of got it across without essentially being like, this is our stats, and this is what we're creating.

Dezzy 31:26And I'm still learning how to be that founder.

Helen 31:30

Okay, another question I had, this is a question that I asked the previous guests who just came on the podcast. And that's the question that he's put up to the next guest. And it was if you were to start a startup in another industry, that's not fintech. What would it be?

Dezzy 31:53

It would be? I mean, I've never thought about this. But I have a very strong feeling because I always think about, okay, you know, when I'm done with this when I'm done with FinTech, like, what is my retirement life look like? And I think I would like to do something in the world, something that really, really left in the hospitality space. I really, like I mentioned, I'm actually not in my natural state. I'm like a big extrovert, but I love hosting. I love having conversations with people about things that people don't typically talk about hate small talk. And like, I like delving deep into, like, the big existential questions of why. And so I used to host these things that we used to call salons, where we're just talking about all kinds of things, relationships, mental health, awesome. And I would like to probably do something that combines that kind of like, deep dive in terms of interpersonal relations and hospitality, just like hosting something in that space. That would definitely be something that would align with my personal passions. Yeah, very random. Can I ask you?

Helen 33:06

Oh, well, I would do. I don't even know what I'm doing now. So I'm not sure what I was gonna be. I don't know. I've been pondering around like, like, politics and tech, and like, what the future of like, in every country, like there's extremism on both ways, and like, there's a lack of middle ground because I don't think the middle ground makes a lot of sense anymore. In short, so I've just been thinking a lot about, like, the way like politics is like, affected. Sorry, technology has affected politics and like, what technical? What politics looks like in web three, basically, for what that means and what that is, I don't know. It's just stuff I've been like thinking about recently, because if we're moving to this, like, very decentralized world, like that means everything's decentralised. So how do we navigate that is where I've been thinking, but to your salons thing, like, something I do outside of FinTech is host these kind of that, I mean, they went online during the pandemic, and we've not done them in person since then. But I do work with like charities and organisations, and basically, help them understand like intersectionality over l a starter main courts and dinner. It's kind of similar to the vibe of what you've just said, actually.

Dezzy 34:27what what kind of people do you do that with?

Helen 34:29

We've done both. So we've done corporates, we've done charities, we've jumped Yeah, we've done a whole different range of and it's very interesting, actually, because depending on the sector of the show, it sounds incredibly interesting. Yeah, you get some really, like, yeah, depending on who you're talking to what sex and all these things. The answer is different. But we don't do more than like eight people, even that as pushing a little bit. Because you want to be able to have a conversation you want people to be able to feel open. But the last one we did we did it with charity, it was like a, it was like researchers is a kid's charity, but it was with their researchers who kind of help a lot with different people in foster care and stuff. But their researchers wanted kind of like a better idea of, I guess, just understanding different identities and stuff. And that was incredible is really good in a lot of people kind of like we, you know, thought about their own spaces.

QuickFire

Helen 35:27

um, but I'm gonna move on to our quickfire session now, actually, so I'm gonna ask you 10 questions. I'm actually gonna ask you 11 Because I'm really curious about what the questions. I'm adding a question in, basically. So, yeah. Are you ready? Yes. So it's asking you 10,000 bananas, and you're not allowed to sell them? Or eat them? Or give them away? What would you do with them?

Dezzy 35:53Maybe turn them into a desk

Helen 35:56

into a desk?

Dezzy

.Maybe I try and try them out and maybe see if I can use them to build something. Okay, sure. Yeah. All right.

Helen

Um, what is your favourite type of cheese?

Dezzy

Brie

Helen

Would you rather live your entire life in virtual reality where all your wishes are granted? Or just live your normal real world life? Or more

Dezzy 36:27

real world? Can I explain? Because I realised something about life. If things are always going your way, and everything is always happy, you actually don't appreciate it. And in as much as like, the down seasons of life feel painful. They actually help us to appreciate the goodness. Without that kind of like the oscillations, you don't really have an appreciation when good things happen. They would definitely choose normal life.

Helen 37:00

That's such a nice answer. Would you rather have one wish granted today? Or 10? wishes granted? 20 years from now?

Dezzy

10,000

Helen

Would you rather have a pet goat or a pet chicken?

Dezzy

Goat

Helen 37:19

Would you rather take a pill a day for nutrients and feel full. But never eat anything again? Or eat whatever you want, but never really feel full.

Dezzy 37:45

Oh, God, this is really hard. Actually, this one I really liked food. I love food. I love food so much. That I guess I would I guess I would eat whatever I want. Without never so cool. What would you do?

Helen 38:06I think I would do the same because I like food. And I really like cooking. But it would be very irritating to always kind of be a little bit hungry.

Dezzy 38:14I know it really would be but then it will also be like tragic not to eat food.

Helen 38:19Yeah, just eat a pill like that. Yeah, so yeah, I think I would just be hungry or

Helen

what would be title of your autobiography?

Dezzy 38:28 I was here.

I've been asked this question before when I was in university and think about it, and there's a song by Beyonce called I was here. And there's a line somewhere. I live my life so that they will know I was here when I leave. So that like living a life basically of impact that touches the lives of other people. Even if it's only one person, just let one person know that I was here. Let my life have an impact for this one person. So that somebody knows when I'm gone that I was here.

Helen 39:13I think that's so nice. You're very like philosophy. Okay, but would you rather travel the world for a year on a shoestring budget will stay in only one country for a year but live in luxury?

Dezzy 39:37

Yeah, I would choose our shoot the lesser, actually because I'm like that very annoying person. My sister calls me a killjoy actually really don't like tourism. I really like people. And so no matter where I am, I can like have the time of my life. As long as I can always talk to new people just ask them questions and just like find out what they're up. Yeah, that's my fear. So I think initially, if I think it's like, very comfortable and happy, I would be happy to explore one person one place. And just know that I could just like delve deep into different people. Yeah,

Helen 40:12

well, but it's like, Iceland, like gets like really? Like, the domain not have something like that. Really hard. Like I follow this girl on Tik Tok, who lives in Iceland and actually, it looks great. I mean, but yeah, like, literally is pitch black. thing is I'm saying that and I live in England like it's literally getting caught up right now. It's three is nearly 50 PM. So yeah, but there are times

Dezzy 40:39when it's 11pm. And it's later you know, you know, yeah.

Helen 40:49

Okay, fine. Yeah, I'll let you have it. Yeah. Live in a country free? Would you rather be able to teleport or to read minds?

Dezzy

Read minds

Helen

Would you rather have a personal chef or a personal trainer?

Dezzy 41:42You know, I think I'd take the personal trainer.

Dezzy 42:47

that was wild. It's really interesting, because I remember when I was I was in bank because uni. There was a put on question got Oxbridge preparation. The interview. Just looks like a question. To me. I can't remember. What is like, what does it mean to be a banana or something weird? Yeah. So I have PTSD from that.

Helen 43:20

Fair enough. Okay. Sorry. PTSD from strange banana questions. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I mean, my thing was that I would create like an exhibition. And like, the exhibition would like outlive bananas. They would either be about like,

Dezzy 43:35actually brilliant. That's brilliant. You can even do like performance arts with the predominance

like, oh, that sounds like women is

Helen 43:45

when it gets sling on everyone. Some Yeah. Yeah, I did. I think the exhibition would be on like, either on evolution or about, like, a, like a conversation about like how much food we waste

Dezzy 44:02So that's definitely a much better use of the banana.

Helen 44:05Yeah, do you know what I actually put it on my dating profile?

I downloaded hinge and I thought I'm gonna ask people about this banana question. But what I got such a thin tacky answer. So this is this is relevant to this podcast. And someone said I would issue a banana coin on a DLT ledger backed by bananas as collateral, then open a central banana bank, banana tokens with Dena repeat redeemable for frozen bananas, banana tokens used for governance of the ecosystem, and also can be wrapped as an EC C 20. token to generate trails in perpetual pools with power leverage utilising the traces five protocol.

Helen 45:36Who is the fintech friends we should be on the look out for?

Dezzy 45:40

Tosin Olaseinde

Dolapo Adejuyigbe

Helen 46:49

awesome. We're gonna I'm after this I'm definitely gonna get their details. That is amazing. Thank you so much Dezzy for coming on. They're a fin tech fans podcast. This has been a riot. I had so much fun speaking to you, especially on your birthday. Like what a treat for me.

Dezzy 47:05been lovely talking to you.

Signals

Signals as our paid subscriber reads, and I'm going to read you a snippet from one of the latest articles written by Dez Flemming.

today we’re talking with Richard Kane, CEO and founder of Vergo. Vergo, as Rich tells it, is “a financial platform for businesses in the construction industry to run their finances,” Rich wants to ensure that the construction industry, a ~$2T market in the US, is is armed to the teeth with software that helps their businesses save time, reduces complexity, and creates more efficient money movement in a highly capital-consumptive industry. I am super excited to share this article with all of you, and Rich has a phenomenal founding story so let’s dive right in.

To read the rest of this article please subscribe to TWIF

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Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro
‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: ETFs (1.14)
News (1.57)
Interview with Kurt about their experience and current work at Stitch (4.25)
Quick Fire Questions with Kiaan (31.55)
Signals: When it rains in crypto (38.08)
Upcoming Events (40:35)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends!

My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Kiaan

And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.

Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!

I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that too!

Fintechionary: EFTS

According to Forbes, an electronic funds transfer (EFT) is a way to move money across an online network, between banks and people. EFT payments are frequently used in place of paper-based payment methods—like checks and cash—to make transactions faster and safer.

When you make a payment these days, odds are you’re using an EFT to make it happen. Friends can use EFT payments to split a restaurant bill, and businesses can use EFT payment options to get paid by their customers. With so many uses, EFT payments are essential to how money moves through the economy and your life.

News

🤝 M&A - Fintech

As everyone reading this newsletter should know by now, this week, FTX, the world’s seventh-biggest crypto exchange, encountered insolvency and was forced to look at strategic sale options due to a run on the bank. Its rival Binance, the world’s largest exchange, signed a non-binding agreement to acquire FTX, but later walked away from the acquisition after one day of audits. Meanwhile, the parent entity is trying to sell its ring-fenced US subsidiary, FTX.us, to rivals Gemini or Kraken. The turmoil is caused ripples throughout digital currency markets - with bitcoin tumbling 11% as of writing. It remains to be seen what the fallout is from the contagion of FTX’s collapse.
French payments giant Worldline is boosting its presence in Italy through the acquisition of Banco Desio’s merchant acquiring business for €100 million.
Railsr, a UK banking and compliance software provider formerly known as Railsbank, which just last month announced a $46m Series C, reportedly shopping for a buyer.
Business-focused fintech giant Bill will acquire financial planning and analysis software builder Finmark.
Latin American corporate payments provider Tribal announced its acquisition of Paykii,* a B2B cross-border bill pay platform.
Indian small business-focused neobank startup ZikZuk acquired tax e-filing platform TaxSpanner.
Prevu, a digital homebuying platform, acquired the assets of Reali, which in August announced it was shutting down after raising a $100 million Series B a year prior.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

Alternative asset manager Canyon Partners is exploring selling itself.
The Irish government sold 5% of Allied Irish Banks to institutional investors for €396.6 million.
Australian fund manager Perpetual rejected a second private equity takeover proposal at a price of A$1.89 billion.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friend Kiaan!

Kiaan Pillay is the CEO & co-founder of Stitch, a fintech company that helps businesses more easily launch, operate more efficiently and scale faster by providing seamless access to the financial system. A former developer, Kiaan spent his career building API startups in Africa, including Root, a bank account for developers, and Smile Identity, a pan-African identity verification company. While working on a peer-to-peer payments app, he saw firsthand the challenges fintech innovators face due to outdated financial infrastructure across the continent. This understanding inspired him to launch Stitch in early 2021.

Kiaan 04:49

Excited to be here. Thanks for tracking me down on email. I am based in Cape Town, South Africa, which I am a fanboy for, and whenever I can I try to advocate for people to move down. I think Nik had a great time with us here, a little bit of my background. I've always been fairly tech II. I always was very obsessed with computers as, as a kid ended up studying computer science and finance. And right after university, jumped straight into the startup world. I joined a startup called route, I joined as the first software engineer but ended up running ops, as you do with startups. I joined another which does identity verification in African markets, also an API based product. So same, same sort of thing again, and then by happy accident, kind of was building stuff on the side that led into stitch and ended up, Yeah, awesome.

Helen 05:56

Okay, that's a lot of information there. I guess my first question is about South Africa. I've never been to South Africa. What is that? Like? What's the best thing about it? And secondly, my question is stitch, what is stitch and if you were talking to like one of your non FinTech friends, or your mom or something like how would you explain what Stitch is?

Kiaan 06:16great question. I still haven't worked out how to explain what stitch is to my family.

They still think I'm building apps, which is certainly far from the truth. South Africa Yes. Many, many things. I think. I'm very, very Cape Town biassed Cape Town in particular is just like, an incredibly beautiful city, if you have been to San Francisco reminds me of San Francisco a lot. It's kind of got the hilly type of terrain, it also gets the fog. We also have a prison island, which is a weird similarity. But it's just a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful city. But in general, South Africa is a really spectacular country obviously has a tonne of history, which is still played plays out in some negative ways. But I think really, really great cultural background, incredibly diverse people here. I don't know how widely spread this is. But South Africans at least often refer to themselves as the rainbow nation because of such diversity in the country. So yeah, I think just really incredible people with really, really strong work ethics, a lot of care for the country and pushing things forward despite often a lot of setbacks and often a tonne of bumpy stuff, government, macroeconomics, etc. For like, just spectacular people.

Helen 07:30

That sounds cool. I've always I've always wanted to go to South Africa. It's definitely on my list. My brother actually spent a lot of time in Johannesburg over. Locked down. He really loved it there.

Kiaan 07:41Oh, lucky. Lucky him.

Helen 07:43

Exactly. Whilst we were all sitting here. And if we were to kind of circle back to like Stitch and stuff, do you like, how would you explain Stitch? Maybe? Yeah, if it's not to your mom, like to your friend or something like how would you explain what you do, what your role is, and what stitch actually is like, what the mission of stitch is?

Kiaan 07:59

Yeah, I can give you the to my mom pitch, and I can give you the to my friend pitch that to my mom pitch. I hate that I have to do this. But I often just do it similarly to a card. So you know, I explained card Hey, Mom, when you know when you try to pay for your Uber or your Netflix, you put in your car details. And money gets moved, right? That actually happens by somebody that's not like Visa that does that's not like a bank that does that there's like a player in the middle that kind of does that. And when I explained stitch, I explained that we do the same sort of thing. But we do it directly from a bank. So instead of going through Visa, MasterCard, or a different payments trail, we directly execute that from a bank. And we kind of offer the same experience that you get from a card except we do it directly through the bank, increasingly, we're going to add more payments methods which you can get into but that's how I explained it to her, I don't think she knows why there's any benefit to doing card versus bank or otherwise. But that's kind of how we positioned there. The like, slightly better version of that is essentially explaining it from like an app or a product perspective, like explaining it to my friend, you know, as a consumer of FinTech products, or that Savings

Investments, crypto person person payments, there's like a backbone to that right. And you have to like upload money. Typically you do it through card or you do it manually, we sort of facilitate that entire money movement process. So not only do we allow you to put money in to all of those apps, but we allow those apps to reconcile the money and then we allowed them to do a payout to if you're trying to withdraw back into your bank account. If you've made money from crypto, which you probably have not done this week, but you'd be able to push it back into your back.

Helen 09:44

Yeah, I actually really liked that you gave a different explanation for your friend and your mom, even though, like your mom just thinks that you build apps anyway. So that was great. Is there kind of a specific region or area that you focus on within Stitch?

Kiaan 09:59

So I'm one of the cofounders. And CEO, I spend a lot of my time on mostly external-facing stuff. So I do spend my time working a lot with the people team internally, but otherwise, kind of split up my time between the growth team, which is like marketing and design, customer success, we naturally have kind of like a 80/20 kind of rule where we're most of our volume comes from a small number of customers. So it's, it's been a lot of time there, try to build really strong relationships there spend a lot of time on product partnerships, specifically bank partnerships. And then, of course, new sales, not on everything, but where there are relationships that I have, or larger accounts that we're trying to get involved with. I like to spend a lot of time there as well. Okay, so

Helen 10:50

you're kind of doing a lot of like, you've you've kind of got your hat in a little in a lot of different fields. And so I guess that kind of leads me to ask, like more of a personal question, like, you know, you've done a lot, you know, when it comes to your career, like it's within fintech. But what about the market? Or thing? Are you excited about from a FinTech perspective or like a stitch perspective?

Kiaan 11:14

Yeah, that time, the like, a very brief origin story about Stitch is that we started trying to make a person-to-person payments app, invest, you try to build the entire thing from scratch ourselves and had a woeful, willful time doing so I think kind of realised the complexities of building anything financial your eyes, you have to have some sort of payment method, and you need to have a bank account to hold your money in. And then you need to get a sponsoring bank to do that. And you've compliance to do the need to KYC your users. . And I think that, you know, is maybe now taken for granted in some slightly more Western markets, some European markets in the States and I think there have been incredible players that have done similar things, the likes of stripe plaid, Tink, Trulia, even like checkout . I think largely that is still not happening in many markets throughout the world, you know, the markets we serve include. And it's just so exciting. It's just like very cool to be able to give developers the tools to be able to build these sort of things and be able to just like create and breathe new ideas into the world because they have, you know, new tools available to them. And I think we've seen this happen in other spheres, not just fintechs years, you know, once like API products, Twilio, or even just cloud services proliferated. And it's just like really exciting to kind of watch that unfold. There's just like a whole new wave that's happening in many markets.

Helen 12:53

Yeah. And I think something that you touched on that is the kind of markets do you think there's something unique or different or exciting or frustrating about like serving the South African or the African market that makes it different from let's say, someone in a different region? Who was who's serving different markets?

Kiaan 13:12

Yeah, absolutely. There is a lot that it's unique. There's a lot that's frustrating. I think that the adage that like, quote, unquote, Africa is a very complicated country is a very true one. I think everybody kind of looks at Africa and thinks is this one big? Well, I think you can, with an uninformed opinion, look at Africa and think there's one big homogenous thing that you can kind of go after. And I think you start to see that, like individual markets themselves are so like, uniquely different in terms of like, you know, bank penetration in terms of financial penetration in terms of compliance regulation, the actual payment rails are so uniquely different, the banking partners are so uniquely different. And I think that is been pretty fascinating to kind of dive deeper into a few markets, it is certainly not the case that you've cracked one market in Africa, you've cracked them all. So I think that's been pretty fascinating. I think, you know, in terms of the opportunity side, it's just like absurdly big, you know, I think, because everything is so nascent, like I mentioned, it's just like a really, really, really big opportunity set. And I think, perhaps what really excites me and it's maybe a little bit romantic, but you're seeing this huge wave of people going from cash to digital for the very first time. And in many cases, that's like not cash to bank. Right? There's this like, I used to hate the term LeapFrog. But I think you're just like seeing it happen in a lot of markets not happening right? People are going in many markets like directly to fintechs and they're treating them as their only store of digital value people are going to mobile money right and like, you know, like, absurd percent of Kenya's GDP runs through like M PESA. And like, oh, Over 90% of adult Kenyans have M PESA. And they use it once a month. And you're just seeing this, like, phenomenal adoption of these products everywhere. There's just like really exciting that, actually, weirdly, I think you might start to see overtake some of the more Western markets, because there is actually incumbency in banks in these Western markets. Now, there is like, for penetration and inertia to like people being like, bought into this ecosystem. But I think you'll start to see like a lot of really cool innovation in the markets we serve.

Helen 15:27That's super interesting. Do you think that means they can kind of surpass maybe some of the legacy issues that potentially, you know, other systems have, which kind of do go through cash to traditional finance to fail?

Kiaan 15:54

I think, certainly of an imperfect example. Kenya. I mean, when you think about FinTech penetration, maybe it comes up, maybe it doesn't, because it's it's telco owned, but but really, it's just the most absurd, you know, like the adoption of a financial product ever outside of like bank accounts, right? Where else would you see 90% of the adult population, like at least once a month, using a payments platform right, and it's just so ubiquitous, you can use it to pay for your groceries, you can use it for your person to person payments, you can use it in tandem with your FinTech apps. Because I think that alone is a great example. But you're just starting to see this happen to a lot of different markets. And there's just like, no need for a lot of these, you know, outdated paradigms that have come into being because, you know, banks existed in a digital world in the last 20 years. So I think it's really exciting. I think you see it play out in different ways. In each African market, I even think just the concept of like agency banking, and being able to like move cash to digital is still such an exciting thing that is kind of like uniquely happens in emerging markets. I think maybe the closest parallels to some of this is in some Asian markets and the likes of like, really volatile systems like Alipay, or Wechat are really interesting examples of like, why the and deeply penetrated products that you just don't see in like the US or Europe.

Helen 17:27

Nice. Yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking. And because they haven't really had these issues, you can be a bit more creative or innovative. And I want to say go back to you, and maybe ask you some of the questions our previous guests have put forward. So every week I asked the guests like, what should I offer next? Guest I actually have quite a few questions now. So a question from a couple of weeks ago was what was the event or thing that will stop you from working in FinTech?

Kiaan 17:58

Oh, that is such a great question. I don't know, I am quite lucky that I feel very deeply in love with what I do and the sort of entire sector that I am in. I think there's like an endless amount of opportunity. I kind of feel like a FOMO venture capitalist whenever I'm on TechCrunch because I never I see it. You know, a new FinTech, fundraising. I'm like, God, crap. That is like the coolest new thing. I'd love to be like working on some of that, too. There are just so many great things that are still coming out to be I think maybe the only thing I've been asked before the question and maybe a slightly different lens in terms of like, if I started another startup, what would it be and I think maybe something specifically around like developer experience as a service, I think that is one area that equally draws my attention. But there's sort of been like less urgency or pool for me personally, to solve this sort of problem. I think, like, as mentioned previously, I think developer experiences like so, so important. And giving developers like really beautiful, easy tools is still something that doesn't happen, as well as I think it should, in many places, I think even stitch, you know, started and we all deeply, deeply cared about developer experience, but it is a surprisingly difficult thing to like, pay a lot of attention and time to when you're building new products. And it's quite an easy thing to almost have, you know, with a built-in like decay rate. And like, over time, your like develop experience worsens if you don't give it direct attention. And I think, arguably, there could be products and there could be companies that build this as a core competency and almost as infrastructure for people to use. And I've always loved that. It's really fascinating. So maybe something like that. If for whatever reason, I got tired or or there was enough pool in that direction. But I am very happy where I am right now.

Helen 19:53

That's super interesting. I guess we're all very focused on my product experience and like the end user and stuff like that. So sometimes like Hey, developers might get sort of lost in the, in all the other stuff that's going on, especially when it's like, okay, let's launch this product out there. And now the question that was asked was, how do you learn about this stuff like, you know, when it comes to you and your career, you've obviously worked with a lot of different fintechs. And you've been in a lot of different spaces, you know, but let's be honest, like, the space changes so much, you know, like, when it comes to FinTech as a whole, or defy or like, whatever you want to really say. So where is it that you kind of like, absorb your knowledge? And like, what would you where do you go to kind of learn about all this stuff? Like, if someone was just starting out? What would you be reading or going to?

Kiaan 20:42

it's a really good question. I don't have a good answer for that. And that's a particularly atrocious thing to say, because obviously, we have a tonne of new joiners and people join stitch for the first time and they need to upskill on these things that we don't actually have a great path to point in one, we do a very good job of giving people stitch context and what happens inside of stitch. But like your you don't have a FinTech background, super, super, super difficult. I've just kind of learned everything empirically by being in fintechs. In the last, whatever, eight plus years now, I think, at least what I do, and maybe some of the areas that I don't understand, well is I try, I try to be super, super critical of like anything again to like TechCrunch type articles, on anything I read, because I think, often at least you see a FinTech fundraise the article. And it's easy to kind of point the finger and be like FinTech bubble, crazy thing, start a startup doing something that's not super important or interesting. And they raised tonnes of money. In most cases, if ever, I kind of like deep dive and things I like end up like being very fascinated with these companies are building and actually find that they're solving much harder problems and at face value it looks like and so I often try to like be really critical on like other companies and try, like deeply understand, like, why are other people working on these things? Like, what is the value add? And I mean, occasionally, I'll kind of come out and be like, Oh, maybe that's not such a huge problem to work on. And I did kind of understand the problem set. But most of the time I kind of deep dive and I'm like, Oh, well, I really didn't understand why you would need to optimise payments in this sort of way. I didn't understand why this vertical couldn't solve reconciliation. And that's why this company exists. And that's a really, really good way to learn. I think I learned pretty well through like narration, I guess like most people do, or anyone does as, as humans do. And like startups just very naturally are like stories. And so find it really easy to kind of read other founders stories or other like product inceptions company inceptions and kind of learn through that. And then you just ultimately find you understand very, very, very little about why people do this, and then kind of like, reset it on your own. Like there's a limited amount to what you can find online. But But usually, that's the way I do it.

Helen 23:06

Okay, so, I mean, I guess it's kind of about having like that, what, obviously, you have to have an interest in it. But I guess it's also just you'd like to kind of go down those rabbit holes trying to work out like why X, Y and Z happened? Do you? Do you feel like you've gone down a lot of like rabbit holes in this area or are like, I guess, what kind of rabbit holes you usually go down? Is it FinTech or is it like something else?

Kiaan 23:31

Mostly FinTech, I think is maybe a little bit self-satisfying, because I can usually go down the rabbit hole and at some point, I will start to understand it. I just don't think I'm smart enough to understand a lot of what like other people are doing in more esoteric spheres of the world, or maybe just things that I don't have expertise in. So often I do often I kind of go down and I'll see like a random employee loyalty programme startup, and I'm like, Oh, this is interesting. What's that about? And I'll kind of go down and find that stuff endlessly fascinating. If it's a bit more technical in the domain, I don't understand I often just end up quitting probably just because I often just can't kind of understand it and the lifts to understand it. Often, I just don't have when I'm scrolling around on my phone and kind of like getting into things by I can kind of endlessly go into fintech. Yeah.

Helen 24:24Also, sometimes you just want to skim read and see if you get it and then sometimes it's just

like, Okay, that's enough.

Kiaan 24:30I never get it through skim read. I'm not I'm not smart enough to get anything under skim read.

And so that's why that's why I skipped somebody. Thanks.

Helen 24:39Yeah, fair enough. There's loads of questions here from different guests, but I'm gonna ask this

What keeps you up at night professionally and personally?

Kiaan 24:49

Nothing. I'm very into into sleep these days. I'm optimising my sleep drastically. I am only partially joking but professionally, I think I would just be lying if I if I didn't say that, occasionally, you know, how reliant we are on regulation and banks and third parties is quite scary, right? At the end of the day, we can do a limited amount without these partners. And these partners are very large incumbent organisations or regulators and you know, in some markets have been known to be very volatile or very flippant, that can be quite scary. I used to worry about the tech or customers and stuff like that. And we're in a much better and slightly more scaled spot now. So I feel that less personally, pretty coupled, I spent a bit of my time kind of obsessing around work stuff. I don't think I ever find stuff personally that keeps me up that stresses me out outside of work. Often I'm I'm kept up because I'm very excited about certain things, often. The things that excite me are and keep me up or the things that I cannot work on sort of like these other ideas that I've heard or like things that we want to do. At this point. We can't do just yet. So it is nice to kind of dream about and scratch that itch in my brain. But you just can't like dive into it further. But yeah, nothing personally I've always the kind of stressed myself out too much that is non work related.

It's it's basically work. Last thing I do the evening before I go to bed is I look at all of our graphs, and I look at how the day is going. And then I go to sleep. And if it's a good day, I go to sleep peacefully. And if it was a bad day, I'm off.

Helen 26:51Yeah, I'm not sure if you're like joking

Kiaan 26:57Genuinely The last thing I do before I go to sleep, but the first thing I do when I wake up, and I

love it. It's okay, if it does the same thing is probably not super healthy. But I do love it. Yeah.

Helen 27:09I mean, if you love it, then you love it. So what do you think we should ask the next guests

Kiaan 27:12 if you weren't doing this, and you were to do a startup in another industry? What would it be? And maybe the other one that I've never had a good like as in like if you were to find another startup in a different industry that like not FinTech or if you're in med tech, not med tech, what would it be? And then one that I sort of never had a good answer to myself. But if you were to leave the startup world, and you were to go work at a quote-unquote, corporate or enterprise, which would it be? And why?

Helen 27:56

Those are really good questions. So you've answered your first question about what you would be doing if you weren't necessarily doing stitch and what Startup you'd develop. But if you were to leave the startup industry and work in a corporate, or enterprise or whatever, what would it be?

Kiaan 28:12

Yeah, I still don't have a great, great answer there. I think another industry that like really, really fascinates me is I guess, entertainment. But I suppose like, specifically like the film industry and movies, certainly not on the forefront of acting or directing or anything like that. But I've always kind of been fascinated with how that works behind the scenes. How do you like, you know, scripts? Or screenwriters, like managed to birth these ideas? And how do they get to fruition? Like, who reviews these things? How do they get funded? How do they source the actors around it, I've always kind of thought it is in probably a very walked we're not crazy to similar to like startups because they kind of like start is this idea. And then maybe you find a financier, and then maybe you find some actors to join the team. We're interested. And I just like personally, love, love, love, love, love movies, and I spend a lot of my free time watching everything I can get my hands on and like actually going to the movies. And so I have no appreciation of how things go from zero to a produced film. And I've always thought of you like quite an interesting thing to get into that I just assumed I would kind of like, like and have passion for. So that that would be something like, like, cool that I'd love to like noodling. Yeah, no,

Helen 29:30

And also, if you look at all the events of last week, like, you know, maybe the startup world and what's happening will become a movie. Who knows?

Kiaan 29:51

there's so many of these things. Now there is, I mean, two of my favourite movies ever are the Steve Jobs movie and social network.

Helen 30:18

Do you know what I think that it is, though? I think we're obsessed with like scams as a society,. Yeah, so I don't even necessarily think is just startups obviously, by nature of like, what I'm not saying startups are scams, but it's more just by nature of creating something like, obviously, not everyone has the best intentions. And but I think, like I don't necessarily think it's like, we want to know how this person founded this amazing company. We want to know how this person kind of like fooled everyone. And I think like the Theranos one is a really good example of that the podcast for that I was like, obsessed, I like listen to the whole thing. In one day, we work as a good example. And all these kinds of ones where it's like, they created this like cult personality thing. And I think, I don't know, even when you look at Netflix documentaries and stuff, there's just this like real phenomena about like, the internet, the use of the Internet, and the use of like, money and how these things all collide together to create like, I don't know, an image of something that potentially is not it. That's my theory.

Kiaan 31:17

I think that's right. Especially because, I mean, this is gaining more and more like, mainstream attention, I think, because they're just like good stories. And people like naturally have some inclination to kind of like scratch a little deeper under the surface, especially if there's some angle of deceit, or anything grey, which, at the end of the day, a lot of startups are. And so yeah, I think it kind of like scratches that itch for most people. Intuitively,

Helen 31:46

yeah, I'll just sort of like how far can you take this? And like, there are so many good, like, yeah, things on that. So I'm gonna go to our quickfire session now. And essentially, I'm going to ask you like 10 questions, they have nothing to do with FinTech and just answer the first thing that comes to your head for you, are you ready?

Quickfire:

Helen 32:07Okay. Are you more like a square or a circle?

Kiaan

Circle

Helen

That's cool. If I gave you 10,000 bananas, and you can't throw them away or eat them, what would you do with

Kiaan 32:17

Banana Bread party, massive scale banana bread party? Oprah's you can't eat them. Does that? Does that count as eating them?

Helen 32:23I'm gonna say yeah, it counts as eating them. And also you can't give it to people like and you can't sell it.

Kiaan 32:28Oh, no. Okay. I would make like a soapbox car out of Bananas. Okay.

Helen 32:34Well, five things you need to make a fort in your house.

Kiaan 32:38pillows, mattress, food, food supplies, snacks. Bedding like a sheet. lamp. Weneed light on the inside.

Helen 32:50

Okay. And what do you like daydreaming about?

Kiaan

Sport, Sport, Sport or what movies to watch for the weekend.

Helen

What do you hope has been invented?

Kiaan 33:17

Oh, great. One cheesy one for teleportation. I really, really really hate travel. I love travelling. I love being in new spots. Like one downside, which I did not tell you earlier about South Africa is it really is a horrible place to travel from it is like not convenient at all.

Helen 33:36And if you had to measure your height in Oreos, how many Oreos tall do you think you would be?

Kiaan 33:41

Oh my god. How many isn't Oreo? Like three centimetres? I don't know. 660? How did you stack them up?

Helen 34:20Okay. Are you more like a river? A lake for ocean or waterfall

Kiaan 34:25

ocean

Helen 34:30And if you could eat one food everyday, what would it be?

Kiaan 34:31

Sushi.

Helen 34:34

Okay, pretend that you get to make one rule that everybody in the world must follow. What Rule would you make?

Kiaan 34:40

everyone should be barefoot?

Helen 34:41

What why?

Kiaan 34:43

I think the world would be a better place if everyone was barefoot. I'm barefoot person for time and it's nice. I feel like you just a happier person. You're what kept you more in tune with. I hate to be that that person. And I have not always be like this. I only started getting barefoot I actually after I got I got an injury a few years ago. It's just so much nice. I like people that are barefoot my myself not being self-fulfilling, but I like people

Helen 35:11do you go outside barefoot

Kiaan 35:14

I have done that. I have stopped doing that. Because I've had things inside my feet. That's not fun for anyone. But I feel like if everyone was barefoot, then society would make it so that outside is okay. And it's more walkable. But it's not fun stuff that gets in your feet. It's just there forever. I've just have things that have been in my feet for years. They've just never disappeared.

Helen 35:36

Oh my god. There's actually a guy on Tik Tok, and he lives his whole life barefoot. And he goes around, and he interviews people and asked them to take off their shoes. And then like they stand there like barefoot together. Like you'd really appreciate it.

And lastly, if you could build a house out of any material, what would it be and why? I don't know. I have so many house questions.

Kiaan 36:09Oh, that's interesting. All glass maybe? Depends where I would live by Yes. But I love very openairy glossy type houses.

Helen 36:37

Yep, that works. Okay, awesome. That's the end of our quickfire session. I think I pretty much anybody have one more question.

Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Kiaan 37:56quickfire questions was the most stressful thing I've done in a long time. But this was fun. Glad we got there the end.

Signals

Helen 38:08

Signals is our subscriber only reads and Im going to read you a snipper from our latest article.

What! Is! Happening!

"Crypto exchange FTX lent billions of dollars worth of customer assets to fund risky bets by its affiliated trading firm, Alameda Research, setting the stage for the exchange’s implosion, a person familiar with the matter said.

FTX Chief Executive Sam Bankman-Fried told an investor this week that Alameda owes FTX about $10 billion, the person said. FTX extended loans to Alameda using money that customers had deposited on the exchange for trading purposes, a decision that Mr. Bankman-Fried described as a poor judgment call, according to the person." - The Wall Street Journal

Remember when FTX stepped in to bail out crypto platform BlockFi over the summer? The same FTX that then made a bid to buy Voyager and was hailed for altruistically using its fortress balance sheet to save the crypto industry from potential collapse? FTX, the company that built a reputation for regulatory compliance and was taking shots at Binance on Twitter for its alleged lack thereof?

There’s a lot of chaos to unpack amid the recent spate of crypto exchanges going insolvent, sassy tweets, and investigations into potential fraud. There’s also a lot of wisdom for the crypto industry and its regulators to take away from this.

FTX's collapse– and its recent antecedents– are underscoring the need for crypto to live up to its ethos of transparency and exposing cracks that platforms are already moving quickly to address. The crypto ecosystem will emerge better-off for it.

Before getting into lessons learned, let's have a quick refresher on the journey that got us here.

Dumb collateral

If you're leveraging a trade, you’ll ask a broker to lend you funds covering some percentage of the order. Putting less of your own money down means that your gains will be multiplied when the trade is a success, and losses multiplied when the trade isn’t. You’ll typically need to show the broker that you have enough money to cover their downside in a margin call if the underlying security drops in value and the trade starts going south.

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Events

Reg Tech Summit is happening in New York on November the 16th

This week in FinTech is hosting a happy hour in Austin, Texas.

Lastly, FinTech World Forum is hosting their event on the 23rd and 24th in London,

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

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We're excited to announce the second episode release of our new podcast, Beyond Two Percent!

Beyond Two Percent analyzes the critical questions, issues, and dynamics that affect people differently by gender - and the intersection of those dynamics with finance. This week's roundtable focuses on investing, and we're lucky to be joined by Katie Perry, General Manager at Public, and Margot de Broglie, Co-Founder of Your Juno

SPEAKERS

Margot de Broglie, Co-Founder of Your Juno
Katie Perry, General Manager at Public
Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Head of Content and Community at Orum
Helen Femi Williams, Fintech Journalist

Helen 00:14

This is the Beyond Two Percent podcast and I'm your host Helen Femi Williams.

Julie 00:18

And I'm your second host, Julie VerHage-Greenberg, this podcast is brought to you by this week in FinTech, which is the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership and events, and

Helen 00:31

of course, podcasting. And you might have listened to our other podcast. Hey, Fin tech friends. Well, this podcast series is all about women exploring everything from investing to motherhood, to intersectionality, and so much more.

Julie 00:45

And we encourage you to give us feedback on the topics you think we should be discussing and asking and future panels.

Helen 00:51

I think Julie and I and the way that this week in FinTech team recognized that ensuring women are well represented in any industry is always going to be beneficial. Gender Diversity has shown to spot better problem-solving, superior performance, innovation, so much more I could go on.

Julie 01:06

You're right, Helen. And if we were specifically talking about FinTech, the industry could benefit for more women at any level because women in general, have not typically been in the spotlight as a target audience for financial products and services. They're an underserved customer segment with a massive unmet need.

Helen 01:24

And beyond that female founders and executives have personal experience understanding how to generate an ally new ideas and solutions in this field.

Julie 01:32

And that's why this podcast is called Beyond 2%.

Helen 01:35

There is a world of tech-driven financial products and services that is yet to be discovered because of the lack of women leaders in this space

Julie 01:42

and through group discussions with leaders in these spaces. This is what we want to explore

Helen 01:47

this week. It's all about investing.

Julie 01:53

And thank you to our sponsors in New York City FinTech women, FinTech women's mission is to connect, promote, and empower women to advance their careers. They need help from everyone if we're going to make a real change, encouraging male allies to become members and come to our events. Membership is free. And you can sign up at NYC FinTech women.com and follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Laura speaker men are recognized by Crain's New York and 2021 as a notable woman on Wall Street is a co founder and chief revenue officer at alloy. Prior to alloy Laura led business development and partnerships at an ACH payments startup and was on the research and investment team at imprint Capital Advisors, which was acquired by Goldman Sachs. Laura is a proud Barnard College alumna and lives in Berkeley, California.

Julie 02:22

Katy Perry is a general manager@publix.com an investing platform that helps people be better investors. As Publix dot coms general manager of investor relation innovation, Katie oversees b2b partnerships and editorial providing new pathways for asset providers to ensure that investor information reaches retail shareholders. Katie is a frequent thought leader and mentor on the topics of retail investing trends, financial equity, and marketing. She has spoken at events with NASDAQ ladies get paid General Assembly and Adweek and was selected to the World Economic Forum Working Committee on the Future of capital markets. She has provided mentorship to emerging talent via organizations.

Helen 03:08

Margot is the co-founder of Your Juno, a financial education app for young women and nonbinary people. Dubbed the Duolingo of money. Users can learn about any financial topic via its app, including negotiating a pay rise, buying a property, and becoming an investor started one year ago by Margot and her sister Alexia, your junior has raised a total of $2.5 million and reached over 25,000 users with a mission to close the gender wealth gap. I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Helen 03:49Thank you so much for coming on our podcast. I'm Helen, and that's the lovely Julie over there.

And we should address the elephant in the room.

When I first read that, I was interviewing Katy Perry was like, wow, I didn't know she did so much in the investment space.

Katie

I was on an email the other day with an Alex Rodriguez, and we laughed. So lots of celebs and fintech, believe it or not multi high finance. Yeah, I mean, we've all got a pivot, you know, if the music's not working out, got to change careers.

Helen 04:21

But yeah, I think, a really good place to start, like, obviously, we're focused kind of on gender and the gap between men and women. And I think that's something that you both are quite knowledgeable about. So I guess, on a very basic level, like why is this important? So is there a gender gap when it comes to like investing between men and women? And why is this something that, you know, we should be focusing on?

Margot 05:00

I'm happy to start. There's definitely a gender investment gap all around the world. We're seeing it in almost every country in the world, and why does it matter? Well, everyone speaks about the gender pay gap, which is obviously a big problem that we should be addressing. But if we don't look at the gender wealth gaps holistically, then we're not actually looking at the full picture. Because yes, women tend to earn less than men. But then what they do with that money is also very different. And if you're not investing your money, if you're not making that money work for you, then you're missing out on huge potential returns that really compound over a lifetime. So actually, we're looking at wealth here, more specifically, and especially for women, wealth is so important wealth is the ability to leave a situation that doesn't support you. Well, we often call it the eff off find. So it's the ability to say no to things that you know that doesn't work for you, be in a toxic relationship, or a toxic workplace, invest in your business, or just take steps towards having more options. And I think that's why it's so important to speak about the gender investment gap because it really has such a big difference in women's lives worldwide. I totally agree with that. And I wanted Margo to go first because she's building an entire business from expertise here. And this is only part of what I do. So yeah, I think, you know, there's a couple of facets of why people aren't investing, why there's a gap. And obviously, it's not just gender, it's race, and socioeconomic class. And there's, there's like structure, there are real structural and systemic things that are causing this. And those pieces, those are huge problems that involve so many pieces across our day-to-day lives. In addition to that, there is this gap of just access to information and knowledge and overall accessibility of these concepts. I remember growing up and like seeing all the ads for financial platforms like the people in the ads always look the same. And I think if you're not, you know that you look at those, you don't see yourself over time, you just don't feel included. And so one of the reasons kind of public was started was to change that culture around these topics and investing and make them more inclusive, because they are for everybody. And that kind of gap in access to knowledge. Or even just confidence and feel like you can see yourself as an investor, that's like a real blocker for people. So that's the specific thing we're trying to address, acknowledging that there are many other reasons why this is something that needs to be fixed at multiple levels. One interesting thing, just on the confidence front, is I think sometimes, you know, there's a lot of studies, women have more humility, when it comes to their skills and aptitude, oftentimes too much humility, I would say. But on the other hand, there's a lot of times where that humility is, is a benefit, but in the concept text of investing, it can hold you back, if you're, if you're looking at something and thinking, Well, I'm not an expert, so I'm not even going to start that can hold you back in the same way that, you know, there's data that shows women won't even apply for a job unless they feel like they can do every single bullet point. Whereas a man in that situation or, you know, see himself doing 40% of those and throwing his hat in the ring. So I think that's also a little bit of a part of it. So it is about making, making people see themselves as able to do this and giving them access to that information to better themselves as investors.

Julie 08:14

One thing I want to bring up here, too, is just both the points that you guys make really stem back to female-identifying members of our community, like a very early age, this isn't something that like starts when you're 18 or 21, or whatever. Like, this is something that's bred into you when you're like five years old. Right? So I guess, Margot, going back to you, how do you guys think about ways to start instilling this in people and women from a much earlier age, so then it feels like for maybe millennials and Gen Z, it's going to be a little bit harder to do. But if we start thinking about earlier, maybe we can close this gap versus where we stand today completely. I think something we're very interested in is the narrative more holistically around women and money. And most of us grew up watching sex and sex in the city. And what we saw in there was women as excessive spenders who had no control over their budget, we were just spending on shoes. And we really build sudden conditioning around money based on stereotypes. There's a really interesting study by Starling bank called make my money equal, which looks at the language that is used to speak about money in the media, specifically in articles targeted at men versus women. And what that study found was that 93% of finance articles targeted at women focus on clever ways to spend less money, so be your coupons or tips and tricks to rein in your budget this month, whereas 75% Of Finance articles focus on men's focus on growing their wealth. It's this idea of abundance. It's this idea of you have the opportunity to bring more money

Margot 10:00

And you can invest, you can ask for that raise. It's this idea that there's no scarcity of money. And I think that really plays into our financial confidence, like Katie was mentioning, because if we haven't been spoken to in this way where we feel like we're good with money, then that impacts how we think about the stock market, how we think about all these different aspects of the financial world that we simply don't see ourselves reflected in. And in terms of changing that, I think it really starts with how we're taught about money. You're absolutely right in saying that most of our money beliefs are shaped from a very young age. So we look at our mothers and will look at our grandmothers. And that's often the role model that we have when thinking about money. So we think the media has a huge role to play. We're also advocating that financial education should be mandatory in schools at every level, starting with budgeting, it shouldn't be something that you discover once you're 18. And it's almost too late.

But yeah, the earlier you start, the better definitely, and it should be made part of the curriculum.

Julie 11:01

Katie, what are your thoughts on I know Public? Obviously, people are not allowed to invest in stocks until x age which is much farther along than when they're five years old. But I think from a stock trading perspective, for instance, my husband is talking to his dad about stocks, and like trade and everything, like all the time when I call my mom, that's not what I talked to her about, I asked her about like, I don't know, shoes, or like I'm pregnant. So I'll ask her about different like Baby things like, Do I have enough things on my registry? The last thing on my mind is asking my mom or dad for stock trading advice. Right? So how do we think about making sure that women can feel comfortable investing? And, you know, have more of those conversations?

Katie 11:46

I think one aspect is, well, it's been interesting. I've been at Public for three years. And, like, before I started Public, none of my friends at all were talking about this, really, maybe a few. And now it's like, this is like a commonplace conversation. But what's sometimes different in my experience is, you know, a male friend might send a screenshot of some company, I don't know, maybe a small cap, and he's like, Oh, I'm gonna, you know, YOLO, this, like a screenshot? I have a group thread with two women who are in the industry. And we're talking about, like, the business. And I think when women realize that, it's not just depending on the type of investor you are, there's obviously people who do the short term, and they're more technical or the long term. But if you're interested in just businesses, you can start as like yourself as a consumer, one company I had no idea was public until I started working at Publix.com was crocs. I mean, it's fascinating if you're following their collaborations with celebrities, and maybe that's a hook, and you're like, that's interesting, do people really buy a lot of crocs. You're looking at their growth, then you're looking at, you know, their fundamentals. And so the tenor of the conversations I tend to have with my women friends are like, we're into businesses, and we're curious about them. And it's fun to dig in and discover and get that information. And it doesn't have to be the stereotypical two monitors, Ken or Red Bull. And I think that it's that image that you see that's always there when there are other types of investing. And if you think about it more broadly and more inclusively, it's actually more appealing to way more people than you would think. So sometimes, it's just a mindset thing of, of kind of aligning kind of, you're interested in investing with things you care about, things you're curious about, and kind of stepping back from some of the stereotypes again, depending on what your approach is,

Helen 13:37

I think, Katie, I agree with you. But also, I think there's a piece there around like, it's just kind of intimidating. And I think as well, like, it's really interesting what you're saying about your friends. So, for instance, I was with my uni friends yesterday, and we were talking about investing, but it was just very random, actually, it wasn't like, it's not really the type of thing that we sit down and talk about, but equally, it's equally there's this, like, kind of, I don't know what you want to call it, this element where it's like if you know, you know, and if you don't, you don't. And I think there are two pieces there, it can't I do think there's a gender element to it, where I do you think investing and just even this whole topic has a very, like mansplaining sort of vibe to it, just kind of covering it. But equally, I don't think it's out of like all my friends, for instance, yesterday, I don't think even they talk to their parents about investing or stocks or anything like that, because their parents didn't do it. So I think there is a piece there around like, you know, family, and if your family would be doing it, then you will know what to do. And it's not necessarily a thing you need to learn because it was something that people were already talking about in your household. But then I also think if you don't know and you want to learn, it feels like a closed-off industry.

Margot 15:12

I think there was a huge pain point. And I think the industry up until now has been actually doing a really bad job at educating consumers about the different products that are out there. Because I think one of the big issues is that if you google how to invest in the stock market, you'll find pages or pages of stuff. Still, financial providers are always writing blogs for SEO purposes, but they're ultimately trying to sell you their specific product. And so you as a consumer, you I think, especially as women, we're much more aware of this type of stuff. And we're much more, Yeah, much more scared about taking in information when we know that the person has the interest of selling us that product.

And there isn't this possibility of engaging with this topic. And in a fun way, in the same way, that you'd learn about meditating on headspace. And you'd have these, like, 10-minute videos every day. And it's, it's made to, you know, to feel tangible and understandable. And so, hopefully, I think we're now seeing a real desire to lift that money taboo within the younger generation. A recent stat found that more than 65% of Gen Z turned to tik tok for financial information. So there's really this appetite for, speaking about this and engaging with this topic. Now, obviously, tik tok, I don't know if it's the most trusted source of financial education because there are many pump-and-dump kinds of cryptocurrencies, etc. But at least there's this real yearning to feel like they're part of the conversation. And so that's something that we're trying to crack in June. And we often say we're building the Duolingo of money. So seeing how we can take these topics and make them accessible to as many people who might not have had that education from their parents.

Julie 17:12

And I mean, there are stats showing that we've also had progress in this area, right? Like I'm, I'm looking at one from Fidelity right now. We're 67%. So roughly two-thirds of women are now investing outside of just their retirement account, compared to 44%. In 2018, which, you know, I don't know if we can attribute it to one certain thing, I definitely think the pandemic played a big role in that I think apps like public, making it so much easier to invest is something that played a big role in that. And I've also heard from women, like, being able to use something like an app is so much less intimidating than having to go talk to a broker or someone who's going to be like, What, you're just some girl like, I don't, you're not going to trade that much money like you don't know what you're doing. I don't want to talk to you, etc. So I think, you know, there's a number of factors there. But the point is, like, it's not all doom and gloom, I think there is progress being made. Thanks to your Juno, Public and others out there. I just think like, obviously, we're all here, because there, there's so much more that we can do to

Katie 18:13

right. Yeah, I just want to piggyback one thing Margot said because I think it was important in that the context and just explanations is, is kind of what we see people want because women are rightfully skeptical of, you know, the SEO driven Article Five Reasons Why XYZ stock is a buy right now, like, obviously, you know, in those articles to just scare me, because it's like, you don't know the person's financial situation, and you don't know their risk appetite. Like how do you have one article? Clearly, there are goals. But I don't know if it's so much that people want to know exactly what to do, but they just want the concepts broken down. And when you get past all the jargon, and like the insider speak, the concepts are fully graspable for people, they get them. And so sometimes, it's just the breaking things down. And that's what my team does at Public is just trying to break down these things as they happen. So we do like live audio shows, we have different content in the app. And it's never like, hey, go do this. But for example, two weeks ago, when Bed Bath and Beyond was, like, ripping in terms of interest, we had a lot of content, whether it was an audio show or an article of like, what's going on with this stock. Here's what's happening. You know, it's obviously getting beamed. But let's go back to their last quarterly earnings report. This is what they reported this is their actual financials, do with that what you will. And once you break that down, then people feel empowered to make their own decisions. And that's kind of the difference between like, Julie, your example of going to a broker? Are you really learning in that instance, you're kind of just trusting the other person, which that works for a lot of people, but you're not actively understanding for yourself.

So bridging that gap, I think, is really important. And I think people find that when they have that context, whether If the Fed news or inflation numbers or something about stock over time, that's what's giving them more confidence, they feel like this stuff isn't out of reach. And then that also hooks them in more to be more of a student of the space and get better over time. And I think that's kind of what it's about.

Julie 20:18

I think there's something really important in certain what you've shared with Katie, which is about also breaking down the view of investing as this kind of Wolf of Wall Street thing where you have three computers, two spreadsheets. You need to go through financial statements for two hours before making a decision, but actually realising that, for most people investing in ETFs, or in passive index funds, is often the better approach. And we don't need to spend hours understanding the ins and outs of every company that's part of that ETF, but just getting started and letting time do its magic is so important. And I think so far, the financial industry has done also a pretty poor job at showing that there are so many different levels to investing, there's, yes, there's a trading of individual stocks. But if that's not for you, you can literally spend two minutes a month managing your investments, and you're still going to be in the market and benefiting from whatever the market is doing.

Helen 21:18

I think you both make a really good point. And just back to that kind of like learning element. And actually, I think Julie's steps, step. She kind of talked about this as well. I think the NOC having a broker and actually being able to sit home and like educate yourself and kind of take it upon yourself does actually allow more people to get involved. And I think FinTech has basically like allowed people to do that. Because you can sit at home, you can take your time, get something wrong, and someone's not judging you. And so it's created this whole lane of people, or a whole group of people, including myself, where if you are going to invest, you don't necessarily, you don't necessarily need the kind of I to guess you can say that public judgment of what you're doing. Because you might not necessarily know what you're doing. So you just kind of want to be able to kind of take your time and get things wrong, get things right. But to that then if I was, if I'm, you know, a graduate, maybe it's the first time I've kind of got a bit of money, I've got a bit of savings. Maybe I got my bonus. And I'm starting to think, what can I you know, I'm on my first steps to investing. Katie, what would be the first step for someone who's a woman who's just thinking like, I'm young, I don't know what to do. I've got this pot of money. Like where would What should I do with it? What would be the first step?

Katie 22:39

One thing, the interesting thing we see with beginners a lot in our, our platform, as beginners novices, and also people are really like hardcore, sophisticated, but the beginners always kind of jumped to, okay, I'm here. I know, I need to invest, what do I buy? And I'm not a financial advisor. But what I've heard the dozens, and if not more, experts say is there are steps that happened before that. So you know, auditing your financial situation, understanding how you feel about risk, and then knowing your goals. I think sometimes we forget about the goals piece of investing, and we don't like okay, the goal is to make money. Okay, when for what is it five years isn't retirement, there are different strategies based on different goals. So to jump in, without thinking about what you're trying to do, you know, you need those steps first. And then I think it's a matter of I mean, one, one interesting thing about fractional shares, which is the ability to buy, you know, any piece of stock with any amount of money. You own a fraction of a share, I think something that's not talked about is the fact that that also gives you more time to learn with less skin in the game. So we've seen you know, college kids be on our app, and they'll put 20 bucks in, and they can spread that across 1015 things and have that experience of investing but learn along the way. And I think there are learnings that happen, we're seeing a big kind of reckoning in the market, the last few months of all this volatility. And a lot of people myself included, I likened to myself to a genius, and 2021 when really the entire market was just going up. And we actually just finished a study to see like, what are people thinking now who came in when things were kind of on the up and they're hitting their first down cycle, which is a natural part of the market. And what was really interesting is that it was promoting positive behaviours. So people were more interested in diversifying, they were more likely to say they're more focused on looking at fundamental metrics before making a decision. So if you're new have the ability to start small and realise you don't need to kind of throw everything into you know, an app and start get started. You can kind of with the fractional investing, you can start smaller and get that experience which gives you returns over time. In terms of knowledge, so that would be that would be my long winded answer to that one. As a non investment advisor.

Margot 25:07

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think what we've seen with our audience, we run these 21 days to first investment challenge. So everyday people get a lesson and an action point that they need to do. And what we've seen often is the biggest barrier is making that first investment. So signing up, opening that investment account, and putting the first amount of money in the market. And I couldn't agree more with Katie, I think the most important part is put $10 into the market and then see what happens. Because you're going to overcome that. There's a real identity shift that happens where you go from, I'm bad with money to I'm an investor, no matter what the amount is, it can be an insignificant amount for you. And then once you are in the market, your your your emotions are feel very different. Suddenly, you open the app, and it's like, it's gone down. I've lost 12 P, I wonder why that is, oh, look at this one, I've made 25 P, I wonder what happened. So it doesn't actually matter how much money is in it. But it starts a booking your curiosity and your sense that actually this is fully within your reach. And it's really something that you can understand. And then I think for us, the three checklists that we give people before starting to invest is to get out of high interest, save up for an emergency fund, and take advantage of your employer's pension that matches and max out. So once you have those three things set up, start thinking about your goals and what you will do with that money. But definitely don't start investing before you've done those three things

Julie 26:34that kind of leads me into one of my other questions, too, is like, what's the biggest mistakeyou see people make when thinking and starting about investing? Margot, you can just continue?

Margot 26:44

I think the biggest one at the moment is I heard from a friend that this specific stock is going to go through the roof or this specific crypto will go and explode. Trusting unreliable sources puts a lot of their savings and money into it. And then realizing one, they're not diversified at all. They haven't thought about their goals or how they will sell it out. And obviously, those kinds of rumors are often very wrong, and people end up losing a lot of money and getting burned. So yeah, that's definitely a huge mistake we're seeing just

Helen 27:17

Where are the places you should be getting this kind of advice from? Or where should you be looking?

Margot 27:34

Yeah, for sure. I mean, Your Juno is one place to start. But what we often tell people who start looking, you know, beginner level one is diversified funds, so not yet looking at picking individual stocks. But seeing how with a fund, you can have a basket of all sorts of stocks. And some of these have been performing historically very well, on average, like the s&p 500. This isn't financial advice to buy the s&p 500. But you can see that historically, it's grown at an average of about 10%. And that's basically in one transaction invested in the 500 largest companies traded on the US stock exchange. So if the US economy grows, you're basically automatically benefiting from that quote. So often, we say, you know, funds are a great place to start, there tend to be quite low fees. One of the famous strategies is the three-fund portfolio strategy, where you invest in three different funds and basically cover all your bases. And so people can look into that it's quite a famous strategy by passive investors.

Julie 28:40Katie, what mistakes do you guys in Public?

Katie 28:43

I would come at it from a general sense. So I've always been just interested in the media. And I think media literacy right now is just an issue that I don't think gets enough attention. And when we do talk about it, it's usually about, at least in this country, political discourse, understanding what accurate sources look like bias. But when you think about financial media, I mean, that's your money. So I really think one thing is not understanding the nature of certain sources. Is it someone on Twitter with an NF T avatar trying to get you in on that NF T? They probably have a reason to do that. Not all the time? Is it an article that is clearly optimized for SEO? And so we've provided resources to our members in the app of not just these concepts around investing, but understanding how financial news media works, what direct sources look like, what's SEC filings, what are the regulations around those, you know, but also on the same but on the same hand, you know, if you're listening to the earnings call, that's obviously the company trying to send a message. So understanding how information flows in this space is really, really important. If you're going to be an investor that's kind of plugged in and wanting to empower yourself with information. And that's across. That's not just women, obviously, it's across everything. So that's one thing I would just add with the, with all this going mainstream, it's amazing. But I think there's more and more of a responsibility, frankly, on people like us at Publix and other platforms and other people to make sure that as things become easier for people to do, you're having that context, they're in the environment, to provide a little not friction. Still, a little more context and not just, you know, one button that's going to something, let people know the why behind what's going on, or the details of that, so that they can make the best decisions for themselves. And that'll be different for everyone

Julie 30:57

Looking at both the Public app and the Your Juno app, the things that I love is that you're so keyed in on various ways that people can learn, if they want to look at a clip of something, they can look at it that way, if they want to read something, they can look at it that way. If they want to engage with other members, they can do stuff that way. And so I think, you know, something that we've touched on a little bit, but maybe not enough, it's just like that optionality of like how you want to digest information, because everybody's different learners, right? Some people are visual, some people are audio, whatever it might be, I think is super important as well. And you know, that's also something that I think we need to keep improving on, especially not just for us at this age in our 20s, 30s 40s, whatever. But I think for the younger generation as well,

Margot 31:42

I mean, what we're seeing at the moment is that financial education has been completely left out of the conversation for so long, like, Tech has been working tirelessly, tirelessly at helping us learn how to code, learn new languages, and all these different ways. But yet, when it comes to like, the most important language of all the language of money, it affects all of us. There are no resources and education out there. And I think there's a lot to be done to make this financial education more accessible. And I'm really looking forward to the time when there'll be, you know, many more resources, like the language, you can, you know, have a private tutor, you can do all these different things to learn a language. And hopefully, we'll see the same with, with money very soon. But you know, financial advisors benefit a lot from us having no idea what we're doing because you go, you pay a large amount of money for them to manage your portfolio and do things that are actually really, really easy to do. But we're just having a huge information asymmetry. And so they benefit from us not knowing what we're doing and being able to charge really high fees for managing our portfolios. So, yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot that needs to happen there.

Katie 32:52

Yeah, I agree. And in addition, if you just think about all the bureaucracy and hurdles it would it takes to change curriculums in the US at least. I mean, I'm old, but not that old. I had to take a home economics class and learn how to like bake. That's crazy. I mean, baking, if you love it, that's great. I also learned how to operate a jigsaw and like, almost took a finger off. It's like, we can't even agree in this country about what books are okay. And like, it just seems insane. But the change is so slow. And it's such an obvious thing that, yeah, I could say microeconomics or whatever version of it should not be an elective that 25% of people take. But the the effort that goes into changing that system, and the alignment and like a polarised sort of environment is really hard. But I totally agree with Marcos original point that we need it because it is it isn't fair that like I think about all the time, my dad's very savvy with investing was 18, he opened a Vanguard account for me, and I started early. And I learned it early. And there was someone who I respected and trusted in my life telling me, you can do this. And that's just so that not everyone has that. And very few people do. And it's not fair that just because you, you know, didn't look into a moment like that, that now you're going to be behind forever. And now you know, you're going to you're going to just think that you can't do it. And that's not someone's choice that they're in that situation. So it has to be baked in in more places where more people can access it. And that's the only way we'll solve the bigger problems that no one app or platform could fix.

Helen 34:32

I mean, there has to be this level of like, learning not just from school, not just from your friends, not just from your family. It has to be like a whole cultural shift that I guess we're kind of getting on our way there but we're not. But I think there is a sense where women are talking about investing way more than ever before. I haven't I don't really have the stats on it, but it just feels iike a conversation that happens around the dinner table.

Margot 35:10

For sure. I think I think we're definitely seeing I mean, what I was saying about tick tock just like Gen Z, turning to tik tok to speak about money. I think what we're seeing is like a smoked, slow dismantling of taboos. If you think about still 10 years ago, mental health was such a big taboo therapy, no one was speaking about it, and then slowly became into the mainstream, and everyone was like, well, we need to speak about this mental health is important. And then we saw the same with like period care and sexual pleasure. And I think money is like the last piece that is still standing that is still a big taboo, where you ask someone how much do you and they completely freeze. But it's definitely changing. And especially, I think, women and minorities realising the taboo, were the ones losing out from the taboo, we don't know how much our coworkers are earning. And if we're being underpaid, we don't know what people do with their money. And so I think there's a really big wake up call where it's like, we're done having this as a taboo, let's speak about it in the open and actually drive change.

Katie 36:10

I agree with that. And I think it's, it's, it definitely feels like it's getting better. But it's interesting to how perception isn't always necessarily reality. So like in the survey we just ran, we asked people if they're interested in exploring or investing in certain asset types, looking ahead, and we asked about a bunch of things, but that included like NFT's digital assets and alternative investing, whether that's fine wine are things that like usual, if you kind of follow these conversations, very male-dominated, and the women respondents and the men respondents, both responded at the same levels of interests. So just because the loudest or dominant voices are all one thing does not mean it's for that group. And I think you kind of see that a little in crypto where, and it's just interesting, a little long tail of that is a little lagging. But that shocked me, because when I opened my Twitter, if someone's writing about an NF T, I could pretty much guess, you know, what their deal is going to be. But I thought that was encouraging, despite that, and just not looking out to who's talking and thinking that that's the that's who that is for? Because that's really not the case.

Julie 37:27

No, I think that this, this is such a good point to kind of wrap everything up on to because I think like, the issues here are just so wide-ranging, like from starting at an early age to making women of our age feel more comfortable to talking about it more as friends to the media and how they portray investing. I think, you know, it all comes together to show that this is this is not just one thing that's causing this problem. There's so many things and factors involved in it.

Helen 37:55

What would be your sort of long-term vision and dream? Like, if you could wave your magic wand? Katie?

Katie 38:16

Wow, big question. Um, I think it would be continuing to find innovative ways to get people information that helps them empower themselves. The goal is to move them up and along, and so evolve with our customers as they become savvy or what's the new thing that we can give them to keep them progressing? And yeah, in general, the obvious point is like dissolving some of these sorts of barriers or stereotypes around these spaces so that more people feel like they can participate. And we can have more wealth equality across different groups of people.

Julie 39:11

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think to your point of FinTech, I think something we haven't spoken about much in this podcast episode is also just how male-dominated the FinTech industry is. And so something that I would love to see is just more female-founded companies. Because if there are more women at the top of the company, you're building products for yourself because that's the experience that you have. And so, yeah, my wish is really that there's more diversity within the FinTech companies themselves so that it can trickle down into the products and the offerings that we're giving out into the world

Julie 39:44

as someone that works for a female-founded company, I fully support that idea and think there should be many more female-founded companies. Well, I do think it's getting better, but there's just better and like, where we need to be is there's a big gap still, so definitely Something that we can work on.

Helen 40:02

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Katie and Margo, for joining us today. It has been great to just kind of talk about all these things. And I think it's gonna be really useful for people to kind of just know where to start because it can be very confusing and intimidating. I can definitely attest to that myself like I felt that way. So I think it was really nice to be able to just kind of break that down. And yeah, have this conversation. So thank you so much for coming on.

Katie 40:27

Thank you. So fun.

40:29

Thank you so much for making it happen. Such an important topic. Beyond

Julie 40:35

2% Thanks so much for tuning in this month, you guys. In our next episode, we will dive into the life of female venture capitalists. It's a traditionally male-dominated industry, but we've started to see a number of women rise in the ranks. And not only does that open up the door for more women to thrive in this career path, but it has an impact on funding for female-founded startups as well. As seen in our title, beyond 2%. data shows that only about 2% of funding goes to female-founded companies. People like our two guests, Gillian Williams of Cowboy ventures and Ana Cristina Gadala-Maria QED, are working to change that. I can't wait to dive into this topic in a few short weeks. But until then, thank you so much for listening, and I will see you next time.

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro
‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: API (0.52)
News (1.50)
Interview with Kurt about their experience and current work at Pinwheel (5.03)
Quick Fire Questions with Kurt (33.01)
Signals: Business financial management intensifies (41.20)
Upcoming Events (43:07)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends!

My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Kurt

And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.

Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!

I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that too!

Fin-techionary

According to IBM, An application programming interface, or API, enables companies to open up their applications’ data and functionality to external third-party developers and business partners, or to departments within their companies.

This allows services and products to communicate with each other and leverage each other’s data and functionality through a documented interface. Programmers don't need to know how an API is implemented; they simply use the interface to communicate with other products and services.

API use has surged over the past decade so many of the most popular web applications today would not be possible without APIs.

But first this week in Fintech

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia launched an app for charities to take digital, contactless donations.

📰 Other News

JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon is slowly changing his tune on digital currencies, calling blockchain ‘real’ as the bank prepares to launch blockchain euro deposits and potentially get into NFTs? Meanwhile, Fidelity is rolling out ethereum to institutions next week, as the US’ first bitcoin ETF lost 70% in the last year.

NatWest is busy signing up partnerships with fintechs like Token, Tink, Yapily, TrueLayer, GoCardless and Crezco, to build variable recurring payments. Dutch bank ABN Amro merged its PFM app Grip into its mobile banking app.

Banks are competing to offer customers higher-yield products via brokerages, in a rising rate environment.

Payments Europe is pushing back on Europe’s timeline for instant credit payments, while Singapore released new legislation on digital currencies and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority released a study stating CBDCs can work with private stablecoins just fine.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is studying Big Tech’s entry into financial services.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Let me know if I missed any.

Dutch payments giant Adyen launched a suite of embedded financial products, card issuing platform Marqeta expanded its product set to include new banking capabilities, and banking-as-a-service provider Synctera launched support for charge cards and a white-label app.

Card-as-a-service provider GoCardless launchedits own fraud protection suite, and Point Predictive launched a consumer identity, income employment, and risk history tool.

PayFac Finix rolled out new APIs and SDKs for its in-person payment offering, going head-to-head with Stripe.

Crypto custodian Anchorage Bank launched a full-stack infrastructure offering that facilitates crypto payment gateways, structured financial products, and crypto investing. Competitor Fireblocks launched a payment engine to allow merchants to access funds from sales through instant fiat-to-stablecoin conversion.

Crypto tax platform TaxBit launched an automated solution to compliance and reporting challenges across cryptocurrency and digital assets.

Blockchain.com debuted its Marqeta-powered crypto Visa card.

Benefits software Rippling is getting into payroll, one month after launching spend management. Ramp launched a set of new tools for employee and vendor payment.

Biz2X launched a business lending platform for banks and credit unions. Veritran launched a digital wallet for small business owners to manage personal and business finances in one place. Sage launched an SMB accounting tool.

Buy-now-pay-later provider Zip launched its own card.

Bill Harris (formerly of PayPal, Personal Capital, and Intuit) launched Nirvana Money, an “accessible credit card product to radically simplify money for middle-income earners.”

Market data provider Refinitiv launched a new onboarding tool.

📰 Other News

JP Morgan will now let users pay with Meta, while Amazon will let users make payments through Venmo and Apple issued new rules for app store crypto and NFT purchases.

Gr4vy partnered with giant retailer Woolworth’s to enable all online payments.

Remittances provider Wise will bring investing products to Europe. Cross-border payments firm Thunes integrated with Visa Direct. Consumer neobank Current migrated to Visa’s DPS Forward Platform.

SMB finance provider Paystand will enable card users to get next-day-revenue. Peach Payments partnered with API provider Stitch* to bring instant checkout to merchants.

Ripple is working on bringing NFTs to its XRP ledger. Tether’s USDT will be available at 24,000 ATMs across Brazil. And YellowCard received its first African crypto license.

Stripe came to Thailand.

Nigeria’s Kloud Commerce shut down, leaving investors to seek legal recourse. LatAm SMB commerce builder Neta also shut down.

The UK's Institute of Directors launched a special interest group designed to boost the UK's fintech sector.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friend Kurt!

Kurt Lin is co-founder & CEO of Pinwheel, the leading payroll connectivity API. The son of two immigrant parents, Kurt saw how the lack of credit history created a greater struggle for them to access and secure financial products. This experience became a driving force for him and his co-founders to create Pinwheel. Kurt has been involved in multiple startup acquisitions, first with Idean and later with Luxe.

Following Luxe’s acquisition by Volvo, he received an HSA and experienced similar challenges to those of his parents. He realized if you didn’t have money to pre-fund an account - which most Americans don’t - opening an HSA Health Savings Account was basically impossible. Kurt and his co-founders set out to create a more automated HSA process and soon realized the key problem was actually inaccessibility to the data and controls in payroll systems. Thus, Pinwheel was born with the mission to build a fairer financial system.

To read the full conversation, please listen to the podcast!

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

To read more about Pinwheel's survey covered in this conversation surrounding the company's genesis, coming from Kurt's own family experiencing being underserved by the financial system, you can find the release and the blog.

Signals

Signals is our subscribers only read and Im going to read you a snippet from our latest article by Sophie Vo.

When times are good, you can profitably offer a variety of financial services to businesses as standalone solutions, like payroll or pseudo-AI bookkeeping. A lot of B2B fintech startups have been really successful in doing so!

Now, times are Less Good™– soaring interest rates and high inflation dampening consumer demand for goods, stock market volatility weakening retail investors’ appetite for trading, once-in-a-generation dollar strength impairing businesses outside the US, crypto doing this and whatnot– causing a shift in businesses' financial needs.

This new set of financial needs is putting pressure on a number of B2B fintech concepts, and fintechs who've historically offered a niche set of products are having to adapt by diversifying out of their swim lanes. We're already seeing equity fundraising platforms start to expand out– Party Round, a fundraising tool for startups, rebranded to "Capital" and launched business banking in a move to let founders manage the funds they've raised directly from the platform.

As businesses fintechs batten down the hatches for Less Good Times, an interesting convergence is happening across B2B fintech products. It's no longer enough to serve a niche set of businesses' needs; the race is on to offer businesses all the financial features.

To read the rest of this article please subscribe to the This Week In Fintech newsletter.

Events

(in the next two weeks)

EPAY summit GCC is happening on the first of November in Dubai.

Other things happening on the first of November include FinTech and InsurTech live happening in London and Web Summit happening in Lisbon.

And Singapore FinTech festival is happening on the second of November to the fourth

And This week in FinTech is having a meetup in Cape Town on the 10th of November, you can actually get tickets on our website.

The financial brand forum is happening on the 13th to the 16th in Las Vegas and fintech talents festival is happening in London on the 14th financial brand forum is also on the 14th and lastly, the FTT building societies is happening in London, also on the 14th.

See you next week besties!!

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro
‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Eth Merge(0.55)
News (2.05)
Interview with Kirill about their experience and current work at Conduit (5.41)
Quick Fire Questions with Kirill (31.00)
Signals Q3'22: A macroeconomic vibe check (41.22)
Upcoming Events (43:15)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends!

My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Kirill.

And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.

Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!

I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that, too.

Fin-techionary

According to Investopedia, the Ethereum Merge is the joining of Ethereum’s proof-of-stake (PoS) Beacon Chain with the Ethereum Main-net to transition the Ethereum blockchain off the legacy proof-of-work (PoW) system. As of mid-September 2022, Ethereum has officially switched over to a PoS model. It has given birth to Ethereum 2.0, a new version of Ethereum. This will result in a 99.95% reduction in Ethereum’s energy consumption and the ability to further scale the Ethereum ecosystem.1

Ether tokens will remain exactly the same for investors, and there should be no change to the operations of Ethereum-based applications.1

There are driving factors behind the move to a PoS consensus mechanism, including:

More decentralization by lowering the hardware requirements for node operators
Faster transaction confirmations (though overall speed will be about the same)
99%+ reduction in energy consumption by node validators
Ability to add more scaling solutions (such as sharding)
Increased security through client diversity

But first this week in Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Banks are on a roll this week!

Lloyds Bank in the UK launched Smart Start, a spending and saving account for 11 to 15 year olds.

Deutsche Bank and Fiserv launched vert, a payment acceptance and banking services provider to small businesses.

Santander UK launched a consumer mortgage app.

HSBC launched a new API-based trade finance platform in the UK and Hong Kong.

Bank ABC launched its own neobank, ila, to major MENA markets starting with Jordan.

Visa partnered with crypto exchange FTX to launch debit cards in 40 new countries. BNY Mellon launched their crypto custody platform.

Barclays launched purchase-less cashback.

📰 Other News

Is Goldman Sachs killing their Marcus neobank?

So far this year in the UK, banks have closed 248 branches, with 288 more expected to close by year-end. The Financial Conduct Authority is responding by requiring banks to perform an impact assessment of what happens when they leave communities behind.

JP Morgan and Visa are creating interoperability between their two closed blockchain networks. Liink and B2B Connect.

Following up on Nord/LB, global bank HSBC partnered with Trade Ledger to lower receivables financing timelines.

Partnerships! EBA Clearing, Swift and TCH are joining forces to pilot faster cross-border currency payments between the US and EU. Axiom Bank is working with Bankifi on a small business banking product.Santander is partnering with Google to build usable cloud systems for financial institutions.

Futures exchange CME is considering a crypto brokerage.

The Federal Reserve updated a debit card rule that requires debit transactions to be routed to multiple card networks, which should bring down interchange costs. The Reserve Bank of India is launching its own stablecoin pilot. The Egyptian central bank is building a new market for currency hedging.

The US presidential administration is urging Congress to implement new crypto rules, while the OCC released its 2023 bank supervision operating plan.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Jiko launched a treasury management solution for corporates to store money in t-bills.

Uber launched its new Uber Pro Card for drivers, in partnership with Marqeta, Mastercard, and Branch.

Venmo launched charity profiles so that nonprofits can raise directly in the app.

Doshi launched an ‘educational’ crypto wallet for teens. Betterment launched managed crypto investing. Investing app Stash also added crypto investing and passed $125 million in annual revenue.

Student loan app Chipper (not the African Chipper) launched an easy apply app for students to apply for loan forgiveness.

Swiss mass affluent neobank Alpian launched out of stealth.

📰 Other News

The Good

Anti-woke bank Glorifi, which promised to “build credit cards out of the same material as shell casing” even though “the material turned out to interfere with chips and be too thick for point-of-sale systems”immediately (and unsurprisingly) collapsed. Among other episodes at the firm, of which there are many, “an unnamed GloriFi manager was seen on camera "in a state of undress, on a bed with a companion who was similarly in a state of undress.” (Editor’s note: The firm’s PR team reached out to dispute this story and we are working to verify details.)

Google and Coinbase partnered to accept cloud payments via cryptocurrency using Coinbase’s crypto payments tool.

Affirm is testing rewards points on buy-now-pay-later to combat credit cards.

Tink partnered with Adyen to enable open banking payments. TreasuryPrime integrated with Jack Henry.

Volpi and RBR Asset partnered on Brazilian mortgage servicing. Argentine neobank Uala is investing $150 million to expand to Mexico and Colombia.

Worldline will offer European payments for Indian tourists.

Galileo received Visa Ready certification for its issuer-processor platform.

WeFunder opened up investment in 20 Y Combinator companies to retail investors.

Defi lending platform Ribbon saw $10 million in demand from institutional borrowers. MakerDAO is pivoting into US treasuries and corporate bonds to secure its stablecoin - as USDC redemptions have topped $9 billion since July, as fiat yield offerings rival stablecoins.

The UK’s Innovate Finance will run its own fintech startup academy.

The Bad

The State Bank of Pakistan is revoking fintech Tag’s license to operate as an e-money transmitter.

German neobank N26’s losses increased 14% in 2021 to €172.4 million.

Crypto exchange Binance was hacked for $100 million in its native token, BNB. The execs of yield platform Celsius cashed out $21 million in their own holdings before the platform went into insolvency.

Corporate card giant Brex laid off 11% of its workforce. Asian payments firm Xendit also laid off 5% of its workforce.

Canadian firms Wealthsimple and Shakepay were hit with a multimillion dollar lawsuit over hidden fees.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friend Kirill

Kirill Gertman has built and scaled products and teams for over a decade in startup and corporate environments. As an executive with experience building financial services and crypto platforms, Kirill brings a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities at the intersection of FinTech and DeFi.

So hi, thank you for joining me today. Kirill? Did I say your name correctly

The actual original way to say this is Kirill. I don't torture people with that. So I'm pretty flexible, however, that works for you. I'm fine with it. Honestly, I'm not. It's fine.

And where's that? Where's your name from?

So originally, I was actually born in Ukraine originally. But I left quite a long time ago and moved around quite a bit these days. I'm actually in the United States in Boston.

Okay, awesome. And how long have you lived in the United States for a while?

Yeah, I think so. I think it's been almost eight years now. I think this time, I've moved around a bit. So I actually lived here before for a little bit. And then I left to come back. Come back. It's a whole story that probably gonna take too long. Like this time around? Yeah, I think I've been here. Eight years. Yeah.

Cool. And so if we go into Conduit and who you are in, like, what do you do? what is your experience? Like? What do you do? And how do you kind of explain it?

Sure. So I'm a co-founder and CEO of a little startup called Conduit. And what we do is we basically have a platform that allows developers fintechs neobanks, to build seamlessly on top of crypto and on top of defi so going from fiat currencies into crypto into stablecoin. And we help them with custody, we also help them deploy this into def, so they can get yield and can get other defi based products. I hope I've made any sense at all, cuz I'm, as I'm talking as I, as I explain this, I'm always kind of really self-conscious about to people get any of this. I don't know, honestly.

I mean, you know, that's a really good question. Because I was gonna say, your product, is it from my understanding, it's like, for people who are already kind of in that space, but if you were trying to explain it to someone who has like to your non FinTech friends, and like, I don't know, if you are talking to your mom, how do you explain what you do?

I think the best way to do that is probably actually to look at it from our perspective, not of our customers because our customers are basically fintechs. And the banks there were the in this space already together. But from the end user, right? So usually, our customers have their own customers, right? So their end users. And from their point of view, I think it sounds a lot simpler, hopefully, a lot simpler. And makes more sense where, you know, imagine if you're somebody that's living, let's say, in Colombia, for example, right? And you obviously have a Colombian peso as your kind of daily currency, right? This is what you get your paycheck. And this is what you pay your expenses with. And you're probably experiencing something like 40% inflation, right? So it's pretty brutal, actually. And it's not just the fact that you have really high inflation, it's also the fact that it drops dramatically, sometimes very quickly. Right. So like, literally, I think there was an election in Colombia maybe three months ago now. And from Saturday to Sunday. So overnight, the Colombian peso dropped 20% against the dollar. And so if you're saving you're not having a good time this happens, right? And so what we allow you to do, through our partners or through our customers, is to be able to go together into something that's more stable, right? And so you can kind of escape inflation in that way. So maybe borrow at a better rate and so forth, right? So from like the end users’ point of view, what you're getting is essentially a better financial product. It's a way to get out of inflation and get access to something you wouldn't normally have and maybe preservable to have more money than you normally would be able to do.

That's interesting. So then I guess the question I would have is, is your customer or your user base? Are they in? Do you get more in that specific locations? Or is it like, is there a space that you kind of focus on?

Definitely. Yeah, I think right now, we're focusing on Latin America. This is why I mentioned Colombia, it's not a completely random example. So focusing on now Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia right now, and going to be adding Argentina and Chile soon. And we're focusing specifically on that region for a couple of reasons. One is the one I cannot explain, which is the Zod the man because there's a lot of need, right? It's a really painful experience that many people are having there because of high inflation and kind of unreliable currencies, and whatnot. And the second reason is, because most of these jurisdictions can have regulatory wise, compliance wise, they're a little bit more friendly to crypto. And that allows us to operate without getting a tonne of overhead and a tonne of, you know, legal licenses with that.

When you were talking, I was thinking about, \ the political angle. And I guess like you as a FinTech, you're solving a problem that maybe like governments haven't been, it would, is that kind of where you position yourself?

Yeah, I wouldn't say, you know, for obvious reasons, I wouldn't position myself kind of being anti-government or anything like that. And in any way, that's not really what we're doing. I think what I think the way that I think about this is, you know, what's the best sort of product? What's the best thing that we can, again, offer to that end user right to the, to the young consumer of this? And what's the best way for them to be able to save a little bit more money to do it a little bit more safely? And how can we do that? Right, and I'm not kind of usually trying to dig into as much into whose fault was it in the first place. Because I can't usually solve that. I mean, what I can solve, or at least we're working on solving is like, okay, how can we make a bet on that? Right? How can we make it easier for a lot of people like that, to just, you know, to just get safe, get better access to better products, essentially, right? And I remember I'll tell you an anecdote about a cab driver in Bogota, Colombia. And we were driving there, and he basically said, you know, he showed the $200 bills. And he was like, This is my saving account. Like that's in my wallet, I have to $100 Bill, so $200, right. And he's like, this is how I survived COVID. Because we were locked down whatever, I had, like, just cash, right, just a few $100 that I saved. And that's like, Okay, that's great that that worked for him. Right. And he survived. But, you know, you kind of think about it, that's not the best way to say yeah, that's not the best, not the safest way to save money. So now we're thinking, how can we make it better, right, and that's, that's what we're trying to solve.

It's really interesting, what you're saying about the guy kind of holding cash, because I think with a lot of people, and I don't even think it's necessarily just only in Latin America, but there is this kind of, like mistrust of like, traditional institutions. But then when it comes to FinTech, what, like, why is it that people have more of trust? Or I don't know, like, why is, why is it that there is this idea that people would put their money here or like, trust it more than, like traditional banks? Or have you seen the evolution of that?

Well, I think we have a little bit right, already. We were starting to, and I think the, you know, I kind of don't presume for us, conduit, for example, to be sort of big enough and well known enough and reputable enough to say you should trust us, right? We're not saying that at all. What I'm saying is we give you better, faster, easier access to something that you should trust, which is the blockchain is not ours, right? We're not we don't own it. It is public, but look, it runs pretty well. And it's pretty safe, and it's pretty secure. And we just kind of facilitate your way to get into that. I mean, like, and we can even have more, not just blockchain is like the big blob. But more specific examples of, let's say, there's a specific stablecoin that we can give you. And we believe it's the safest one. Because we can look at like the reserves that are backing this off, right because it's audited, and because we can say okay, here's where the kind of dollars that are backing this, you know, where they are circled, publishes audits and whatnot. So we kind of do almost curation in that sense, you know, I mean, like, we're not saying I'm not saying like, trust me, or trust conduit. What I'm saying is we kind of verify these things. We believe that they're safe and they're secure. And you should trust them and see if they're working for you. And if there are great, you know, we're gonna give We all like better access to these things.

Yeah, it makes sense. You're kind of like the middle ground between like the user and and the blockchain. So you're kind of like bringing everyone together.

Yeah. And I mean, you know, I think one of one of the biggest problems with like blockchain in general crypto in general, it's like it's hard to get into. And it's hard to understand. And you have to jump through so many weird hoops. And you're like, how does it work? And again, especially, and it's weird, because especially for people who need it the most, right? Again, if you're the taxi driver and Columbia, I'm really, really gonna go and, like, learn about blockchain. Like, you don't have time for this stuff, right? Do you need to provide for a family? So what we're saying is like, don't worry about that. I mean, like, well, there is a technology out there that works well. And again, yeah, we're just basically this middle layer, we're just going to give you better, faster, easier access to it. And you don't have to worry about like learning how does this thing work? And, like, a whole new way of dealing with money and like, again, you don't have time for this stuff, right? Your private taxi, you need to provide for the kids. So that's, that's what we're trying to do. Is there

any like what fact and or stat that you've sort of learned recently that you think is quite interesting?

Yeah, for sure. You know, the thing that actually comes to mind is the eth merge, right that happened recently, I can actually give you a couple of stats on that you can pick which one you're trying to like, give me all the stats, yeah, all the stats. Alright.

Eth right, is a chain less than 10 years old, right? And it has already achieved. So if you look at all the apps, protocols, and everything that's been built on top of it, right, getting to an ecosystem it is really impressive. It's amazing, right? No company, like Apple or Google or anything like that was able to achieve it so quickly. And, you know, before the merge, it used something like point 2% of the world's electricity. So basically, like a small country, and then kind of went to basically almost zero after the merge. So that was, impressive , because, you know, you kind of move this entire huge ecosystem of billions of dollars and like billions of transactions and whatnot, and you do it in a completely decentralised way. You know, there's no, there was no like, oversight, you know, there's no like, eth CEO or like President or Prime Minister of eth, or anything like that, that kind of made them do it. And so that's, that's, that's maybe even more impressive. And then they'd be the last one is the fact that so now, when it's proof of stake, as opposed to proof of work, you ended up in a situation where I think there's five kinds of entities that control about 60% of the stakewhich is interesting, because, you know, is it really decentralised if you have basically five companies that control 60% of it? So maybe not so much? Y

I think I think something that I find interesting that you said is like they way a lot of these, like bankless movements are able to kind of like, run, like quite democratic way where like, everyone kind of can get involved and can do that bit. But then like, at the same time, like you said, you've got these, like five companies that are while kind of are controlling things in proof of stake. So it's kind of it's kind of interesting to see how you have like, hierarchies and, very flat structures, all in kind of one. Like thing. Yeah, and how that kind of like, what that looks like, long term.

Yeah, that's gonna be interesting to see where it evolves. Because, yeah, I think, like, what they achieved being decentralised is impressive. And, I mean, a lot of people will say that, like open source and things like eth, can't really work again, because maybe they're disorganised, and there's no not really a hierarchy there. There's just a lot of people around the world collaborating, but like, look, here's proof, right, that they were able to achieve something that, you know, will take a government probably decades to do honestly, if at all right? At the same scale, and they could do it, you know, pretty well and then relatively quickly, too, but actually, almost, weirdly counterintuitively. In doing so they actually became less decentralised because you ended up with, like, a few of these companies that grabbed the biggest parts of staking for now at least. And so that's going to be interesting how it evolves in is it actually going to go kind of back, you know, in terms of evolution that kind of become more and more centralised over time? Or is it actually going to go back and and become more decentralised over time? And I'm obviously hoping for the second, but we'll see.

Yeah, it's really hard to know. But I think that's kind of what's quite interesting. But I'm kind of in the same space as you. And I like to kind of believe that there's like this new way that like, I think, what's been shown with a theory and that potentially, there is a new way that people can govern and govern themselves. And I think that's, personally, I think that's like, the most fascinating thing about it, because, like you said, like, no one asked them to do it. These were people all across the world.

I don't Yeah, I don't know if we'll but like or ingenuity, or just like, it's amazing that people, when kind of left to their own devices, you know, I mean, being just being themselves and that they can still do really great and actually positive things, right. And I think we often think about, you know, just like people in general humans as something that needs to be like, controlled, right, or governed or whatever. But actually, maybe that's not the case. Maybe we're okay. Without it.

Yeah, maybe I think I think web3and just like, a lot of the stuff that's happening, kind of like the decentralised space is just showing that potentially, there could be another way for people to govern. Maybe we're not there yet. But maybe, but then equally, like I say that, and then I'm like, Well, it's a group within a group. Because, like, like we've already said, it's kind of global, but equally, it's not necessarily like people who live in the same societies. It's like groups, within groups, and so on, like, a practical sense. Is I don't know if what, it's more of a question then than an opinion. But, like, I don't know if it makes sense for other areas of life, if we can kind of adopt the same, like theory?

Yeah. Like, would you really want your water supply to run in eth? I don't know. Actually. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not 100% sure to be like, if what I want my water to run into, theory. I'd be really careful about that. Right. But potentially, maybe it's possible. Yeah, I would try to start with , maybe 10%. Yeah, it sounds really small, right? Like one of the tap in my house. Now. All of them are something that's not possible.

So a lot of faith. Yeah. One tap

Yeah, I know. But I gotta have faith, right? I'm in this space, I have to believe that this is actually going to work eventually. Otherwise, you know, what are we doing here?

If I was to circle back to you a question that I've kind of asked, like all the guests, and it was actually a guest question that our first guest asked was, What was your kind of like, your oh, st moment in your career. So basically a time in which I think I was getting right. And then something happened and it went wrong. And then you had to like, correct it.**

I think I've had a few I'll be honest, I had a few of these probably. I'm actually on my like, third career in the sense because I was a designer first and was the product manager. And now I'm an operator, right? I'm a founder. So I'll give one that that I think is relevant to this conversation into the space I'm in, and that's actually probably what led me to start conduit eventually. This was maybe, I want to say, 10 years ago now, but actually less than that, I think it was maybe six, seven years ago now. And I was actually working at the bank. And I was trying to basically innovate within the bank. And we were actually having quite a bit of success in there internally. We rolled out new products to our customer base.And I guess there were two things that I kind of realised there that there were like, oh, st moment, or shifts moments, I guess. One is maybe more technical, which is I realised that this entire kind of banking infrastructure is basically runs like a mainframe. So like an IBM as 400 mainframe, which is like a computer the size of like, you know, my bedroom, sits in the basement of a tank somewhere. Like you think about the bank and you think, you know, they have a huge safe somewhere. There's like a computer that's like, twice, you're sitting there. And that's how they collect your money. And it runs on COBOL, which is like a language that nobody uses anymore. it's so you know, it's so not, like, it's not what you think it is, right? You think about like some sort of, like really robust, really secure structure, right? And then you realise, no, there's like one rusted old stick that's popping up the whole thing, right? And they kind of go, wow, that's, that doesn't feel great. And also, you can't do anything with it, you can't change it, you can't like, you can't really, you know, you can't really do anything, because not just regulatory but also literally the people who built these things retired already. And so that creates a tonne of challenges. And so that was one kind of one Oh st moment.

And then I guess the second one, which probably had more impact on me, personally, was the fact that they also realise that, like, within banks, you don't actually have a tonne of internal incentives to innovate, to do things to do new things, right, that actually seem perfectly happy where they are. And most of the energy that's spent is actually spent on internal politics, right to see how like infighting whatnot, and you have to focus on that much more than focusing on the customer. I did not like that. Right, I thought this was like, This is not what I want to be doing with myself. And so that'll led me to leave. And that led me to crypto, which is kind of in a bit of a roundabout way. But that eventually led me to start this company.

That's so funny. And I feel like many people have that kind of story, maybe not as unique as yours, but where they're kind of in that sort of traditional banking, or feels like that, maybe more corporate fields. And they're like, Oh, no one told me that this is what we do most of the time. So now I have to redirect if this is what I want to spend the next 20 years doing to get to the top of the chain, whatever.

It was really also like counterintuitive because like I came from a startup world originally. And I was like, what's the measure of success? You know, you make the customers happy. And that's how you like progress. Right? You know, you, that's how your career advances and get to the next position, whatever, actually, well, I realised, and maybe that's just my experience with other people maybe have different ones. But in my experience, what I realised is that the more success you have, the more kind of internally focused you have to become, right? Because you have more of these internal issues that you have to like really care about and actually focus less on like the actual customers. And that was strange to me, actually.

No, I think I remember being in a more corporate field, No one tells you that part of working, So yeah, I think that's definitely something that's there. And another question that one of our guests asked us was, what keeps you up at night, professionally and personally?

Interesting. So professionally, I think it's around execution, right? Can we deliver the things that we need to deliver? Can we do it fast enough? Can we do it well enough? Can we build you know what our customers are asking us for? That's, that's a big part of what I'm thinking about. Can we kind of deliver it to them, right? Can we sell it to them? Can we kind of mark it, and they'll do all these things? And I guess, but maybe the professional side that I don't have as much control over? Is it regulation, right? So like, is there going to be a new law or whatever that's going to come in and change what we're doing? And actually, that's not a question. It's a given that it will be, and it happens all the time. It's like, what's the next thing that's going to happen to us? And where is it gonna go? Whether that's us or our countries?

Personally, I guess. It's very different, you know, think keeps me up at night the most is my girls. Usually, if they wake up and like, you know, they don't feel well or whatever, they wake up at night that I'm up as well. And there you go. That's, that's, that's it. Right?

How old are they?

So they're six, six years old and two years old.

If my six-year-old daughter that woke up in the middle of the night. She wasn't feeling well. That's it. You're up

Do they wake up really early?

Well, depends.

Sometimes it's actually really hard to get them to, you know, get the older one to get dressed for school or whatnot. But sometimes, yeah, like, it's like, cold season and flu season. Right. And they, like if they're coughing, obviously, they'll wake up so yeah, but you know, they're great. I love them, obviously. And but yeah, like, it's very different. That's a very different thing. Personally, the professionally though.

Quick Fire 🔥

Well, actually, that leads me to kind of like the quickfire session. So I've got, like, 10 questions. They don't have anything to do with fintech. And just want to know, like, just answer the first thing that comes into your head. Okay, you ready? Yeah.

What's your Starbucks order?

Red eye? So that's a coffee with an espresso in it.

Okay. If you were an object, what object would you be?

Oh, wow. I have no idea. I think I have a chair. I don't know why. Maybe because of Im on a chair right now,

What's the best city in the world?

I love Tokyo actually great food. Great people.

And would you rather be in your pyjamas all day or suit all day?

If that's the choice and pajamas? Because I don't? Yeah, I don't know the suits

movie or museum?

Probably Museum. Yeah.

If you were responsible for choosing whether the world would only eat bagels or only eat doughnuts, which would you choose?

I think I'll go with bagels. I don't know. I don't want I don't really love donuts. And bagels. No more. You can put stuff on them. You can like you can put like salmon,

True. Yeah, I guess it's a question of more sweet or savoury. Well, yeah, you're right. With a bagel. You could still make it sweet if you wanted to.

Yeah, so there's option optionality. I guess that's what it's about.

If you hosted a TV show, what show would it be?

Oh my god, I have no idea. It would be probably a nature show. You know what it would be like? Like a nature documentary type thing.

would you rather have 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife? Or always have a knife but never be able to use spirits?

Wow. Okay. i So, I think I'd rather have the spoons because you can serve them and make a knife out of a spoon like a shank, like a prison shank. Where you can't you can't really make out of a knife. You know? I mean, If you have 10,000 spoons, you can probably make a couple of knives out of them. So it gives you more optionality. I guess.

makes sense. Yes, function functionality. Would you rather have a tiny home with a big yard or garden or a big house but no outdoor space?

That depends on where you live. If it's warm, I would rather have the outside like you from Florida or whatever. I'd rather have the downside if it's cold there or have a big house where I am in Boston. It's relatively cool. Just because like in the winter, you know, I mean, like, you can't really use the outside.

And would you rather only be able to whisper or only be able to shout?

Definitely whisper definitely whisper I don't like shouting. Don't usually shout.

Okay. That's it

I feel like i have worked on a lot of these ways too much. But that's just me. I guess.

You're fine. You're absolutely fine. I mean, they're quite like ridiculous questions anyway, so

but I think there's a deeper philosophical though meaning there because like at least a couple of them kind of give up, give out my nature, which is like, you know, functional practical stuff with bagels and the spoons and whatnot.

Well, honestly, when I was putting it together, I never even thought about the functionality. But the one about the bagels and the one about the spoons, like I mean, you made really good probably, like, it made sense.

Yeah, and if so if you weren't, you know, if you weren't hit here is like the CEO of Conduit, like, what would you be doing? Like what would you do outside of fintech?

I'd honestly, you know, even if I wasn't in FinTech, I'd still be an entrepreneur like this is there's some once you do once you just you can not do it anymore. And I mean, like, it's just so addictive. And if I wasn't doing FinTech, I'd just be doing a similar like type thing, startup, or just in another area. I don't know what but because Fintech is what I know pretty well by now in crypto, yeah, I'd be doing something startup-ish. I think at this point.

This is like my last like, kind of big question. And it's actually it goes into what you've just said. And it was a question that Giorgio or previous guests asked, but what's the event or thing that will stop you working? infintech? Like, what thing would it be when you'd be like I've completed it now.

Yeah, I hope that you know what, I actually hope there isn't something like that. Because, again, I kind of don't see myself doing something else. Honestly, I really want to make this company successful. I mean, maybe it sounds trivial, but it's true, right? This is why I'm doing this. And I don't it's a process. I like there's not like an end in sight at least. I mean, the only thing that could stop it is something quite dramatic. Again, maybe from a regulatory point of view, somehow all governments ban all crypto or something like that, then yeah, okay, I'd have to stop. But I think that's really unlikely at this point, by the way to kind of to answer the question like, literally, I think that's, that's what we'll have to be.

Yeah, that makes sense. So maybe it's when crypto was widely accepted and becomes like, the form of currency everywhere. Like, if I turn that same thing on its head, yeah,

Well, actually. So I guess Yeah, if it's, if it's really universal, I guess, and everybody's using it. And there's not a tonne left to do that. Maybe I'll start thinking, Okay, what's the next thing that we can innovate with? So yeah, that's, that's a really good point. That's, that's, that's really cool. Yeah, there you go.

Thanks. So yeah, thanks so much as this is the FinTech friends podcast, where we are quite keen to highlight other friends and people that you think we should be on the lookout for. So I guess the question is, who's a friend of yours that you think like we should be looking at and highlighting? T

The person that comes to mind is Simon Taylor

He's really kind of thoughtful about the space, and he's usually able to look at the trends or whatever is going on and describing it to verbalize it much better than I certainly wouldn't be able to. Maybe it's the British accent. I don't know. But terribly cold. No, but I think he actually is that he really is that he's a really, really smart guy. So yeah, I don't know when you ask. That's the first person that came to mind. And he is definitely in FinTech.

And what is the question that you think we should ask the next friend of the show?

Hmm, that's a good one. I need to think about a little bit. Because I keep thinking about the spoons and knives and stuff like,

Oh, I could I could put that question out again, you're the only person I've asked that to

again. Oh, really? Okay, I got lucky, I guess.

Well, no, I think I think you definitely should, because I'm curious if anybody else was, was gonna think of the prison shank, but I feel like I also have to come up with something of my own as well.

And, you know, I think, you know, I think maybe a question that I would ask people is, maybe it's boring one, but it's like, how do you learn about the space? Right? Especially if you're talking about like crypto and defi right? How do you learn about this? There's not like a course or if there is, it's probably not very good yet. Because it's also new. Right? And like, how do you figure this stuff out? Because I feel like I'm actually really curious to see what people say because it's not easy and I mean,

yeah, I think that is a great question. Because it's so true. How do you learn I don't know. I don't know how to answer that myself. Wait hold on before you go like what how do you learn about the space? How did you like learn about it? I

think by doing right but I'm not sure. Well, partially, but yeah, but really by doing it by using like, you know, again, crypto and Bitcoin and I had a Bitcoin wallet back in like 2014 or so. I lost it you know, which would have been worth a lot of money today, obviously. But these, these are really good lessons because they're painful. So that's probably, and then we say eventually started a company in this space, right? So kind of have to. But yeah, I just there was not really a resource, you know, I just tried stuff out and then failed and lost my private keys and stuff like that.

that's yeah that I think that's a great question and and it is true there is no real way or like book or whatever it's just kind of like people just all of a sudden everyone just knows things and other people don't and it is it is really I think that's a great question. I'm definitely gonna Y

I'd say it's there you go. Well, thank

you so much for joining me today.

It's been great. Thank you. I had a lot of fun. And this was really honestly a fun conversation I really enjoyed. So. Thanks for Thanks for having me. And bearing with my headphone issues and whatnot. Oh

no, you're fine. Thanks for coming on.

Signals

Hey Fintech Friends,

A new quarter can only mean one thing at This Week in Fintech– new Signals Quarterly Roundup 😎.

For new readers, Signals is the subscriber-only edition of TWIF designed to get you away from the headlines and to explore the larger trendlines. Each quarter, we break down four key questions on fintech activity:

Which concepts are getting funded?
Where are exits, M&A, and SPACs concentrated?
Which firms are raising debt and venture funds for fintech?
Which products were launched over the last quarter?

If you haven’t already, subscribe to future editions here!

For starters

Fintechs raised a total of $5.9 billion in Q3, a nearly $13 billion decrease quarter-over-quarter. In line with the broader tech sector, a number of fintech companies revised down valuations, called off acquisitions, postponed listings, or raised extensions of prior rounds (averting the prospect of a down round).

See the full Q3 ‘22 data here (for paid subscribers only).

Lower valuations aren’t necessarily bad signal– on an aggregate level, it indicates that the market is getting more meticulous in evaluating companies. There’s still a lot of green field for startups to tackle, and as we’ll see, investors are actively raising venture funds to back them.

If you’re looking to join such a venture, quick call-out that This Week in Fintech has a Job Board and that there’s a #hiring channel in TWIF’s Slack community!\

Events

(in the next two weeks)

Okay, so what events are happening in the next two weeks?

Well, money 2020 is happening in Las Vegas on the 23rd of October to the 26th

Hong Kong FinTech week is happening on October 31st, to November the 4th,

And of course, how can I not mention the best year and event which is back happening on the 11th of November? In New York, the FinTech formal, hosted by this week in FinTech

See you next week besties!

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

We're excited to announce the first episode release of our new podcast, Beyond Two Percent!

Beyond Two Percent analyzes the critical questions, issues, and dynamics that affect people differently by gender - and the intersection of those dynamics with finance. This week's roundtable focuses on motherhood and fintech, and we're lucky to be joined by Laura Spiekerman, Co-Founder of Alloy and Maia Bittner, Founder of Pinch and Voice of the Member at Chime. As always, our guests join our two fabulous hosts, Julie VerHage-Greenberg and Helen Femi Williams. We'll publish Beyond Two Percent monthly - if you'd be interested in joining an upcoming episode, let us know! Reach out to sponsor@thisweekinfintech.com.

SPEAKERS

Laura Spiekerman, Co-Founder of Alloy
Maia Bittner, Founder of Pinch and Voice of the Member at Chime
Julie VerHage-Greenberg, Head of Content and Community at Orum
Helen Femi Williams, Fintech Journalist

Helen 00:14

This is the Beyond Two Percent podcast and I'm your host Helen Femi Williams.

Julie 00:18

Helen 00:31

Julie 00:45

And we encourage you to give us feedback on the topics you think we should be discussing and asking and future panels.

Helen 00:51

I think Julie and I and the way that this week in FinTech team recognized that ensuring women are well represented in any industry is always going to be beneficial. Gender Diversity has shown to spot better problem solving, superior performance, innovation, so much more I could go on.

Julie 01:06

You're right, Helen. And if we were specifically talking about FinTech, the industry could benefit for more women at any level, because women in general have not typically been in the spotlight as a target audience for financial products and services. They're an underserved customer segment with a massive unmet need.

Helen 01:24

And beyond that female founders and executives have personal experience understanding how to generate an ally new ideas and solutions in this field.

Julie 01:32

And that's why this podcast is called Beyond 2%.

Helen 01:35

There is a world of tech driven financial products and services that is yet to be discovered because of the lack of women leaders in this space

Julie 01:42

and through group discussions with leaders in these spaces. This is what we want to explore

Helen 01:47

this week. It's all about investing.

Julie 01:53

And thank you to our sponsors in New York City FinTech women, FinTech women's mission is to connect, promote, empower women to advance their careers. They need help from everyone if we're going to make a real change, encouraging male allies to become members and come to our events. Membership is free. And you can sign up at NYC FinTech women.com and follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram. Laura speaker men are recognized by Crain's New York and 2021 as a notable woman on Wall Street is a co founder and chief revenue officer at alloy. Prior to alloy Laura led business development and partnerships at an ACH payments startup and was on the research and investment team at imprint Capital Advisors, which was acquired by Goldman Sachs. Laura is a proud Barnard College alumna and lives in Berkeley, California.

Helen 02:45

Maia has an entrepreneurial background as the co founder of Rocksbox, a subscription jewelry rental company and pinch a financial inclusion company that built credit scores by reporting rent payments. Now, my invest in technology startups and works at time, a financial technology company. She lives in Bellingham Washington, serves on the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering Board of Trustees, and tweet startup punditry at my OB on Twitter.

Julie 03:18

I am very excited to dive into this topic, because it is something that you know, I need all the advice I can get about now, given that I am about to become a mom and I want to continue working, I want to continue building my career, that's always been super important to me. And I know that Laura and Maia are very much of the same mindset. So I'm very excited to have them here for this discussion. I want to kick it off by just saying that I remember when I was running fin tech today, and I asked Laura to do a post about fundraising, I believe it was your series B that you were fundraising while you were pregnant. And I remember getting an email from one of your staff members that ally with your draft, like the day or a day, before Thanksgiving or something like that, saying like Laura is actually going into labor. She wrote this, like on the way to the hospital or something like that. And I was like that is so typical of like, hard working woman type thing. So I Laura, I want to start with you and just talk to you a little bit about, you know, the process of one going through that fundraise, but to you know, now I believe your son is what about a year old or so something like that? 22 months? Oh my God, he's almost two years old. Time is a very weird thing, especially when you're pregnant. I want to just talk to you a little bit about that, and then turn it over to Maia because she more recently had a child as well, like very, very recently.

Laura 04:40

Yeah, I can't believe she's even here. I would have been right. Yeah, yeah. I think actually in the getting sort of writing that blog post and getting it sent has a lot to do with me being a procrastinator, unfortunately, and not a

Julie 04:57

you had a lot going on, you know,

Laura 04:59

yeah. A powerful pregnant lady. But it was, it was, you know, one of those things where I felt some amount of pressure to wrap up as much as I could before I headed into the unknown, which I'm glad I did, because it truly was I remember, like the first 10 days, 10 days into having a baby, I realized we needed to order some things from Target. And I could not picture I remember sitting there going, like, I have no idea how I'm going to open my computer and put the few things I need in my shopping cart, and then check out and do that I it was like unfathomable. And fortunately, I figured out how to do that. But the beginning was just so overwhelming and chaotic. But I remember I couldn't even imagine shopping online at that point. So I'm glad I tried to try to wrap up loose ends before I went on leave. Yeah, fundraising itself was I feel very lucky, I did it over zoom. Because we were in a pandemic, there was no no pressure to meet in person, there were no in person meetings at that point. And this was like summer 2020. So like, no one was traveling, no one was making me go down to Sand Hill Road. And I felt very lucky that I got to do it all over zoom, which meant I didn't have to travel and also meant no one could see my belly. So it was good for me. And no one, like asked me anything. And I saw I didn't have to figure out what to say no one said, Hey, by the way, are you pregnant? And so after, after we signed the term sheet, I did end up telling the people who are participating in our round like, hey, just a heads up. And everyone was supportive.

Julie 06:39

Yeah, I remember you saying in the post that there were actually a couple of people that like sent you parenting books, or like things off your registry and stuff like that, which I found super sweet as well.

Laura 06:49

There's Victoria Trager from Felicis ventures was really she was like, it's nice to send gifts, of course, but she was the most thoughtful like she was just like yearning to figure out how to get them to sleep and do what you know. And so she sent me a bunch of books that she liked and and I did end up reading them. They're quite helpful

Julie 07:04

the viewer you aren't able to see us filming this podcast, but a lot of the times when Laura was talking my was just sitting there shaking your head like yep, I can relate to that. Yeah, um, a few weeks in definitely feeling that.

Maia 07:16

Well, and I think, um, you know, it's funny, even hearing Laura's target story, I have a target story, which is I think on day three or something, right, we were also out of something critical. And I was going to do a Target store pickup, my sister was gonna go pick it up for me. And so I had my phone so I could handle like doing the order. But they were out of something. And they sent it a little notification, like we're out of stock of this thing. And I started crying, which is very unusual for me. I'm not a big crier, but it's like, I think and like, notoriously like three days in is like, like all moms are crying about like, just the most random things. And so like that definitely hit me hard. And it is just so funny that I was like I was crying because Target was out of stock of something. And even my midwife had said she was like, you know, like some crying is normal. Like if you're crying all day, or we'll know she was she said some crying is normal. But if it's all day, like that's what like she was talking and I thought that she was talking about the baby, but she was talking about me. Which I only realized, like, some way and through her advice.

Julie 08:29

Yeah, I remember when we were requesting people to be on the podcast, my email to my in particular is like, I totally understand if you can't do it, cuz you're like, what five weeks out six weeks out? Like it's very recent seven now. I don't know how you're doing it. Although the woman that ran my baby shower this past weekend had just had a kid and she was only six weeks out and I'm like how are you like catering something right now when she like, supposedly had like breast pump cups in and everything that you couldn't tell that was like collecting milk and stuff on like, God bless you. But like, I don't know if I could do that. Like, I think it just speaks a lot to the pressure not necessarily that society puts on it, but that we put on ourselves as well. Whether we're founders of a company, whether we're investors, or whether we're even just employees somewhere. I'd love to talk to you guys about that aspect. So, Laura coming from I mean, both of you are founders, so you'll have this perspective, but coming from the founder perspective, like you obviously still want to set a good example and take some time off, but I feel like you know, your startup is sort of like another baby and a sense that you're thinking of so taking too much time away. I feel like I feel like there's some different dynamics that go on in there.

Laura 09:46

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a little The hard part is I would love to be able to tell everyone like there's no great time do it whenever but I like knew I couldn't do it at series A Before, it just was not going to be possible. I was the only salesperson, you know, for a long time. So it just was not. I'm sure some people do it and they're successful, I didn't see a path for myself doing that. So I waited until I knew like, Okay, if I was going to take off, you know, three or four months, we'd be okay. And that's what I chose to do it. And that's, I mean, chose to do it as like, these things happen, you know, not always on the timeline you want. But that made it a lot easier, because I knew that if I left for four months, the world wouldn't fall apart, and it didn't. So I struggle with sort of like, their, you know, telling people to just do whatever they want when they want because it is a tricky thing. If you're running a startup, to just kind of like, be away for performance. I found myself personally, I was very bored during my leave, not in a way that I was like itching to work and solve hard problems and do a ton of interesting things in FinTech. But I didn't love being with an infant all day. And so I and you just have unbelievable amounts of time sitting there. Breastfeeding, trying to get them to go to sleep, holding them up right after they've eaten for 30 minutes, like whatever the things are, that you're doing. So much time that I was I read every single Slack message in that four months that went on in our company. And it's like a lot of slack messages because I didn't have to handsy with one hand and be on my phone constantly in that in that four months. So I didn't disconnect fully from alloy I did disconnect from, for the most part, being on calls and doing demos and all the stuff that I previously did, because we have people do those, but I I just wanted to stay engaged. So I think everyone has their own thing and everyone else or like you it's really hard to predict how you'll feel once you're there. I think some people really want to just completely disconnected and not have anything to do with with work. I just was I think so bored. I couldn't take it.

Maia 12:05

Yeah, so I've been I'm pretty disconnected. And you know, right? Like I'm doing this podcast, kind of my cadence is, I do like one thing every day. Right? So like yesterday we did and a 30 minute zoom call is a pretty low ask or it's pretty like, well, not low. So I feel like that's like a standard for like the one thing that I do every day. Yesterday we did, we're taking this workshop called Bringing baby home together. And so like we did that. So like that was yesterday's one thing today is one thing is doing this podcast. It's kind of like carving out. I am. So I'm like I've been totally disconnected from work. And I'm not a founder, right? I'm just an employee. And so I'm very confident that everything is fine and not falling apart without me. And that's really nice. But I want to echo what Laura says, which is, it's much more boring than I expected. Like, I feel like I spend an infinite number of hours breastfeeding, and it's very sweet. I like it like I like and I kind of love like spending all day in bed, like feeding the baby like it is very sweet. But it is just outrageously boring. And so and it's hard, like the types of things you can do. It's like reading slack messages is the thing you can do. Watching TV is a thing. Like there's just I listen to audiobooks, mostly. But there's really not that many things you can do because you're pretty occupied with all of the baby things. And so I'm taking I'm I've been pretty disconnected, I was actually thinking about messaging my closest colleague at work, and saying, like, Hey, I've been really disconnected in the past seven weeks and like love that you guys haven't, right reached out. And I really respected that. But I kind of want to tell her, like, if there's any questions or anything like, I might kind of start plugging back in. And they feel like that setting a bad example. But it is I almost wish like that we had a different structure or that like I think I could even provide, like 80% of the value I provide to my company by checking all the slack messages for 30 minutes or an hour every day and pointing people towards the right resources and saying like, don't forget about this and make sure to check with this person on that. And things like that. And so it's one of the things I've been struggling with. I do wish that I had taken more time or had more space or support while pregnant. And part of that was I was being a little bit deliberate. You know, we have a certain amount of leave and I was like well, I'm sure I'm gonna want to spend as much of that as possible, like actually with the baby. But for me, first trimester. I don't know if it was particularly rough out. I will say it was average. I think I had a pretty average experience. It wasn't really easy. It wasn't really tough, but I was surprised at how Um, like, incapacitated, I was, you know, I felt like I had the flu for kind of a long time. We don't expect people to work at all when they have the flu. But I was like, not sleeping well and have right I was nauseous all the time. And I was eating only, like water crackers all day long. And I was just like, it's crazy. I have to wake up and do a zoom call at 9am. But also, I'm not telling anyone. So there's like no real strength. The first trimester thing was really weird. It felt like I have this huge momentous thing. But I can't tell anyone or I'm not telling anyone. And it might not materialize, right? Like it almost feels like if you get a new job, but it might be taken away from you. It's like, celebrate, but not too much. And don't tell anyone and it was a very uneasy time for me. And then later on my pregnancies have preeclampsia. A and I actually, when did you find out your

Laura 15:59

preeclampsia?

Maia 15:59

So after I delivered Oh, wow. Because like the blood like there was a mixup with the blood test. And so for a couple of weeks, we thought I had just just gestational hypertension, because it really, really high blood pressure. So really, really high blood pressure,

Laura 16:16

but post postpartum still.

Maia 16:20

I had so I had Yeah, my blood pressure has been like creeping down postpartum, which I think is typical and good. Yeah. But before I deliver like weeks, like skirt, yeah, it was really scary. Like weeks 3435 36, I had really high blood pressure. And I wish I had like my midwife was saying, like, hey, you need to take it easy. You need to be on the couch, feet up, like reading a book. And I started my leave at 36 weeks, which I even felt a little bit bad about I think most people start later, even somebody was telling me she was like, and she didn't know, she didn't know what I was taking leave and she was like my she's gonna tell you like I took leave at 37 weeks. And she's like, I love doing it so early. And it was such a big impact. I really encourage you to do that. And I was kind of like, Oh, I'm leaving at 30 Like 36 Like even earlier than her like indulgent treat yourself, leave start date. And then I ended up delivering it 37 and a half weeks. And I wish I had I honestly I wish I had started at like 34 weeks and not been stressed out maybe would have helped with the preeclampsia and hypertension, which is really scary. Preeclampsia is the number one reason why women that were causing maternal mortality in the United States. And I think I would have qualified for even I think it would have cut into my maternity leave I qualified for like disability medical leave, but I didn't understand that. So I have kind of like, it's funny, like, I almost feel like I have more space. And I think it's probably different for everyone, I'm more space than I expected. Now. It's like, I don't nothing to do all day. I'm just like, you know, but I wish I had taken more time or something. I wish there was some some more space in pregnancy, because that was pretty rough. For me

Helen 18:14

listening to all this, like, it's so interesting, hearing all your different aspects of like, you leave. And I feel like I would have thought post baby, you're like, I don't know, it's quite interesting to hear that you're kind of you want that time back. And like I've not had any kids, I've been around like my sister having babies, my niece and everything. But one thing that I think is so clear, maybe in this conversation is like the cultural aspect of it in the sense of like, I'm coming from a British perspective where I know that for instance, you know, people take leave at 26 weeks, and then maternity leave is, is around 52 weeks. And then I know for instance, in Finland, they've just passed the law where each parents gets 69 days. And if you're a single parent, that means you get double. And actually I was actually reading that Estonia, of all countries has the best, like maternity leave. And actually at the bottom of this unit report, at the bottom of the list of maternity leave was the US. And it was basically saying that the US has the worst laws for maternity. And I think even it's to a point where like National paid leave is not even a thing. So I don't know, maybe maybe that particular factor is wrong, but that's what it said in the report. But I guess the point I'm making is there's a if no one's taking leave, and also the government and things like that are not encouraging that kind of aspect. I think it probably puts a lot of pressure on women to kind of essentially like you were just saying, well with you and your friend, you thought that what you saw that you were taking a lot of leave when actually in other countries you would be you would have already been on leave and you would have been encouraged to take leave. So do you feel like there is a different way in the US and is there And what would be a better way to kind of have that leave? Like because it doesn't necessarily mean that Finland or any of these countries are correct in how they do it? Is that a third way that we should be thinking about?

Maia 20:12

Yeah, it's an interesting question. And I actually think I mean, I like my job. So I'm 16 weeks of fully paid leave, and then I had right and then you have more, if you for medical or whatever. So I think I had another week and a half for medical leave. And so within the US, it's like, I feel like quite generous. And about as good as it gets. And that is supported by so there's the You're correct, that there's no federal law around maternity leave in the US. Instead, we have a actually horrible patchwork of different programs. And so my leave is 100%. Paid, right. But that is cobbled together between the Washington State Medical Leave short term disability and because I have disability insurance, fraud, it's all of these different programs, and even trying to shoehorn pregnancy into like this disability application I had to fill out was very awkward. And there's all these things. It's like, like, when did this start? And how much treatment do you need for this condition. And I was like, trying to fill out this form for pregnancy, it clearly didn't make sense like we're trying to create. So I have a very privileged position where it's like 16 weeks, it's really great. But it's good. There's no sort of official support. And that's just that's a really big tax, write even even for me who I think it's kind of like this is as good as it gets in the US. And still trying to figure out like, how to combine my salary with with all of the other pieces of the puzzle? I didn't and I deliberately did that answer your question, because I do not know, a better way to to orchestrate it. Unfortunately,

Julie 22:02

one thing that is interesting to me too, is just that Maia feels guilty for going back to work too early, like, oh, like maybe I shouldn't be checking my slack. Maybe I shouldn't be doing these things. I'm setting a bad example. But yet, we would also feel guilty for the opposite, too. So like, there's no women just make themselves feel guilty, no matter what choice they're making, it seems like so I point that out, because I relate the same way. Like I don't want to set a bad example. But I also don't want to like overexert myself, or like take away from the from the time with me and my baby or things like that. And there's other like the entire journey of pregnancy, I feel like there's a lot of things that you do or say, and there's a lot of guilt involved in a lot of those things. So it's not just necessarily even the work environment. It's just the whole process, and maybe just the process of being a woman in the first place.

Laura 22:54

I think the whole thing is, you know, then you like we're talking about pre partum. We've in these examples, which I think is I've thought a lot about that first trimester too, which is it is like, arguably the hardest trimester right? It sucks, you feel super sick. Even in a normal experience, I think I had as well like a pretty average experience, and it still sucked every afternoon, I felt like I was gonna, you know, just completely fall apart. And then you think about people who have go through fertility struggles to have to go they have a million doctor's appointments, they're on all these drugs. Not to mention sort of the whatever the emotional toll maybe as well. But there's just these other aspects to of just trying to get pregnant, that play into this that I think are really hard, where we all we acknowledges is kind of like postpartum X number of weeks or sort of saying like, that is what you get for yourself, or your family. And that's it. We don't really acknowledge other aspects of fertility, which I think is really hard. I also think it's hard to say like, as an employer, it is, it's really hard to like to be as generous as I think, like everyone should be right. It's hard to say 52 weeks. Sounds wonderful, like a true nightmare as a startup to have to deal with someone who's potentially out for 50 weeks. Did you do weeks? Especially because I think in the UK, at least you don't have to tell people when you're coming back. So you can be like, it might be 12 weeks or maybe 52 weeks, you can't really plan ahead and say okay, we're just gonna hire someone instead, whatever. So it's really hard. I don't like there's no great answers, because as a startup, what do you what do you suppose to do? It's really I think being generous in your policies only works for certain stages of of startups.

Helen 24:41

So I was actually reading like with the Finland example, they have like 164 days actually, they just passed a law in August. And but the thing about that is it can be shared between both parties. So for instance, you can decide you don't want to take any maternity and your husband wants to take all of them off the paternity or vice versa. And I think, because people's family structures are so different and unique, and it's not always just necessarily mom, dad or whatever, I think an aspect of where I mean, this is just me just pondering, but it feels like an aspect where people can be flexible in who takes it, because for instance, like you said, as a startup, it wouldn't be feasible, but perhaps your partner is in a different situation. And in the law, like I was saying, if you're a single parent, then it's it. They have, they have structures for that. And I think because we can all recognize that, like, a nuclear family isn't necessarily always going to be like, the data is working, and the man is sitting at home. And you know, I mean, maybe it is around like, us thinking as a society about how we can be more flexible on like, we know that there is a baby at home, who is going to look after it doesn't necessarily have to fall on the woman. And I think that's also where a lot of the pressure for women comes from where, you know, you're, you're kind of having that guilt, like Julie said, between home life and work life and which one you're growing. And, and even actually, with a friend of mine, who's got two young kids, that's the situation she was going through her kids are actually both at school age, but she was basically saying, does she take a job where she's paid well, but doesn't necessarily have to think about so much? Or does she take a job? And therefore she can kind of concentrate on her family more? Or does she take a job where it's going to be a challenge? And she's going to have to like, give it her thought process? But yeah, I don't know. It's a constant thing. But yeah, that's what I was thinking about. Maybe it's about restructuring how we see family, like restructuring how society shifts families? I don't know.

Maia 26:39

Well, the flexibility piece, I think, is really key there. And even when I think about right, like for me, right, first trimester was really hard. third trimester was really hard. Honestly, I feel so much better now. Because yes, I had to recover from giving birth and things like that. But I feel like myself, while when I was pregnant, like third trimester, I did not feel like myself, right. And I was like getting winded walking up the stairs. And just and I had acid reflux all of the time, which was horrible. And I would wake up in the middle of the night, like, just burning in the back of my throat, and I just had a miserable time. And so but it's not like that for everyone, right. And I have support here at home. And so there's some flexibility there. It reminds me actually, I have a friend who was working for a company that had great work life balance, right. And she was checking in code at like, 2am. And she got kind of chastised at work, it was like, You shouldn't be working until 2am. Like, do we need to take things off of your plate so that you're not working so hard? And how can we create like a better balance, but for her, she was like, Guys, this is when I work best. And this is what a good work life balance looks like. For me. She's like, I don't show up at work. She's like, I sleep until noon every day. And I don't show up into work until later. So that's just the hours that work for her. But we have this kind of like, contrived idea that work life balance means like you're only working from 9am to 5pm, when that's work life balance for some people, but not for everyone, because different people want to work different hours. And so I think what it comes down to like, there is a big element of trust, I think we want to say like, rates, I mean, so my leave is right, 16 weeks, it starts the day the baby is born. And I don't work at all during that time, and I am 100% paid, and then I 100% come back to work after that. Right? So like, it has to be really constrained and really explicit like that. But I just wonder if there's opportunities like well, what if we trusted people more? Could we build in more flexibility? Or what would that look like? Right? Would it be? You know, would it be more creativity in the options so that people can come up with what works for them? And like, how can we support everyone? It's like, what is an equitable way to support everyone, given that they're starting in different places, and they're all going to have a different journey? Right to Laura's point about fertility issues, which is, which is a whole nother game. It's like everyone has a different journey. They need different types of support in different amounts in different ways. How can we create that for them?

Julie 29:14

Something else that I think, you know, we focused a lot on the actual process of like work, pregnancy, and then right after pregnancy, but this continues, like once you have a kid, there's so many that you might have to take the kid to daycare, they get older, there might be soccer matches and everything. So I think while I'm glad that a lot of the talk around this both in our conversation and in like the National or world conversation is focused on the actual process of pregnancy and like right after, I think there's a lot to be said about just the flexibility that companies can put in to be more family friendly. Like an Oran, for instance. If you need to drop your kid off at daycare at 9am and you need to block off an hour on your calendar. Do do that like just block off your calendar. It's no big deal where cuz I feel like there's other jobs service field, something like that, where it becomes so much more of an issue or if you're, you have a nanny, and they're out sick, and you're gonna like, hey, like, I might be in and out of calls today, or I might need to take the day fully off totally fine. Like, don't worry about it. So I think that, you know, we need to keep the focus on the first part as well, but also shifted to the process of like, what happens after those 16 weeks that we get off to? It's not like, Oh, now everything's easy and chill again. And I can simply go back to work, no big deal, like your life has completely changed.

Laura 30:32

Yeah, I think the flexibility part, I mean, I think it's should be the case for anyone, right. And I think you've had this like, at least at alloy, but I think this is probably true, more broadly. Developers, I think I've always had this, like, we can stay up late and come, you know, we sleep till noon. And I think that's always been a little bit of a culture. And we've allowed that because they're very special creatures who need to be taken care of in the ways that they need to be taken care of. But I don't think we have that expectation to Maia’s point for other other people. And what you're saying Julie's so erratic, once you become a parent, your schedules 100%, not your own, you are reliant on your kids schedules, school schedules, the nanny schedule, our nanny just texted us while we were doing this, that she's going to be running late today. So it's like, alright, well, now my, you know, my meetings are like, whatever are thrown off. And that's just how it works. And so you have to build in a lot more flexibility. And it is, I will always have my pediatricians appointments during the day, they cannot happen on weekends or nights. And so I have to be able to take off two hours during the day, go do that. And I'll get my work done at other points. And so I also don't like that sort of like you can't text or slack or whatever, on weekends. It's like, that's just not that is my time to catch up on things. And I think every company deals with it differently. We've struggled with it, where what do you what, how do you set expectations, and it's okay to do work nights or weekends, but then not expect a response from certain people on nights or weekends? Because we're not saying you have to work on weekends. So it's a little it's definitely hard, especially when you're making asynchronous decisions, like how do you set up that framework? I don't think we've solved it. I don't know that anyone has. But there is something around how you communicate and how you do things. asynchronously, I guess that either makes it work or makes it doesn't work? makes it not work?

Maia 32:22

Yeah, well, if that reminds you so when I've managed parents on my team, that synchronous versus asynchronous has always been the balance. If they say like, oh, this thing came up, right? Kids are sick, they're home from school, and I got to watch them or take care of them. It's like, Great, how can we shift your work from something that needs to be done during the specific hours, to something that you can do when the kids are in bed or when you have that free time? And sort of shifting around the work? I think Julie was talking about service workers, right? There's a huge element of privilege and all of this. And even it shows up in how Laura was talking about developers like developers, right are very highly paid very high status position in tech, which is a very high status industry. And so it's like, okay, for them, they can set their hours, right. And I think as you sort of like, take your way down the totem pole of status, people get less and less flexibility, right, such that, you know, if I'm for most service workers, so they don't have any paid parental leave. And they have zero flexibility in terms of I'm going to show up an hour late or a missus shift or other issues with childcare. And so that's, that does feel like all of this privilege and status that sort of imbues this whole conversation. And where are we focusing? Like, are we focusing on improving work life balance and support for families for the highest status members of our society or for the lowest status? Like where are we making improvements here is something that I think about a lot, too.

Julie 33:51

I mean, I can't even like I'm thinking back to my first trimester. And I can't imagine being like a bartender or a waitress or something during that because like the smells you're so exhausted from being on your feet all day, like you're not seeing your brain like pregnancy brain starts way earlier than I thought it actually did. Like I couldn't concentrate on things anymore. Like all like mindset, like all of this comes from a place of privilege, where every single one of us was able to have our pregnancy, while working remotely from home, I can lay in bed and take a zoom call if I want to, and my team's okay with it like that.

Laura 34:26

I did a lot of zoom calls at like, three o'clock in my bed with saltines in my mouth. And I still was like, very self pitying, I was like, this is awful, you know? And yeah, imagine having like a real job where you just show up in person, and be nice to people.

Helen 34:43

Yeah, I mean, if I was to ask a closing question, I think we've covered a lot here actually. It's been really, really interesting, I guess. I guess the question I have is, if there's one thing you could change basically about the way like motherhood or or maternity is treated, like what would it be

Laura 34:59

one that surprised me was how much I'd heard this sort of narrative around like, breast is best is no longer the message that we send to people. But I very much did not feel that in the hospital postpartum, like with our pediatrician with I've message that was given to me it was still breast as best and I did breastfeed I have a hard time believing that it is worth it for a lot of people. I think doing my own sort of crazy person research when I was born in maternity leave was like, I was led to believe it was just, you know, you have to do it. And then I'm sort of looking at it. I was like, man, it was something like 10% less chance of an ear infection in the first six months. I was like, who, like have an ear infection, then save me all this time. And again, I did do it because your beef, I don't know, for me, at least I felt pressure and it was sweet. There are like, I think to minus eight. There are moments that were really sweet. And I'm glad I got to experience it. And some days now I even miss it. But man, it is a time suck. And it means that you cannot have an equal relationship with your partner.

Maia 36:13

Well, as I say it's so it's a time suck at it. But I think we should be very explicit. It's expensive. I think people say that breastfeeding is free, but like, Laura's time, right is so valuable when you think about the amount of time that Laura and only Laura can breastfeed her son right or so like that. It's like it's outrageously expensive. And so maybe maybe we might still make the decision to do it. But I think we should acknowledge how much it's costing. It's like, look, this is like truly, truly, like our registry. And I mean similar what I really kind of idolized, I think breastfeeding before I was doing it. Now that I'm in it, right? I think, right? It's it there's parts of it that are that are very sweet, but it feels very there's parts of it that also feel very unromantic, and very, like, cool. This is just like this child is like literally sucking the life force out of me as like, and you're gonna be doing that quite a bit. So yeah, I just want to plus one that I was very surprised by that narrative as well.

Laura 37:30

I don't think I don't maybe this is people know better than I, I've never, I've never really been around babies until I had one. But I didn't realize like, it's like you feed them every two to three hours. In the beginning. At least that was the case for us. And but that means like from the beginning of breastfeeding. So if it takes 45 minutes to breastfeed, which it kind of does in the beginning, then you're like, doing basically an hour we get like an hour break, maybe an hour break, you're probably changing a diaper during whatever. You're definitely not like having a great time, our being productive. And I would just like it'd be like, Okay, now it's time again. And it was just like, Oh God, I keep like, I just did this. And I just ended up feeling so resentful. Like I don't even want this right now. That it kind of ruined some of the sweetness for me. I think it gets better. I stopped breastfeeding it. Maybe five months or something? I think it started on sparking. I think it gets better from what I understand because you're breastfeeding less and less over time as the kid gets older. But it's pretty brutal in the beginning.

Helen 38:35

I think a point you kind of like the underlining thing there is that goes back to like guilt. Because you like feel like you're not doing the right thing if you didn't breastfeed. So you feel like you have to everyone's been doing it

Julie 38:49

for you feel guilty, because you don't want to do it. And everyone talks about how special it is.

Helen 38:53

Right? Yeah, exactly. That's a really good point. Exactly. Gosh, she just could never win. Yeah. And there was there was a formula short. Well, I don't know if the formula shortage is too long. But that was quite a big deal. Right. A couple of months ago, there was a formula

Julie 39:07

getting better, but it's still there. Yeah, because like, I saw

Helen 39:11

that the price of formula was going up people were selling like it on Facebook for ridiculous extortionate prices, of all things to kind of extort people for smart. What about you, Maia?

Maia 39:25

Here's what I would change. I would make it so that your baby shower happens after the baby's born? Because I mean, we that's not what you do you have a baby shower before, which makes some amount of sense, but I feel like I was very surprised by again like Laura, I hadn't spent that much time with babies. They actually don't need very much like diapers. I feel like they need diapers and that's it like your breastfeed. They don't need anything else that and everything else is a bunch of things that might make your life slightly nicer. Like having a diaper pail. I don't think I need it, but it is slightly nicer. Um, then, you know, my trash can I like live in a house in the suburbs, my trash can is right outside my front door. Like we can just take the diapers out, you know, once a day or twice a day. And so, but I feel like if you had the baby shower as you would have a better idea of what you need or what the baby is interested in or more of like a rolling baby shower. Right Like we've been, I mean, our baby loves, loves to be swaddled, I think almost all babies do. Also, a lot of the swaddles end up with spit up or pee or other bodily fluids on them. So we're like cruising through swaddle, so I bought a lot more swaddled, right. And if I had gotten to sort of experience that and trial that I would have been like, cool, I need a lot of swaddles on my, on my baby shower registry, and I don't need all of this other stuff. So that's something that that I would change as baby showers after the baby's born. Plus, you can drink that at your own pace, you can drink, right? You've got so much more, right? You feel better, you look better.

Helen 40:59

You do a rolling baby shower. Sounds good. Like, you could just have it up until the child's 18th. So everyone can just help you.

Maia 41:07

Well, that's kind of I mean, after I announced the baby on Twitter, like some people asked me for my registry, and so I did get that I was like, okay, cool. Like, you're getting the version change it. Yeah, where it's like the things that I know, that I want and need. And so that was actually kind of cool. But right, realistically, the baby shower had before that, and I didn't, you know, I've never been a mom, before, I had no idea what kind of stuff I needed. I was like, at this thing. And that thing, and, and I am using all of it, but some of it is much more valuable than others. And I would have had a better idea after the baby's here.

Helen 41:39

So I'm Nigerian and 12 days after a baby's born, we have a naming ceremony, which is essentially a baby shower. But like the thing about the naming ceremony is like you get different names for different people like your paternal grandfather, etc. So technically, I have like seven first names only use two though. But essentially, that's kind of a baby shower, because that's when I mean 12 days is not that much of a difference to like, I guess before but like, that's when they do it. Because like, people can party properly. Or ish. That's yeah, I guess. I don't know. Maybe it's so that they have a better idea of what they need. I'm not really sure about that aspect. But actually, it's 14. It's also nice, because people can

Laura 42:17

meet your mate. Yeah, exactly. Like you're knocking it all out at

Maia 42:20

one. Yeah, I'm actually going to do I that's, that's such a nice idea. I know, Asian cultures have 100 days party, right? So when the baby is 100 days old. And it's sort of it's sort of like that's when we celebrate the baby being born, right? Because infant mortality has historically been really high. And it's like if you make it through the first 100 days, right, you're like, good to go. And they do a naming ceremony, Anna, and a couple of different things. So I was going to kind of co op part of that or maybe do like a graduation from fourth trimester, which is really about the same time party and do a couple of different things that I think it just just with my my my family. But that's cool to hear, right that Nigeria does the 12 days party, because it's very much in line with the timeline that I think would be really useful for for getting support from from your family. I also think when there's a baby shower, you only get stuff for the baby. My priority list for postpartum would be number one is diapers. Number two through 10 would be things to support the mom like, or like, that's how I felt. Yeah, like so much. So it's like all

Laura 43:29

my baby gifts for people now or like massage. It's just like, all the baby stuff is like you can either it's hand me downs, or you put on your restaurant or you buy it later or who cares?

Maia 43:38

Yeah, who cares? Used onesies or whatever, like, it doesn't matter. But like, yeah, stuff for Mom is, is critical and so much more important.

Laura 43:48

I agree. All my baby gifts are our mom gifts at this point, because I'm like, Who can I just like that? So yeah, I did, at some point prioritize myself. And I was like, this was gonna be better for the baby too. But like, I'm the one who's just been through something horrific.

Julie 44:03

I should have had this conversation last week. So I could have made a quick changes on my baby registry stuff.

Laura 44:09

Yeah, yeah, we've done normalize that though, because I think it would be a little odd if you went on to register and it was all like, facial notes,

Maia 44:16

massage or even I was like, I don't know, can I put like nipple ointment on my baby registry? Like, is that a normal thing? Or is that a weird that

Helen 44:23

seems like that seems like that makes sense. I'm sorry. I feel like if I saw nipple Reutemann I'd be like, Well, yeah, fad. She's breastfeeding. Yeah, but that seems vaginal ice packs. high waisted underwear,

Maia 44:36

you know, diapers I always

Laura 44:37

you know those. That's my other gift for a C section. People I have a C section like buy get the height. Just get the giant underwear. It's always as

Maia 44:45

high as they go. It's what you want.

Laura 44:47

I still wear it. I love it. Yeah.

Julie 44:48

Oh, man. Well, on that note, this was an amazing conversation. I really appreciate it you guys, you know validated a lot of the things that you know I'm going through and we It'll be going through very soon. With the breastfeeding, you know, I kind of my goal is to do 5050 Like 50% formula 50% Breastfeeding so that I'm not spending as much time doing it, but I don't have the guilt of not doing it all.

Laura 45:13

You break the seal and formula early like you just we had to because he worked, couldn't get enough food early. And it was it was a blast. I was like really emotional about it in the hospital and then being a great thing because I felt less pressure than it was like he's already had formula. If we've ruined him. He's already ruined. So that's fine.

Julie 45:31

All the things I have to look forward to in about 10 weeks crazy.

Laura 45:35

Crying constantly about your target order. I'll literally

Julie 45:39

be like super hormonal bag. I'm just gonna go back and listen to this podcast to make me feel better about what I'm going through

Laura 45:44

such a wild experience.

Julie 45:47

Well, thank you so much for joining you guys. This was super helpful. Helen, Did we scare you away from motherhood? Do you feel better about it? Potentially? What's your vibe from the other point? Do you know? Okay,

Helen 45:58

number one, I think has been really educational. Like that's what I would say that's how I would describe this. But also like, I've always been one of those people who's wanted maybe because I had a nice, so young, like, I became an auntie when I was like 15. So I mean, she's made she's like, she's like 11 now. And we wish she was born on my 16th birthday as well. So it was quite like I didn't know there was something really, really there. And so I don't know, like I've always been around babies. Like my friends have babies, all that sort of stuff. And I like to live vicariously through people. I don't want a child right now. So I love to babysit. I love to hang out with babies. I just think like oh, but then I love that I don't have one. But no, it didn't put me off it just educated me on what to expect when I expect but no time soon.

Laura 46:45

I really hope we didn't scare you away Julie are about to enter the Abyss but it's it's in my eyes really truly in it. And good for you for doing one thing every day. I think I did zero things for most days for a long time. But man now like, it gets so much better.

Julie 47:02

So much better. Yeah, I'm looking forward to those fun times.

Laura 47:05

I think like four to six months. I was like, Okay, this is actually fun. I could do

Julie 47:09

right around the end of that. fourth trimester.

Laura 47:12

Yeah. Yep, that's a real thing.

Julie 47:16

It's appropriate that I can hear your child in the background. Children. That shouldn't be the outro music Yeah, beyond 2%

Helen 47:29

Wow, what an incredible episode to start the beyond 2% series. So next episode is stock girl summer, which is something I'm not only passionate about. But I think it's so important. We'll be discussing all things investing, if gender matters in this topic, and honestly where to begin because honestly, it can be very intimidating. Tune in next month to have a listen

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro

‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Alternative Assets (1.00)

News (1.57)

Interview with Christina about their experience and current work at Bain Capital (4.18)

Quick Fire Questions with Christina (40.00)

Signals: Skip the Teller (45.01)

Upcoming Events (46:12)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends!

My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Christina.

And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest Signals article.

Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!

I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that are happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that, too.

Fin-techionary

This weeks, ‘fintechtionary’, which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:

Alternative Assets

An alternative investment is a financial asset that does not fall into one of the conventional investment categories. Conventional categories include stocks, bonds, and cash. Alternative investments can include private equity or venture capital, hedge funds, managed futures, art and antiques, commodities, and derivatives contracts. Real estate is also often classified as an alternative investment.

But first this week in Fintech

Product Launches

Singapore’s DBS Bank launched an API for corporate treasurers with Finlync and opened a crypto exchange for high net worth clients.

Mobile manufacturer Samsung launched two new credit cards in India with Axis Bank.

Chase and Doordash launched a co-branded card.

Hong Kong is launching its own digital currency.

📰 Other News

Finastra and Visa are partnering to develop a banking-as-a-service platform to enable financial institutions to offer faster cross-border payouts for their customers via Visa Direct.

Colorado will now let residents pay state taxes with crypto.

Mastercard, Visa, Wise, TransferGo and other financial institutions committed to lowering remittance fees to Ukraine.

Chase reached 1 million UK customers, as Citibank announced plans to exit the UK retail market.

Barclays is pivoting its Rise incubator to focus on laid-off fintech talent.

The Bank of England says paper banknotes will only be good for one more week before they are replaced by their polymer counterparts; £11 billion of paper notes remain in circulation. The UK government is also cracking down on high rates of fraud and money laundering.

16 Wall Street banks were fined $1.1 billion by the SEC and CFTC for using personal communication accounts like WhatsApp for work messages. The CFTC is also pursuing its first case against a DAO, fining bZeroX DAO for unlawful margined transactions.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Stackwell, an investment platform for the black community, released a roboadvisor app aimed at closing the wealth gap.

African cross-border payments app Chipper Cash partnered with card issuance platform Highnote to release a US Chipper card tied to digital wallet balances.

European payments app Mollie launched Mollie Capital to lend to small businesses.

Banking-as-a-service provider Railsr partnered with equipment financer DND Finance to release the Score Credit Mastercard.

Singapore’s Cake DeFi launched EARN, a ‘conservative’ crypto earning account meant to protect users against market volatility. Crypto exchange hi announced debit cards customized with NFTs.

Business banking provider Rho launched its Prime Treasury management solution.

Equity planning platform Secfi launched Secfi Wealth, an RIA for startup employees.

LatAm cryptocurrency exchange Bitso launched QR code payments in Argentina.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friend Christina

Christina joined Bain Capital Ventures in 2021, where she focuses on early-stage investments in fintech and commerce.

Christina was previously Head of Product for Consumer Foundations at Affirm, where she led a team of product managers to enable a delightful, frictionless customer experience from account creation to loan servicing. Before Affirm, Christina was a Senior Product Manager at GoFundMe, where she worked on growth and new product areas. Earlier in her career, Christina also spent time in business operations at LinkedIn and as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs.

Christina is an active angel investor and an advisor to early-stage companies. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Economics from Stanford University.

Christina grew up in Los Angeles, CA and now lives in San Francisco with her husband John and son Theo. She loves running and skiing, which funnily enough we do spend some time talking about, more spedically me skiing in Christina’s parents home country of Bulgaria and just how bad I am at it!

Hope you enjoy our chat!

Please listen to the conversation on Apple, Spotify or Any other platform for the full conversation with Christina!

Signals

Signals is our subscriber only reads, and Im gonna read you a snippet from our latest article.

Skip the teller- Digital banking in emerging markets by Sophie Vo

For the 1.4 billion unbanked adults around the world, the path to accessing financial services starts with a cell phone. Mobile money has expanded financial access to over a billion people in emerging markets over the past decade by letting users access banking without having to get to a physical branch. As mobile money expands to serve new populations, it's important that these programs consider other building blocks, like the feasibility of digital KYC or the national government's appetite to experiment with new regulatory frameworks in real-time.

To read the rest of this article subscribe to This Week in Fintech Newsletter

Events

(in the next two weeks)

RegTech Summit London

Oct 4, 2022

London, UK

FintechSurge

Dubai

10- 13 Oct 2022

Merge 2022

Oct 17-18, 2022

London, UK

and, of course, how could I not mention The best year-end fintech event is back. Nov 11 2022 in New York, The Fintech Formal hosted by This Week in Fintech

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro

‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Venture Capital (1.14)

News (1.56)

Interview with Sasha Pilch about their experience and current work at Fin Capital (4.30)

Quick Fire Questions with Sasha (31.28)

Signals: Who gets to regulate crypto? by Sophie Vo(39.10)

Upcoming Events (40:52)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends!

My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of the Hey Fintech friends podcast, brought to you by This Week In Fintech.

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you subscribe to The This Week in Fintech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Secondly, we'll go through the fintechtionary, then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Sasha Pilch.

And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the signals article who gets to regulate crypto by Sophie

Oh, and before we move on, how can I not mention events!

I'm going to go through some of the global fintech events, conferences, and places that you need to know about that happening in the next two weeks. So listen up for that, too.

Fin-techionary

This weeks, ‘fintechtionary’, which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:

Venture Capital

According to Investopedia Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity and a type of financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential. Venture capital generally comes from well-off investors, investment banks, and any other financial institutions.

However, it does not always take a monetary form; it can also be provided in the form of technical or managerial expertise. Venture capital is typically allocated to small companies with exceptional growth potential or to companies that have grown quickly and appear poised to continue to expand.

But first this week in Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

The Central Bank of Kenya launched a framework for complete interoperability between mobile money services in the country.

📰 Other News

Goldman Sachs’ Apple Card program - thought to be a prime customer segment program - revealed that its loss rate is above the worst among big US issues: at 2.93% (higher than subprime). Elsewhere, Goldman and Modern Treasury are partnering on embedded payments.

The Empire Strikes Back: Charles Schwab, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Citadel Securities and Virtu Financial are building their own cryptocurrency exchange, EDX Markets. Franklin Templeton will also offer digital asset strategies to wealth managers.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia became the first bank in the country to let customers authorize recurring payments from within their banking app. Standard Chartered is testing a solution to mitigate duplicate trade finance fraud.

Swift is running an inter-bank pilot to host corporate actions data on its blockchain. Six Nordic countries and their banks are also creating a consortium to standardize EU-wide digital IDs.

Visa, AmEx, and Mastercard will apply a new merchant code to identify firearm sales.

The Federal Reserve continued to ring warning bells regarding the threat of bank-fintech partnerships and stablecoins to US financial system stability. Former OCC Comptroller Eugene Ludwig also warned fintechs and crypto could pose threats to stability.

Meanwhile, Danske Bank was fined €1,820,000 for AML failures.

Bank of America set a company record for patents granted in the first half of the year and Singaporean bank DBS opened an office in the ⭐metaverse⭐.

A consortium of civil rights organizations and consumer advocates launched an initiative to improve access to affordable credit. Funding Circle alsopartnered with Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union* to improve small business credit access.

Walmart is progressively expanding into more financial services through its One entity, while Apple builds an aggregator for identity.

Neobank Aion Bank partnered with ETFmatic to offer ETF portfolios to 32 countries in Europe. AXA Investment also launched an ETF Fund.

Zip integrated its Australian buy-now-pay-later loans into PPRO.

Crypto exchange BitPanda added commodities trading.

Arrived Homes added vacation home investment properties to its portfolio.

Fintech Abbove partnered with Quintet Private Bank to offer digital wealth planning in Belgium.

Crypto custody provider Anchorage Digital offered a Japanese yen stablecoin. Coinbase, meanwhile,is looking to acquire $1.6 billion of stablecoin USDC.

European spend management platform Payhawk is entering the US after a year in which revenue rose 520%.

Virtual card and spend management provider Extend is partnered with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Student loan refinancer Commonbond announced that, after 10 years, it will shut down. The two founders of Egyptian B2B commerce and payments startup Capiter were fired for fraud and mismanagement of capital.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friend Sasha Pilch

Sasha is a Principal at Fin Capital, where she is responsible for sourcing investments, maintaining board responsibilities, and adding operating value to portfolio companies.

Before Fin Capital, she was Sales Lead at Pinwheel, a venture-backed payroll connectivity API fintech company, and she also co-founded New York City Fintech Women, an organization with over 8,000 members and the mission to connect, promote and empower women to advance their careers.

Sasha was previously the first sales hire at Ramp, a corporate card fintech. She also worked at PLAD Plaid (and Quovo before it was acquired by PLAD Plaid for $200M in 2019). Before jumping into fintech, Sasha spent a decade working for large banks, including Citi & RBS in London and Westpac & CBA in Sydney.

Hope you enjoy our friendly chat!

It's nice to meet you. So where are you right now?

So at this very moment, I'm in a beta. I'm doing a yoga retreat because my firm has shut down for vacation. But normally, I'm based in New York City.

How has the yoga retreat been? Oh, it's been incredible. I've been doing like four hours of yoga a day, Iyengar style, and swimming on the beach, and reading books just what I needed.

That's so funny because I feel so I've never been to Ibiza. But I just feel like when people talk about going to Ibiza, yoga isn't the first thing that comes to mind.

Yeah, usually it's like nightclubs. But I'm definitely too old for that now. And there's so much of this island, that's just very pure beaches and a lot of wellness. So I'm doing that kind of holiday this time.

Yeah, I definitely have to see it. Maybe I'll try and do both. If I like, do the partying first. And then yes, I'm done. I'd be li“ Okay, now it's time to do some yoga. Exactly. That's cool. That's very cool that you've you're doing that.

How long does the yoga retreat last?

It's week. So I return to New York after this, refreshed and ready to work again. So that'll be good. Awesome.

And are you originally? I mean, just because you have an accent? It sounds like you're not from New York? No, where? Where are you from?

So I was born in Sydney, Australia. And I lived and worked in London.

And I've been in New York now for five years. Awesome. And out of all those cities, which is the best,

New York,

New York really?

I mean, they're all good for different reasons. Yeah. So you can't compare. Yeah, they're very different.

But equally, I did. I feel like New York is like a more extreme London. That's how I feel about it. Like everything good about London is even better in New York. But everything bad about London is like, to some extent, worse than New York. So it's a very extreme city.

I've been in London for two weeks working from the firm here. And from our office here. And it. I forgot how spread out everything is it takes a long time to travel from east to west and north just out in London. Yeah, it can be, and yeah, we've had a lot of like strikes and stuff recently, which makes it even worse. Yeah.

But talking about your firm that that's a good place to like circle back. So I think that's a good place to kind of start. So where do you work? And how do you explain what you do? How do you explain what you do to non to your non FinTech friends?

Yeah. So I am in a very new role. I'm a principal at a VC firm called Fin capital. But I think it would be helpful just to give a quick overview of how I got into this role. So straight out of uni, I joined the biggest bank in Australia, Westpac, and I was there for four and a half years. I then moved over to London, I worked for Citibank, I worked for Royal Bank of Scotland. I returned to Australia and worked for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia CBA. So over that time, I got exposure to every type of traditional financial services product. So from a consumer banking perspective, credit cards, home loans, mortgages, checking accounts, from a small business perspective, business, credit cards, corporate cards, then from an enterprise corporate banking perspective, I did all of those products as well. And then, in my ninth year of working for a large bank, I was at Commonwealth Bank, and Helen was actually in, I think, a similar role to you at Lloyds, I saw that you were in the Lloyds innovation lab. So I was in the CBA Innovation Lab, and it's getting a lot of exposure to fintechs that We either wanted to partner with or acquire. And there was really like a rise of FinTech in the media, and I was reading a lot about it and getting excited. So still working at Commonwealth Bank, but I knew that I wanted to leave work, as you know, large, archaic slow-moving, not tech-forward, big banks.I didn't know exactly what I was going to do. And I went on a vacation and ended up extending and going to New York. And after going to one meet-up, I realized that there was so much opportunity in FinTech, so I quit my job

And I stayed in New York. And I ended up getting a role at Cuomo worked there for a year and a half. It was then acquired by our head-to-head competitor, which was Plaid. I worked for plaid for a year. And then definitely wanted to go back to building something from the start again. So I joined the founding team of Ramp, the corporate cod startup, then joined pinwheel as the first salesperson. And then, two months ago, I joined Fin capital. So I've made a pretty big transition in my career, from leading sales to being in VC. And I'm responsible for sourcing FinTech companies that we want to invest in and then managing those portfolio companies. So helping them with sales, helping them with hiring, so that they can succeed and we can graduate them to the next level and do their subsequent rounds.

Oh my gosh, Sasha, you have so much experience in so many different fields. And it's so interesting how you made that pivot when it wasn't feeling right. And I definitely kind of, like I know exactly how it feels when you're, when you're working in such a, like, massive organization. And that just comes I feel like a lot of people in FinTech have that story, whether they're working in those sorts of, yeah, let's say like archaic organizations, and you make this pivot, and then even so, even within FinTech, you've pivoted quite a lot into like different fields.

Yeah, exactly. I'm very curious by nature. So I love learning. And yeah, I think my career shows that. Yeah. But that's, I think that's great. Because it's just like when it feels when you when, I get what you mean, because it's like, when you have this like curiosity, sometimes you just need to problem solve for yourself. And if that creates, if that means, like, you move, then it means that you move, I feel like I've lived, I've leaned into that more and more. And it's, and I don't know, feels right when you start to Yeah, exactly.

So you said you've recently gotten into VC and stuff, which can be quite tough, especially for women. Like when you look at, like, I don't know, I've been reading a lot of stats regarding women in and a just venture like VC in general.

What do you think is kind of like a challenge you faced, it doesn't necessarily have to be about being a woman within the field. Is there anything that's particular that you've seen within? Like working there?

Yeah, absolutely. So when I first moved to New York, it was actually also my first role in sales. And I knew that I needed to build a network quickly. And after working for large banks for 10 years, I was pretty frustrated with seeing a lot of my male counterparts get a promotion because of the conversation they may have had on the golf course or in some environment that I was excluded from finding out that my male colleagues were being paid more than me when I was delivering better results. And because of that, 10 years of experiencing that, when I came into FinTech and saw that the same gender disparity existed, considering it is the intersection of both finance and tech. I wanted to do something about it and not just be complaining to a woman in the corner. So I decided, with my co-founder, Michelle Tran, to start this organisation called NYC FinTech women. Our mission is to connect, promote, and empower women to advance their careers. And we started with just 16 Women at a bar. And then, from there, it grew exponentially. So we had a lot of CEOs asking us to host events in their office to get a whole bunch of talented women in one room to potentially lead to them recruiting those people and having more diverse teams. So I was I've been doing that alongside my permanent roles at Plaid, Ramp, and Pinwheel. So we've now done 89 events with top FinTech companies and traditional companies. We rang the bell at NASDAQ, did a big event at Google, a Christmas event, and a holiday event on the New York Stock Exchange floor in December. So it's been going well, and it's definitely helped me meet many people in the industry. A lot of the female VC-backed entrepreneurs, and unfortunately, there aren't just aren't that many of them. Like To your point, Helen, about stats that used to be 3% of VC-backed fintechs were female founded in the UK, that's actually gone down a point recently, which is unfortunate to see, but as the market has turned, it's, it's seen as a more high-risk investment.

So after experiencing all of that, I was asked to do the opening remarks of the FinTech retreat that Alex Pelin puts on every year in San Francisco. And in my opening remarks, I talked about one of the core reasons that we have this lack of gender diversity in our industry: pretty much all of the VCs are male. And then they'll consciously or unconsciously fund male founders, who will put male execs in their senior leadership teams and put males on their boards. And so it continues. So if we are ever going to have real gender diversity in our industry, we need more female VCs. And after making that, you know, quite passionate speech, I had several VCs interested in interviewing. So that was like a very happy moment for me in my career. And then, fortunately, I did get the job at Fin Capital. So now I have moved over to their investment team, which is pretty exciting. That is very exciting. And this question might lead to what I feel leads on quite nicely to what you've been talking about. But what do you see as your biggest dream or vision for fintech? Do you think the sort of gender diversity is the number one thing? I mean, I know there are a lot of things that could change, but like, what do you see? How do you see that? Yeah, I mean, there are so many things that can change. And like there's various types of diversity, I think, just what I've spent most of my time on, and my passion is empowering females. So my ultimate goal would be that 50% of founders are female. Yeah, big goal to achieve considering where we are now. But I think that we can do it if we all work together.

Yeah, it's a big goal. But it's not unachievable. Like exactly, things can change. So I mean, I think that's a great aim. And I don't think like, like, I think it's definitely achievable. I think there's, I think there are so many levels to it, because I think it starts at young with, like financial inclusion, or even I don't know how to explain it, but a lot of like, the narrative around FinTech sometimes and like, kind of like mansplaining. Well, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, there's like a sort of, like an overall mansplaining thing that happens around the industry, not necessarily in every corner, but I don't know, it also starts like, even younger, like in primary school age or grade school. It's very encouraging for men to do maths and science and for women to do other types of subjects. And so it's great to see that at a young age, there are all of these STEM programs to help get more young ladies into coding and into the right subjects that will lead them on to do a degree in computer science, or, you know, those degrees that are very male-dominated right now.

Yeah. It's interesting, even that question of like when you ask a 10-year-old, what do you want to do these days? Because I think even you are a testament of like, you start doing one thing. And then like, 10 years later, you pivot. So even that question, I've started to question whether that even makes sense because it's a very normal question. But it's just like, adults, ask kids those questions. And like, we, we don't do it ourselves. Like, it's not like, Yeah, I think that's a great point. Like, it doesn't have to be, you know, you become an adult, and then you do one thing for the rest of your life. And so maybe the question should be, you know, five things you want to do throughout your life? Or? Yeah, like that? I might ask my niece. Yeah.

That's a great question. So if we circle back to you in your career,

What was your ‘Oh S**t’ moment? So actually, actually, before we've talked about that, what were your eureka moments? Like? What's the moment in your career where you just thought, Everything makes sense now? Or like you solve something? Does that make sense? Yeah.

I think it was when I did make that jump to move to New York City.

You know, there were so many people in my dad included saying like, don't do that, you're definitely going to have to like coming home with the tails between your legs type thing. But even he came around and was like, very brave. Go for it. You'll, you'll figure it out. And I almost didn't like interviewing with so many companies that tried to convince them to sponsor me because I needed a visa. I didn't have any FinTech experience. It wasn't an uphill battle. I have a mortgage in Australia, so I had a cash flow issue. And I ended up having to go to the diamond district. In New York and sell my diamond necklace that I had won, like in a raffle to buy cans of beans to continue living in New York. But then, you know, luckily, Lauren Crossett, who has been my manager twice in my career, took a chance on me. And I got the job. So I was able to stay in America. And

I think that was like a pivotal moment of like, okay, great. Like, I did it. And getting, you know, the first few paychecks, especially in sales, my first time in a variable comp role, I kind of felt very entrepreneurial in that, like, I was getting paid for what I brought in, as opposed to working for the large banks where everyone was being paid the same, even if I was working a lot harder. Yeah. That's crazy.

Yeah, is that true? Like you actually had to sell your necklace for food and stuff.

Yeah, I like had completely run out of money. I'd sold everything that was liquid. But I didn't want to like, you know, lose the property in Australia, I got in pretty early.

It was one of the only perks of working at a big bank. All of my friends were getting cool clothes and $400 dresses because they worked in fashion. I was like, there must be some kind of perk that I can get for working for these big banks. And I didn't want to sell it to move to New York. So I did everything I could, including selling my diamond necklace, and got the best price, which was 350 bucks.

Bought beans.No beans.

I guess it had more sentimental value than anything. So yeah.

But did you get back? Did you manage to get about

No, but it was okay. Like, you know, it got me to New York, and I'm so happy living here. And my career has just really, like, taken off compared to how it would have had I stayed in Australia. So grateful. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that does that.

So yeah, it was like a sacrifice that you had to make. And it seemed as though even though you didn't have a full plan of like, knowing what you you were doing, does seem like there was a real gut instinct like you knew you knew. But you didn't know if that makes sense. You knew you were on the right path. You just didn't know what you were doing exactly. Yeah, exactly. Like I knew that FinTech was definitely going to happen. I remember hearing about it in 2008 when some people from Westpac had been sent to South by Southwest, and they came back and did a presentation. And they were laughing and saying, apparently, there will be new companies that are their banks, and it will be gamified. And everyone in the room was laughing and, 10 years later, it is actually the reality. So I'm happy that I believed in it and that I made the jump to get right into it.

Yeah, it's quite funny with some of these things, I think, especially in the kind of like FinTech or like Web3, because a lot of it does feel.

I don't know like it's not real. Yeah, like it is. But it feels like you're talking, and if this happens, what like it's a lot of conditional verbs that you that that are used. And especially sometimes when you're speaking to people who aren't and who don't work in like FinTech it, like, you know, you kind of know is all about we like it.

Yeah, I get where there is this kind of like, yeah, I guess educational. And I don't even know if it's educational. It's just sort of like, a lot of unknown. So you have to kind of like take a leap in things that you think makes sense. But yeah, and also be like, you know, understanding of the fact that it is the early stages, especially when we're talking about things like web3 like it's at the very, very beginning.

And yes, there are many unknowns, but who knows what will happen over the next few decades. It's pretty exciting.

Yeah, of course, I think it's pretty exciting, rather than anything

Yeah. It's a hard concept. But then you're like, it shouldn't be that hard, I guess like, yeah, I guess it shouldn't. But then I guess that's the evolution of these types of things.

Exactly.

And another question that one of our guests asked was kind of, like from a previous guest, what keeps you up at night, professionally and perhaps personally?

So much keeps me up at night; the main thing for me is that I feel extremely grateful that I have been given this opportunity to be a female VC, and I want to do the best job possible. It is the pressure that I put on myself. But I want to do that not only for myself but for every woman in our industry and the women that will eventually move into our industry because the barriers come down. Yeah. And what market or thing I feel like I already know.

But like, what market or thing are you excited about when it comes to fintech?

So, when I first started reading about FinTech in Australia, I did interviews with a few companies, but to be honest, nothing was that exciting because the banking system isn't that broken.

Yeah, having we're pretty new country, 200 years old, there's big four, and there are a few other banks, but it's nothing like, you know, there are legacy systems that exist in the US with 14,000 banks and credit unions have different systems that, you know, even transferring money to each other so much more difficult than it is bank to bank in Australia, hence the success of Venmo and Cash App. So when I came to America and started to learn more about what it's like to live here if you are of lower socioeconomic status, it made me realize how important the fintechs are. So, for example, learning that even to have a normal bank account with Chase, or Wells, etc. If you didn't meet the minimum deposit every fortnight or every two weeks, every time you get paid, then it would be expensive, or how huge the nonsufficient fund fees were. And The other thing that was quite alarming was that I couldn't do anything when I first got here because I didn't have credit. And so, even to get an apartment, I had to pay the guarantors, another $6,000, so they could guarantor. So it's great to see that so many fintechs are now helping people understand and build credit. And I think it's especially important from like a lending use case. So. So it was shocking to learn that some people with no credit would have to take out a loan with a loan shark with an insane interest rate just to get a loan for a medical procedure. So it's great to see now that there are lenders that are looking at nontraditional ways of underwriting, using transaction data from Plaid or income and employment data from pinwheel so that people can get a fair loan.

Even if they don't have credit. Yeah, that's really like, obviously, I know most about the UK system when it comes to being able to like rent a property. But it feels like, all the things you said, it seems like a policy issue that fintechs are finding ways around. Because a lot of that stuff seems like, Well, why would you need $6,000 to rent and like to guarantee an as a guarantor of an apartment, right? Like it feels like there's a question before the issue. Yeah, but because of the system like fintechs Exactly. Get creative. 100% Yeah, when I got my apartment in the UK, I had to show my income. And yeah, doesn't work like that in the US.

Which was I'm like, yeah, that seems like that makes sense. Like, show that you can pay.

So he was talking about, for instance, if you have a criminal record, it's very hard to do anything like open bank accounts and rent apartments and these types of things. And, and a lot of that

just seems quite outdated. Exactly all.

Yeah, just a lot of discrimination that kind of serves no one or no purpose. But yeah, it's good because it's like, either a government does, like changes these things, or as a society, we say, oh, there's a problem. And like fintechs have kind of like taken that on. Yeah, to solve the problem. And there are some fintechs that are specifically focused on helping people get loans that are discriminated against.

Quick Fire 🔥

What chore? Do you secretly take pride in?

I make my bed every day.

apartment or house?

apartment

podcasts or TV?

Podcasts

What's something new happening in your life right now?

My job

Trash TV or educational documentaries?

Depends.

On if I can have any room left in my brain to keep learning that day?

Yeah, yeah. I would like to say education documentaries. But by the end of the day, it's like, give me some trash

What's the best kind of cake?

Cheesecake

If you could be fluent in any other language?

Spanish.

What's your favorite pizza topping?

Pepperoni.

What’s the best musician you've ever seen live?

Elton John. Front row.

What is top of your bucket list?

Doing yoga in India? Okay, nice. Yeah, very cool. Do you like to go on like loads of different yoga retreats?

Yeah, I love it.

Where's the best place for a yoga?

Costa Rica.

And if you weren't in FinTech and in VC like what would you be doing?

Teaching yoga. All around the world.

What's your favorite type of yoga? Or do you have a favorite? Yeah, used to be vinyasa. Now it's Iyengar. You use a lot of props, like robes or blocks, and then you hold the poses for a long time, and you focus very much on the form and just really very effective,

Yeah, sounds like quite like it goes quite deep because you're sort of like concentrating on Yeah, hos for a very long time. Okay, I have to try it. If I'm with like my mum, then we'll do yin.

Yes, I love yin.

But yeah. Okay, cool. And my last sort of question, I guess, is, what movie book or TV do you feel has made a real impact on your life? Or do you have one soon? Yeah, so

when I was living in London, I was like traveling a lot, and I've never been stopped so much on a plane.

Other than when I was reading The castle by Kafka. So many people were like, well, you're gonna love this book and I did. And it was like one of the reasons that I realised that there are so many people in the world who like doing things, and we don't know why we're doing them, or it's inefficient. And reading it reminded me of like working for the government or working for a large bank. And it was one of the reasons I wanted tobreak out of that hierarchical bureaucracy that sometimes doesn't make a lot of sense and do something from the start. Awesome. I'm gonna definitely have to give it a read.

That sounds really interesting. Yeah, very ahead of its time. Yeah.

When was it written?

Like, 1920?

That's, sounds quite, quite interesting, but still relevant today. Yeah, it sounds like it, especially if you were kind of reading it, then. And it kind of made you kind of make that pivot. And who's a friend of yours that you think we should highlight, which we should be looking for?

Oh, so many people. I wish that I knew that question was coming, I would have, I would have thought more into it. But I think the woman that just jumps to mind immediately is Elsie Russell Brown. She is like very incredible. She's technical, but she's also a great product leader. She's worked at the likes of Blackstone, and more recently, she's moved to a digital currency Group company called Grayscale. She has been heavily involved with FinTech women, building our website and all of our tech. So she's nine months pregnant right now, she's still speaking on panels about crypto. And I just think she's brilliant. ?

I mean, you can say more than one if you feel like there are other people that you think.

Definitely Michelle Tran, my co-founder for FinTech women. She has four kids and has led Business Development at Blackrock across both Hong Kong and the US. She led Apex, and now she's at vest well, one of the capital portfolio companies. She's Superwoman. Sounds like it definitely sounds like she's a superwoman. That's awesome.

And last but not least, as my last question to you, what question do you think we should ask the next friend of the show?

If they know any good female founders? And if so, can intro me?

That's a good question. All right, that sounds good.

Thank you so much for your time. Sasha, I'm sorry to disturb your retreat.

Not at all. I'm going to the beach now with one of my other friends on the retreat. She just finished her massage.

Yeah, that sounds like an awesome day, actually.

Yeah, unfortunately, there's no beach in London. So we'll be doing that.

But you've come at a good time, because it's not that cold this week. It's actually been pretty all right. That's great.

When you're in London, yeah. The weather should be beautiful. Right. It's the best place for summer for best. Yeah, everyone's so happy. I think because we don't have sun. We appreciate it. Yeah. appreciate it so much. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Because we understand the sun. We're literally like, wow, so deprived. This is amazing.

We have a better appreciation for the sun for sure. Because we don't get it.

But yeah, thanks so much, Sasha. Enjoy the beach. Enjoy the rest of your yoga retreat. And yeah, hope to hear from you soon.

Thank you so much for having me, Helen.

Signals

Signals the This Week In Fintech paid subscriber read, and I'm going to read you a snippet from one of our articles

Signals: Who gets to regulate crypto? by Sophie Vo

US lawmakers think it’s about time for the crypto market to become officially regulated. This feels right given how many of us have gotten scammed, robbed in a hack, or just bought Bitcoin in the hopes of making a quick return and instead ended up strapped into the emotional roller coaster that is Owning Crypto.

The SEC, Treasury Department, and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are all pushing for regulatory authority over the cryptoassets they argue are most similar to the financial instruments that they regulate today. It isn't clear which regulatory body will get oversight of what, which begs the question... legally speaking, what is crypto?

"A pretty major f***ing risk to the US economy."

... to paraphrase a report that the Treasury published on stablecoins at the end of 2021. Stablecoins have emerged as a powerful tool for facilitating transactions by standing in for an underlying asset, usually the US dollar. Stablecoin issuers peg the value of these coins to USD by either holding an equivalent amount of fiat USD in reserves (fiat-collateralized), or creating an algorithm that ties the stablecoin's value to other coin(s), incentivizing traders to keep its value in line with USD by minting or burning stablecoin as the value of USD fluctuates (algorithmic).

The market for stablecoins is blowing up:

To read the rest of this signals article, please subscribe to the This Week in Fintech Newsletter

Events

(in the next two weeks)

Austin Fintech Happy Hour hosted by This Week in Fintech

Sept 21, 2021

Austin Texas

FTT Embedded Finance North America

Sept 21, 2022

Online

11th NextGen Payments & RegTech Forum

Sept 21-22, 2022

Athens, GREECE

Boston FinTech Week

Sept 27-29, 2022

Boston, MA

RegTech Summit London

Oct 4, 2022

London, UK

FintechSurge

Dubai

10- 13 Oct 2022

Merge 2022

Oct 17-18, 2022

London, UK

and, of course, how could I not mention The best year-end fintech event is back. Nov 11 2022 in New York, The Fintech Formal hosted by This Week in Fintech

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro

‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Point of Sale(1.11)

News (2.05)

Interview with Giorgio Giuliani about their experience and current work at Sum Up (4.47)

Quick Fire Questions with Giorgio Giuliani(32.20)

Signals: Rent is Rising – The Rent-A-Charter Model Just Got More Expensive (39.04)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're going to go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Then we're going to have a chat with this week's friend Giorgio Giuliani.

And lastly, I'll tell you a little bit about the latest Signals article Rent is Rising – The Rent-A-Charter Model Just Got More Expensive by Trevor Tanifum

Fin-techionary

This weeks, ‘fintechtionary’, which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:

Point of Sale

According to Investopedia, Point of sale (POS), refers to the place where a customer executes the payment for goods or services and where sales taxes may become payable. It can be in a physical store, where POS terminals and systems are used to process card payments, or a virtual sales point such as a computer or mobile electronic device.

Depending on the software features, retailers can track pricing accuracy, inventory changes, gross revenue, and sales patterns. Using integrated technology to track data helps retailers catch discrepancies in pricing or cash flow that could lead to profit loss or interrupt sales. POS systems that monitor inventory and buying trends can help retailers avoid customer service issues, such as out-of-stock sales, and tailor purchasing and marketing to consumer behavior.

But first this week in Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Binance and Mastercard are partnering to launch a crypto-to-fiat payment card.

HSBC launched variable recurring payments for personal and business customers who use open banking services.

Nationwide Building Society in the UK partnered with Moneyhub to launch an open banking savings account funding tool.

📰 Other News

Huntingdon Valley Bank became the first bank collateral integration partner of MakerDAO’s DAI, meaning that it will have access to 100 million DAI to support its lending and client services. This marks a significant step forward for the integration of the traditional and decentralized finance ecosystems.

Relatedly, Brazil’s central bank chose Itaú Unibanco, the country’s largest bank, to work on a decentralized liquidity protocol. (As the Monetary Authority of Singapore clamps down on retail crypto trading and Asian central banks issue digital banking licenses to traditional banks to help them counter fintechs.)

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group is preparing to launch Jenius, a fully-digital neobank in the US.

Visa issued its 4 billionth virtual card network token, surpassing the number of physical cards it has in circulation. CaixaBank's platform imagin passed 4 million users.

FedNow may finally launch next summer.

Bigger US mortgage lenders are turning up the intensity of their offers and marketing as smaller lenders withdraw from the market or go out of business.

Indonesia and Singapore will connect their national QR standards.

Turnover is high at Goldman’s Marcus banking unit, which may shutter plans for a proposed checking account.

Lloyds Bank, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland were locked out of online banking and their banks’ apps due to glitches. NatWest must refund business customers £600,000 after forcing them to open checking accounts to secure a loan.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Global payroll and compliance provider Deel launched an instant card transfer payment option for contractors, in partnership with the UK’s Paysend.

Fintech firm Deraya launched Saudi Arabia’s first roboadvisory investment service.

Crypto protocol NearPay launched virtual crypto cards and a wallet for iOS and Android.

PayPal rolled out a new Grant Payments tool for electronic charitable giving. GiveCard and Highnote partnered to launch a prepaid debit card for charitable giving.

Compound launched the third version of its defi protocol, in which collateral will remain the property of the supplier.

📰 Other News

Block is building an open-loop(ish) CashApp payment network with partner merchants, in a bid to compete directly with card networks. Users can now pay with Cash App outside the Square ecosystem. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

There’s now a women in fintech speaker index.

TSYS partnered with fintech Extend to build an out-of-the-box spend management solution for banks and Jack Henry partnered with Google Cloud.

Stablecoin issuer Tether has come out and said it won’t freeze sanctioned addresses unless specifically requested.

UK supermarket chain Iceland is rolling out buy-now-pay-later to help customers deal with rising food costs.

Australian fintech Afterpay is closing down its Money app and ending its partnership with bank Westpac as it prepares to roll out Block’s Cash App in the country.

Google Wallet rolled out its payment method wallet and tap-to-pay functionality in South Africa.

Zopa’s neobank passed $2 billion in customer deposits. FTX revenue shot up 1,000% during the last year’s crypto craze.

Flutterwave received a Switching and Processing License from Nigeria’s central bank

to offer transaction switching and card processing services, plus non-bank acquiring, agency banking and payment gateway services.

Block is facing a lawsuit for a December 2021 Cash App breach that affected over 8 million users. Robinhood received preliminary approval to settle a class-action lawsuit for $20 million. Wise was fined $360,000 by Abu Dhabi for AML failings.

Payroll income provider Argyle laid off 6.5% of its team. Smart money app Yolt is shutting down. Real estate translation startup Reali is shutting down, only one year after raising $100 million.

Klarna’s losses quadrupled in the first half of this year to $581 million.

Around 60% of fintechs surveyed labeled Hong Kong as too uncompetitive to do business in.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friend Giorgio Giuliani

Giorgio Giuliani: Product Lead at SumUp, author of the blog Fintech Ruminations, and founder of a community of fintech professionals, founders, and investors called Fintech Product Guild. Hope you enjoy our friendly chat!

Thank you so much for coming on the podcast, we're excited to have you.

It's my pleasure to be here.

Great.

So maybe we'll just start with just I'll be great to know a bit about you like, where you based?

So I'm Italian, I'm from Rome. But I'm based in Berlin, and I am one of the product lead at SumUp, which is FinTech super app. I'm building the summit Bank, which is a bank for SMEs.

Nice. And so if we talk about SumUp to your non FinTech friends, how do you describe what you do?

I think in the same way, you have an operative system for your smartphone, I think you can consider SumUp an operative system for your small company. Essentially, that's, that's the goal. It's, it's software or it's a product that you start using and can solve many different problems for your day-by-day activities. As an entrepreneur, as an SME, that's what we do. It goes from payments to banking to accounting, invoicing, online presence, so you can build an online presence. So the different aspects, and we will hope, and we want to cover all of them. Let's say that the part that I'm building, the bank account is kind of a glue that connects the different experiences.

If you were to say what the SumUp user looks like, your ideal client or your ideal user, like what kind of person?

What the user we build for. And the user we usually have in mind is a coffee shop owner in Prenzlauer Park, which is an area in Berlin. And that's our like archetype of the persona. In general, they can be also taxi drivers, hairdressers, or mom and pop shops, any small and medium enterprise in general. But these are the people that we have in mind when we want to build products for right and

you focus a lot on freelancers as well, yes, we also do freelance says is that like secondary? Or?

I wouldn't say it's the main target, but we have 1.5 million customers. So definitely, we have freelancers.

Yeah. And I guess we have now more and more because of the way the economy is like everyone, not everyone, but a lot of people kind of have like a freelance elements. So even if you're, for instance, like working in one place, because of the way the economy is going, it's like, you can also, in theory, also be a freelancer totally.

No, no, no, absolutely. I mean, I think you're saying that the traditional career doesn't exist anymore. And it's, I mean, the professional path of essentially everyone; now it's much more fragmented. And in your professional life, you might have, or you will probably have either side gigs or started to work as a freelance or start a small shop. And this is much more frequent compared to the past. And yes, we're trying to help these people essentially.

Yeah, that's me. I have those people. Okay. Yeah, well, in the sense of like, I had a sort of traditional, you know, when I finished university, I graduated, I was on a graduate scheme, I did that I went, I had another job, I switch. And then, you know, suddenly, I think there is a pivot. And I don't think like, my story's very unique. I think there are a lot of people who are currently, or maybe it's the pandemic, I think the pandemic just exacerbated what was already going to happen. But there is this kind of, yeah, just this people moving towards, like the Yeah, like less traditional ways of working and living.

The reason here and component of freedom to this, like, I think we as a generation want to have more freedom or less. I don't know if it's less of anything, but I think one characteristic of our generation is to try and pursue what we want, rather than having a clear career path to the corporate ladder where you start, and then you move to the next step. And then the next step doesn't make people very happy. Or not as many people as it used to. And so products like the one we're trying to build are used more for this purpose.

Yeah, I have a different theory on that. What's your theory? My theory's not even my it's not like okay. I wish I came up with it. . But there's a book I read once, which was all about the 100-year life because people are living longer. And if you've read it, she's amazing. But yeah, like, because people are living longer, like the economy and the way a lot of Western societies are built doesn't really make sense. So she talks about that kind of shift of like, how people live and how people are. And she, she wrote that pre-pandemic, you know what I mean? But yeah, because we're living longer, we have to kind of like, we don't, you know, it's not like born education, get married, have kids die, like you have to, like, reinvent an economy that makes sense for the fact that people live longer. And the fact that like, 60 or 70 doesn't necessarily make sense for retirement. But also, you need the sabbaticals and these breaks and the ability for people to pivot. So I always, like, Have that in mind when I'm having these conversations about a

true No, that's very, I mean, I never considered to be honest, based on my experience, seeing the people around me, the ones that started either their own thing or sidelined, they didn't do it, because they think they're gonna leave 100 years.

Yeah, I think I don't think it's like a conscious thing. I don't think we're all like, Oh, right. Like, I've got, I've got a few more years on this planet, and what am I going to do with it? I don't think it's like a conscious thing. I think that's what she says. It's just more, she talks about loads of the shifts in society that are creating that, but it's not as it's not conscious for the individual. It's not conscious. But I guess her point is that governments need to be conscious of it, not necessarily like me, and you living our everyday lives to like, help people transition. Because you know, people are having less kids, but then you have a growing aging population. So like, it doesn't, you know, that generation being born, as you know, I feel I could go on about this stuff for ages like, but I guess, yeah, I don't think it's a conscious idea that we're all being like, we say, you know, we're going to live to 100. And this is how we should then live our lives. But I think it's just these generational shifts that are happening, regardless of, of whether we're like, consciously doing it.

Yeah, probably. I think there is. There is a fundamental shift in the way we live our own life. There are no rules anymore. I really believe in this really, I think, yeah, I think in the past I've been. So I'm 35. So I think you're younger than me, but people of my age, and I don't come from London or New York. So I'm from Rome, which is, yeah, a nice city in the Western world. But it's definitely not the most events city in the world. And we're very proud of our history, but not our current situation. So I've been, I grew up with the kind of very regular life objectives, what you should suppose to do a certain age, and the moral and then when I started when I went to university, and then I was looking at the really successful people around me, but the ones that are really successful in their life, not only professionally, and I realised that they actually have no rules, like they, they, they understood immediately that there is no the rules, the playbook that we used to have. It doesn't exist anymore. I really believe in that. So I think the most important thing you should do is just understand what you want to do, understand what you're good at, and then try mixing these two things. Nothing else, I think, blindly following your career because it used to work. I don't I really don't believe in it.

No, I don't believe in it either. And like when I started to kind of like freelance, I feel like a lot of my friends were in that we're still in like traditional. But then even if I look at the light past year, there's so many people I know who like, have started to think about that, in the same way where it's like, what am I good at? How do I transition? And actually, I think you're right there is that real sense of like, it's not enough just to work and make money like it's just but yeah, that's interesting how, like, as a generation, then that we feel like fulfilment is an important, like element of how we need to live. Because I don't know, I actually don't know if that was the same way. Like if I think,

like, based on my experience, I think it was nice to have your way. But the priorities were different. And you are to feel the priorities. And then eventually, as a byproduct of that, you would eventually be fulfilled personally.

yeah, once you Yeah, once you reach 60 And you retire now you can do whatever you want. Whereas now people are like, I'm not going to do this for the next like 50 years, and then all of a sudden,

think it's like you mature, as an approach because you understand what, what really matters? Obviously, we don't have a society that is structured to do it.

Yeah, it's funny because I was with my friend and her boss, and they were having a conversation. And her boss was saying to her, like, she shouldn't do things that you're passionate about, you should do things that like, that have a function. And I just thought I didn't say anything, because it wasn't my manager. But I was just thinking, that's terrible. Like, I was, I didn't want to say anything, but I was like, Is this person serious? Like who's thinks like that, but then I thought to myself, I'm in this bubble of people who think the way I think, and maybe have more, less traditional careers and stuff like that. So that was like, Maybe I'm just in this bubble. And actually, this is the majority viewpoint

there's still the majority viewpoint, but I believe that it will become mainstream, or it's becoming mainstream. That's how cultural revolution happens. It's not that everyone starts thinking at the same time that something new is better is you have a handful of pioneers that behave in a completely different way. And then that becomes the rule. And I think, I think this is what is going to happen. And obviously, you still need to do stuff that people want to pay you for. Because in the end, you need a way to support yourself, but starting from what you like, and then understanding what is needed. It's it's easier, I would say

no, it's true. But as a kid, like no one tells you that well, no one told me now

it's obviously not I think no parents would ever say something like that. Yeah, yes, it's a hippie. Very unusual, but it's a tiny minority. Yeah. Cool.

Interesting tangent. But yeah, I was gonna ask, Is that like any interesting FinTech fact, or stat that you learned recently that you think would be interesting?

I was reading a post by my friend Akash is a VC working for Earlybird. And he posted in a new post today and essentially was referring to these a total addressable market for different verticals in FinTech and how much of the revenues for each vertical. So the verticals are payments, lending banking insurance, what is the percentage that is going to disruptors? So two FinTech companies? And what is the percentage going to incumbents, in the majority of them are in all of them, actually, because I have it in front of me. incumbents are still making more than 93% of the revenues in each segment. Yeah. So this means that like in the FinTech niche, we think that we are very big company, super successful company. But the real meat is still not there. I mean, there are avenues for growth. And yeah, I think we're now like, we went from zero to 10. Now we have to go from 10 to 100. It's completely different, completely different responsibility also, but completely different market dynamics. And I think it shows where, where we are in this evolution.

Yeah. Well, I think it's like if, you know, for the average person, what, let me not say the average, I think, I think one is an age thing in the sense of like, a lot of people under I don't know, 35 like really understand, or they don't actually need to understand, but I think like the average person will be like, Okay, I have a Monzo card, and I still have like an HSBC card as an example. But then I think there is still that like, element of for people who are a little bit older, you don't I think FinTech still doesn't necessarily have their trust. for instance, I would say, even in my household, me, my sister and my brother have some sort of like FinTech something. Whereas like my mom wouldn't and doesn't. So I think there is that element where it's like, you might feel like you're doing so much, but you're doing so much within a specific element of society

yes, I agree. But I think it's important that the industry and its protector practitioners keep this in mind. Yeah, because you constantly need this fire because building stuff, especially in a regulated environment, it's it's challenging, yeah, tiring. And you need this constant fire of willingness to go the extra mile and doing more for more and more people. And when you're already successful or successful enough, it's it's hard. I mean, it's, it's not that trivial to to get a company that is successful and to bring it to become enormously successful. culturally speaking, it's very complicated. I think this metrics and these thoughts are useful to remind. Yeah.

And there is that shift, right? Because, like, to your point, I think like fintechs are continuing to, to grow. And even you've got so many popping up, which are so niche and specific. Like, for instance, the other day, I wrote an article on Sibstar, which is specifically doing FinTech for people with dementia. So it's so specific to people's needs. And like, yeah, and it was I interviewed the lady, and she was incredible. And then, for instance, my niece, she's got GoHenry card, which is like, a payment card for kids. So all these little things mean that you are creating, like, you're, helping the needs of very specific members of society. And I think that's the whole point of fintech. But then to your same point, if everyone has like, very specific cards and very specific needs, then you don't have that like massive growth, because to the point of traditional banks, they kind of serve everybody's needs. And that's the whole point.

Yeah, I think we're gonna see over the next decade, probably an evolution in two directions. One, you will have these generic or multipurpose companies like Monzo Revolut, that will become super big financial providers that will eventually compete with Santander, Barclays players like this. And in parallel, you will develop super niche FinTech proposals or financial propositions because in the end, FinTech it's, it's nothing. I mean, you're developing a financial product for a specific user. Now, it's called FinTech, because we live in the age of, the internet, and of raising money as a tech company is much easier. That's why you call it fintech. But ultimately, you're building a financial company. And there will be a myriad or so 1000s, I believe of financial companies that will solve micro problems.

Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. Right. It's all about diversifying. So. Yeah, it makes sense. Exactly. It's like there's if you need to put money into different places, there's no reason why you can't do that. It gives people flexibility.

Like for me investing, it's a very like a treat time, like more. I consider time more precious than money. First of all, the way I invest time for me, it's very important. And I invest time, I don't spend time, because I can't, I can't buy time, it's the only thing I can buy. I mean, there are also many other things, but definitely, I can't buy time. So in terms of time, I'm very interested in decentralised finance, I firmly believe it's the natural evolution of financial services. I think FinTech has built a very good customer-facing interface. .

So that's where I will spend a lot of time, from a money point of view. I do believe that crypto as a future, I've been involved in the crypto space since 2015.

And I think it's a good time to look at key assets that will eventually become the future platform. So yes, that's what I expect. I hope that and also like an interesting thing is tech companies that can be the Amazon of the future. Because if you were buying Amazon in 2000, you would have paid it probably $5 per share. And you will have made under IDEX even more. I do believe that there are companies around at the moment that can be the next Amazon in the sense of becoming mainstream and used by everyone in every corner of this globe. So I would look at two options: crypto and shares.

Nice. Yeah, there, they seem like very sensible options. Maybe Yeah, with crypto, the crypto is so interesting with like the merge and ETH and then also but then also equally you've got Like all the crypto winter

The crypto winter is very good for me because, honestly, I've been active in the space since 2018 defy specifically, I tend to do only very focused stuff like I don't do crypto in general differ. And now, I'm focusing specifically on real-world assets, because that's what interests me. So bringing real-world assets on chain, I think that crypto winter is bringing a lot of focus is filtering out a lot of useless ideas and people that were there just to enjoy the momentum of, of the bull market. And there were a lot of charlatans to like people that didn't really understand the technology's future potential, or they weren't even very interested in it. I think these people will eventually go away. Or some of them are already left, but I'm afraid that many more will leave again. And only people that are really interested in building will say, I hope

Yeah, that's it isn't really interesting. Like I wrote an article a couple of weeks ago on the crypto winter in Europe, and I'm just finishing one on people's views on the crypto winter in Africa, as I'm like getting lots of different perspectives. And actually, most people are like, kind of have your viewpoint where it's like this, this is good. But then equally, like, you know, how you're saying, like a lot of people are will leave investing and stuff that's positive and negative, because I think then you do have like a, a section of society that could potentially could be brought back brought into this. And this was a view from like the Africa side where it was like, you have sections of society that could and will be brought in to crypto and this kind of like scares people, and then they kind of like, you know, it's like one step forward, two steps back. I

partially disagree. I don't think that onboarding people in crypto through buying altcoins. Yeah, a good way. I think that is the most wrong way to do it, or wrongest. I don't know which one is correct. So I believe that people will use blockchain-based solutions through experiences that will be better than what they are currently using. And they will not even know it's a crypto solution. Right? They will ignore the fact that it's crypto-based, they would just have a better solution to an existing problem or to a new problem. But they will just have solutions. And I don't think they will be aware of this. And for me having people that are just chasing the next altcoin or the next NFT drop. I think it's it's wrong. It's wrong attitude to words, a serious thing because money and investing it's it's a serious thing. And I think it's for the wider ecosystem. It's healthier to have fewer people, but that are actually solving real-world problems. Rather than having many, many people that are just speculating, and when the game is over, they just leave and lose money. When I was

speaking to loads of different people about their thoughts and their fears on the crypto winter and stuff. Many people were saying more than, you know, the crypto winter their concerns was like scams and fraud. And to your point, getting people out at this stage may eliminate those. That concern because that seemed to be something like people kept saying it was like the Ponzi schemes and the scams and the frauds. And that's a major concern more than the, you know, inflation, the crypto winter, or anything like that.

Yeah, I think it's exactly as you said, like, I think it will happen. Yeah.

So one last question on this sort of topic. What and this was a question that was written by like our first guest Rohit. But I think I'm just asking you every single time because I think it's good to question.

We used to work together.

What was your ‘Oh s**t’ moment in your career?

In startups, you tend to have these kind of problems, but I was lucky enough to be in situations where we were actually considering one It could have been the impact of having issues, and we had rollback plans, but no s**t moment. When I was at funding circle working for Rohit. So we were doing a massive migration essentially. Okay. So I mean, I don't know if you know what a funding circle is. But the funding circle is a lending, p2p lending platform, you have borrowers on one side, SMEs, and investors on the other side, so investors were lending money to borrowers. Now, the model, it's different because the b2b model doesn't exist anymore. You only have institutional investors. But at that time, we had also retail investors. So we were doing this massive migration, migrating all the users and investors, from an old platform to a new one, much more scalable, pre IPO. Super cool project. We usually add a go-live meeting before turning on the new platform and starting the migration. So we had the goal of meeting 15 people, 15 stakeholders, everyone has to say, Yes, I'm okay with that. So we started saying everyone said yes, also the engineering manager responsible for the regulation that at some point, it was the call was essentially over some point, one of the most senior engineers that we had, well said, Yeah, but I actually don't think we should, we should go live. I mean, we were we had a lot of preparation, I flew from London to San Francisco to make this transition happen with this engineer. And then the day before, during the last minute of the call, we're not ready. So we had to postpone everything we had started. We had already started the migration in some parts of the migration, we had to rearrange everything. And I mean, it wasn't we didn't break the system. But it was a very funny moment. Because yeah, you should have seen the face of the manager of will because she said, Yes, we're ready to go. And then he said, No, we're not. So it was a funny moment. Right? It was part of that call? I'm sure he will. If you mentioned it is definitely remember,

did you eventually do it? Or like what? What happened? Yeah,

then we waited to one or two weeks. We fixed potential criticalities that we'll envision and then we decided to go live.

Okay, cool. That's not too bad.

No, I told you I didn't have any major fuckup

well, not even when he was younger, when I was younger,

but I started doing startups. Seven, eight years ago, and, yeah, lots of bugs. But this for me, it's normal. Like it was. Things break every time, so you constantly have busy or things that don't work. You have to jump in. So I think it's,

yeah, it's normal. Yeah, we're just talking about it, but cool. Okay. I'm gonna move on to our like, quick-fire round. Ready?

Quick Fire 🔥

What's the last thing that made you smile?

I mean, this morning, my wife said a very funny thing. And yeah, I laugh a lot with my wife. So it was my wife. Ah,

okay.

Would you rather lose the ability to read or lose the ability to speak?

To speak? Of course. Yeah. No, I have no doubt about that. Yes.

If you could talk to anyone from history, who would it be?

I'm really passionate about history. Okay, even founded on historical society in Rome. And we're going to have an event next week. Actually. I do really appreciate the French Revolution. That for me is the most interesting event in history. So I will talk to Maximilien Robespierre.

Okay. Would you ever be locked for a week in a room that's overly bright or overly dark?

Dark, I am photosensitive so I don't like I mean, there's too much light I suffered.

What show are you currently watching on Netflix? So yesterday,

we started the show with the Japanese babies that you see, the name is

the one that they go like working or something? Yeah, they

have like a task. And they have they tell them like therefore, for four years old kids, the four years old and they tell them, Okay, go to the grocery shop and buy bananas, and they, they have to go and they start and they get distracted, and then forget about what they were doing. It's very funny.

Would you rather never be able to keep anyone's secrets or have someone tell all your secrets?

won't tell all my secrets. I cannot lie.

And what was your first job?

as a kid so I helped my father as a small company, a logistic company. And when I was probably 11. We weren't me and my brother we want to help him on in summer and in exchange didn't even pay me he just bought me rackets because I used to play tennis. And so every time I get a new tennis racket, but I should have been paid more to be honest now reflecting.

There's no law. Yeah, I got a good deal.

If you could only send one emoji ever again. Or like that was the only one you could ever send?

the joy the love for with? With the little crying? 😂 I always think there should be a plugin on WhatsApp or messenger or this thing to analyze all the emotions that you send, and gives you a report at the end of the week or the day on, what are the emotions that you're sending? Which people is using which emoji? I would find it super interesting.

Would you rather be staying stranded in the jungle or stranded in the desert?

Jungle

And what are you having for dinner this evening?

I think pizza. I mean, it's very stereotypical to be honest. I mean, a lot of pizza and pass a pass every day and pizza once or twice a week. So I like it and

you're allowed. Awesome, that's cool. Um, but yeah, that's the end of the quickfire round. Thank you so much for answering my question to just like one last thing, as this is the FinTech friend podcast, who's a friend of yours that you think we should sort of highlight or stay on the lookout for?

So I would say, definitely Rohit. Because I mean, you already interviewed him, and it's another mentor for me, I really learned a lot from him, then a very good friend of mine, that is a brilliant defi writer is Luca Prosperi, is another Italian that he used to be in investment banking. But now, he has an incredible life story. I wouldn't want to tell you more people can look for his profile and pay he has a very incredible life story. And is now I think, one of the best minds in decentralised finance because he writes about stablecoins and monetary policy. Super, super smart. It's definitely one of the smartest people in the space. Like how he's very young and his perspective, I think it's gonna bring him very far.

And last question, what is a question you think we should ask the next friend?

When are you going to stop working on fintech? What is the event that will make you stop working on FinTech and move to something else, if you will ever do it?

Thank you so much Giorgio!

Signals

Signals the This Week In Fintech paid subscriber read, and I'm going to read you a snippet from our latest article:

Signals: Rent is Rising – The Rent-A-Charter Model Just Got More Expensive

Where there is smoke, there is fire.

By Trevor Tanifum

The smoke: A recent flurry of regulatory activity in response to poor application of risk and compliance requirements in the bank-fintech partnership model.

The fire: Existential risks to the bank-fintech partnership model and, by extension, the provision of financial services products.

The extinguisher: Clear-eyed assessment of the current state, commitment to principles of safety and soundness, and considered strategy to manage risk and compliance.

Let’s take a step back.

The last few years have seen an evolution in the nature of the relationship between fintechs and banks. Early theories that fintechs would pose serious threats to community banks haven’t quite proven to be true. Fintechs’ ability to fully execute on their value proposition – that, by using technology, they can service more people, more quickly, and at lower cost – has been hindered by regulatory complexities. Due to the financial, logistical, and political challenges associated with obtaining their own bank charters, fintechs have struggled to compete directly with banks. Although the number of community banks has steadily declined the last few years, this decline is not at the hands of fintechs. Other things, yes, but not fintechs.

Instead of direct competition, fintechs and banks have orchestrated mutually-beneficial relationships where fintechs create products and define the customer experience, while banks – the regulated entities – provide the infrastructure and regulatory authority to offer the underlying services and products. This is known as ‘banking-as-a-service’ (“BaaS”). In a traditional program manager relationship, the fintech is contractually required to maintain a subset of the regulatory compliance and risk management functions applicable to the products it offers.

This fintech and bank relationship also created a new layer of market participants, known as ‘BaaS platforms’ or ‘middlewares,’ whose principal value proposition is to negate the costly and time consuming interactions between banks and fintechs2. The BaaS platform pitch is straightforward; if you are a bank, enter into one commercial arrangement and submit to one technological integration, but get the financial benefit of many. If you are a fintech, integrate with sophisticated APIs (as opposed to an outdated bank core) while also handing off some (or in some cases, most) aspects of your risk and compliance program and focus on what is most important to you – customer acquisition.

Commercially, this model has flourished. To provide just a couple of statistics, customer acquisition costs for financial institutions that partner with BaaS platforms are 82.5% to 95% lower than without3, and projections of global revenues for the BaaS platform industry are as high as $12.2 billion by 2031, up from $2.5 billion in 20204. Qualitatively, the model has catalyzed explosive growth in the volume and variety of fintechs in existence, giving consumers more options than ever before to spend, save, invest, borrow, lend, or earn.

Unfortunately, a great deal of that commercial growth may have outpaced the maturity of the risk and compliance programs designed to support it, much to the discomfort of one group of stakeholders – regulators.

To listen to the rest of this article, please subscribe to the This week in fintech newsletter

See you next week besties!

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View Details

Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro

‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Moblie Money Pay (1.31)

News (2.27)

Interview with Ray & Michael about their experience and current work at Opareta (5.01)

Ray & Michael Interview each other (26.34)

Quick Fire Questions with Ray & Michael (32.09)

Signals Fintech Founders: Qanlex’s Yago Zavalia on Building Fintech in Inefficient Markets (42.11)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're going to go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to the this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck, because this is the audio version.

Then we're going to have a chat with this week's friends. And yeah, it's plural friends, Michael Schwartz and Ray Besiga from Opareta. And this episode besties is a little bit different from previous Haven tech friends episodes, that is due to some internet issues, but it makes a really good interesting chat because there are times when Michael and Ray are actually interviewing each other, and there are other times where we're having like a really interesting three-way conversation.

And lastly, I'll tell you a little bit about the latest Signals article Dez Fleming interviews Yago to understand how his company is turning lawsuits into investable financial assets

Fin-techionary

This weeks, ‘fintechtionary’, which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:

Mobile Money Pay

According to the World Bank, at the most basic level, mobile money is the provision of financial services through a mobile device. This broad definition encompasses a range of services, including payments (such as peer-to-peer transfers), finance (such as insurance products), and banking (such as account balance inquiries). In practice, a variety of means can be used, such as sending text messages to transfer value or accessing bank account details via the mobile internet. Special “contactless” technologies are available that allow phones to transfer money to contactless cash registers

Although mobile phones are central to all these uses, mobile money is more than just technology—it needs a cash-in, cash-out infrastructure, usually accomplished through a network of “cash merchants” (or “agents”), who receive a small commission for turning cash into electronic value (and vice versa).

But first this week in Fintech

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

Canada’s Scotiabank launched a new digital payments platform with cash management APIs.

First Internet Bank launched its Do More Business checking account.

Dutch bank ABN Amro's payment app Tikkie launched functionality for settling group spending.

📰 Other News

Turnover and tensions are both running high at Marcus, Goldman’s consumer banking unit.

Buy-now-pay-later isn’t for everyone: Mastercard is facing backlash for its installment payment product, with food and gas merchants opting out, after announcing it would charge retailers 3% of purchase price for using installments.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand partnered with Bloomberg to create a financial lab.

NatWest’s open banking tool Payit hit the £1 billion processed mark.

The US Federal Reserve Board established a tiered system for evaluating whether to grant access to its accounts and payment services to fintechs.

Israeli authorities are cutting down on cash in order to spur adoption of digital payments. The United Nation’s Conference on Trade and Development, meanwhile, cautioned developing countries against adopting crypto too quickly.

German regulator Bafin has urged bank Allianz to improve internal controls following a scandal in the US division.

Barclays closed 18 more branches, bringing its total for the year to 178.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

FTX partnered with social media site Reddit to create tokenized community points.

Banking-as-a-sevice provider Bond launched their Credit Builder Card product to let anyone create their own secured cards.

SmilePay rolled out face-based-payments with two food retailers in Azerbaijan.

SoFi came out with an ETF focused on NFTs, the blockchain, and metaverse.

📰 Other News

This week in ‘fintech meets crypto’ news,

Blockchain HELOC provider Figure partnered with Visa to provide issuing processor services.

Mexico’s Pomelo added crypto to its payment services suite.

A UK tech consortium is running a sterling stablecoin pilot.

Revolut is switching from Paxos to crypto provider Apex Crypto.

In crypto, retail is out but institutions are IN.

And one of the stars of Selling Sunset launched a brokerage that is now adding crypto services (of course).

Ready Life is helping people become homeowners without a credit score.

BaaS provider Synapse partnered with Lineage Bank to offer customers more banking services and WebBank partnered with AmEx to enable its own card issuing suite.

Business financial management platform Neat Company is offering clients free ACH transfers (which I though were… already a thing?)

Nigerian payments provider Interswitch integrated all its APIs into one platform. Bridge Card, a credit card issuer for Africa, came out of stealth.

Online marketplace Flippa added a digital asset purchase intelligence tool.

Germany’s Paysafe entered Spain with the launch of its cash deposit and withdrawal network in partnership with Pecunpay. Ranqx, a small business loan platform, entered North America. Digital brokerage Syfe entered Australia.

Digital wealth manager Scalable Capital doubled client assets to €10 billion. And Coinbase shared dropped on a billion dollar loss in Q2.

Banking-as-a-service provider Green Dot, locked in a dispute with Uber, has been steadily losing other clients.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friends, Ray & Michael

Ray Besiga (Co-Founder and CEO). Ray brings a wealth of software engineering, product management, and entrepreneurial experience to Opareta. As one of Uganda’s leading software engineers, Ray founded his own software consulting platform called Sparkplug, delivering digital projects for clients such as World Bank CGAP, MTN Group, UNICEF, Clinton Health Access Initiative, RTI International, and Maxwell Stamp, among others. Ray has likewise worked for Nigerian Fintech startup Flutterwave as their Technical Product Manager for Fintech as a Service.

Michael Schwartz (Co-Founder and COO). Michael began his career in the investment industry before moving to the other side of the table to lead the Corporate Finance departments at Fenix International and PEG Africa, two of the continent’s leading Solar Home Systems businesses. He has likewise supported a number of East African startups with fundraising and financial modeling efforts, including leading Mr. Green Africa (a Nairobi-based social enterprise focused on plastics recycling and processing) through its Series A fundraise.

And like I said, this chat is a little bit different from our previous ones, because we do go through serious questions. We do go through quickfire questions. But there are points in which Ray and Michael are just having a conversation between each other. And you'll see that it's quite good. It's a good friendly chat.

Thanks for coming on the podcast. We're excited to have you both. I think where we should probably start is to basically just talk about like, Ray Michael, like, Who are you and where are you based?

Great question. So yeah, Mike, you want to go first?

You start us off. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm Raymond. I'm based in Kampala, Uganda. I'm a co founder of Opareta and happy to be here.

Then I'm Mike. I'm raised co-founder at Opareta and I am currently based in Dakar, Senegal. So I am relocating to Nairobi in a couple of months.

awesome. I didn't realise that both for you. We're, we're located in Africa. Have you always lived on the continent? Or did you move around?

No, I have not. I was born in a small town in Colorado. And did my studies in San Francisco before eventually moving to Kampala, where I met. So I lived there for three years, relocated to that car, and now heading to Nairobi. So I guess, for the past five or so years, bouncing around the continent a bit

out of these three countries. Which one have you liked the most? Oh,

man, I knew that's where you were going. I can't I can't answer that. It wouldn't be fair. Well, I haven't lived in Nairobi. What I like to say to people, I mean, they're extremely different places. Uganda, I loved I grew up in the mountains. So nothing. I've never been anywhere that's compared in terms of natural beauty. And just kayaking down the Nile River or hiking up a volcano or going on a safari on the weekends is I can't imagine there is anywhere else in the world that offers so much kind of biological diversity in such a small space. And then Senegal is obviously very flat, the fat, flattest place I've ever lived. But the cultural scene here is amazing. Just last month was The this massive art exhibition on the African continent, people, artists from all over coming to show their work, and it's the most impressive gathering of artists I've ever witnessed. And the music scene. I love West African food. So yeah, it's there's no right answer. They just they both have their kind of pros and cons, I guess. Yeah,

that does sound pretty amazing. Especially like, all the things you're able to do in one country,

What about you Ray? what's your, how long have you? What's your story? How long have you lived? And what's the best thing to do that?

Yeah, so I was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda. As with any other middle-class kid, you go to boarding school for high school, six years, and then I joined marker University in Uganda. But halfway through, I got onto this research project with the MIT AI labs. And so that's That was my first foray into the US. And over a three-year period, I just kept going back and forth. doing my research there. And then, yeah, that's what got me into the international scene. I've worked in Africa. I've worked and lived in Southeast Asia. And then I came back to Africa. There are tonnes of beautiful countries out there. But I would say, outside of Africa, my favorite country might be Indonesia, I think because it's just so large. There are three or four different time zones. There are different kinds of ecosystems. And the people were really quite sure. And I really, I really liked that. Yeah, I'd say culturally, though, I really enjoyed living in Timor Leste because I was there for a year. Yeah. So Southeast Asia has a special place in my heart.

That's actually funny Southeast Asia has a special place in my heart, but Malaysia because I used to live there. But Indonesia and Malaysia actually have quite a similar culture. And I love the food of Indonesia. And yeah, the vibe is quite good. And quite funny. Actually, I got into too many situations. But yeah, let's circle back to FinTech and everything

For your non FinTech how do you explaoin what you do What exactly what exactly would you say you do? And how would you explain? Opareta?

That's a great question.

I can direct that. Oh, yeah.

We're gonna direct it to Mike, like, do you want to answer it?

Yeah, sure. I guess, I guess for me, because I'm often well, like when I explained it to my parents, for example, who are American and don't know what mobile money is,, their starting point is probably a bit further behind. And then most of the people you'd be explaining it to? Yeah, so I mean, first things first, I just have to start with the mobile money ecosystem. And the way I described the people is, it's effectively having a wallet attached to your telecommunication SIM card. And so, in the absence of having a bank account, you can, in some ways, have a, let's say, transactions-oriented bank account through your telecom provider. And that's the way many people across the continent and actually, across the global south now really, are accessing financial services. And when it comes to that, like our business, we're targeting one, let's say, a special role that underpins that entire ecosystem: the mobile money agent. And so, the agent is effectively a human ATM. And they act as a bridge between the mobile money network and the customer, right? So they're the person I would go to in the same way I would go to, let's say, like a bank teller or an ATM to withdraw or deposit cash. And so that's, that's our customer. Now, in terms of what we're building for them. We're trying to digitize them. And so we, that individual is still very, let's say, kind of analog and their operations, they use pen and paper to record their transactions, they use Excel spreadsheets to understand their earnings. They typically are using feature phones to actually run their business. And so, we're trying to bring them into the digital economy. So bring them onto their smartphone, help them use activity on that smartphone to create a digital identity in the same way that I have a digital identity as an American with a formal credit score, which follows me around everywhere I go. And then, based on that digital identity, connect them to the financial services they need to grow their business, their core mobile money business. So that is, that's the summary. Hope that hope that makes sense.

Yeah, it definitely makes sense. So is it mainly like businesses you're working with? Or is it also like individuals themselves?

So technically, they are businesses, but they're there; they tend to be individuals. So they're operating a small shop or a kiosk, and they tend to be a single person. And in some cases, there'll be a small network of agents working under a bigger operator, but tends to be individual.

Yeah, I Yeah, that makes that all makes a lot of sense. And it must be it's funny because like, something like mobile money pay was is actually something which, in the, in the regions that you work in, is something that's been there for a really long time, in some ways more, in some ways, even before kind of like FinTech came to like the West and stuff. Mobile money pay was something that, like, East Africa and stuff, was always not always, but the emergence of it is quite like a stronghold.

Have you like faced a lot of like challenges like building that app? Or is it or has the kind of going from analog to digital been quite easy?

Well, well, anything worth doing is it's not easy. That's the first thing. But I would say, I think, as with anything, you know, agents fall on a spectrum; there is an agent with a simple stand and an umbrella and as agents with our large storefront that also sells a bunch of other goods and services and products. And so what we've encountered is that as we design for agents and try to get them into the digital economy, we've had to really consider that first-time user experience because, for many of them, it's the first time they're using smartphones. And so, in the words of the idea, we're designing for digital competence. We want people to maintain their dignity, even as they use some of these tools, digital tools for the first time. So it's been, it's not been as easy as designing, you know, an Uber-like app or something like that. It's been about spending a lot of time with agents to try and make sure that the language is universal, trying to make sure that the workflows are intuitive, and that they don't have to go to a school or be coached to be able to use the app. So it's been quite exciting. Quite fun, but definitely challenging.

Yeah, I can imagine. So, I think that piece is really interesting, like with anything that anyone wants to make, you want it to be so seamless that people are like, Oh, I already know how to use it before I even use it. So I can imagine that's like a challenge to get through but like quite an interesting proposition. So if then we look like if we were to circle like 10 or 15 years, like what would operate look like? What would you guys be doing?

Yeah. So I think for us, it begins and ends with the agent. So we view the agent, really as our core customer. And the aim is to build a digital platform to revolutionise their business. And so, you know, I think there's a lot of stuff that we're doing today that's reflected there. So you know, bringing them on to their smartphone, bringing them into the digital economy, and helping them create the digital identity in the way that I explained. But I think what gets interesting when you think about the long-term vision is how we sort of layer additional services on top of that. And so, you know, I think we're thinking today about how we support the agent in running their core mobile money business? And so you know, in terms of like giving them the information, the tools, and the capital, they need to do that. But over time, how do we turn the agent into more than just a mobile money kiosk and into a more, let's say, holistic financial services provider for their community, or even just a digital services provider for their community? And so I think what we're thinking a lot about is, what is the kind of core infrastructure layer that enables that, and for us, that's really this digital identity layer? How do we layer services on top of that, that not only open up new opportunities for the agent but also reinforce that layer. So if you think about sort of our first product being a loan to the agent, we're using the digital identity to offer that loan in a smart way. But also, the credit history that they build through that loan programme reinforces the right identity that that information feeds back into the initial layer. And as we think about layers to add on top of that, how do we prioritise those best positioned to build ourselves versus those we can offer through third-party integrations? And so that's kind of how we see it evolving.

Yeah. And just to add to that, so one thing that most don't realise is that mobile money which everyone talks about is this leap-frogging technology is underpinned by analog agent networks. A lot of the agent networks that run mobile money all over the world are purely analog. There's a lot of cash, cash, cash logistics, there's a lot of physical ledger books, there's a lot of money being carried around, and there's hardly any technology. And so by us choosing to focus on the agent, and then building on that atomic unit, because the agent is representative of this entire vertical industry, that is sort of analogue, mostly analogue, if we can build the right infrastructure tools to embed ourselves in their core day to day workflows, and then build highly tailored software solutions for them. I think we will unlock a whole new market because first we aim to deliver value for the agents before extracting any value. First we bring them value and then either through you directly or through third parties. And then by doing that, we're then able to use this agent network to sort of deliver more value for their communities to become the conduit for last mile fulfillment of digital services for their communities, because it's easy to overstate the digitization that's happened in Africa, I think, there is so much more to do. Like when you're actually on the ground, you realise that a lot of the digital tools and apps that we see are for the one 2%, they don't really service, the rest of the population. And so our goal and our vision is that we can deliver value to these agent networks, and also use them to deliver additional value to their communities.

Thanks for that answer. I think that's really interesting because I think that I think what Ray picked up on is really interesting, like where there is so much to be serviced. And a lot of the time when people think about like, these, these, these products, it is for that, like one and 2%. And there are so many different and like, unique products that could be serviced. And it sounds like in the route that you guys are going on. That's where you're going. So I think it's really interesting to see what that looks like in 10 years or so.

But I'm gonna move on and just basically ask you guys, what is their kind of like a fact or stat that you've seen recently that you think it's been quite interesting regarding mobile money? Or just like in general? In the world of fintech?

Yeah, I mean, I can also have any, I mean, so. So mobile money? just passed the trillion dollar mark, in total transaction value, which I mean, it's one of those sorts of buzzword kind of numbers. But I think it speaks to a point that you made earlier, Helen, about the actual sophistication in mobile, mobile transaction activity. Yeah, I think like people, people in the US, you know, are using Venmo, and Cash App and things like this. And it's becoming more and more prevalent. But it still doesn't come anywhere close to the volume and just the percentage of an overall activity that exists across the developing world, in particular, on the African continent.

Yeah, I think the one other really interesting thing about that stat as well is that all of this is driven by the physical ubiquity of human beings who are sort of human ATMs; they are the ones that drive the digitization of this cash into digital money to be able to make it move around. And so it's kind of like, also telling of the sort of like culture, the difference in culture. Yeah. Because it's, I think it's very unlikely that you'll, you'll go to a guy at a corner somewhere in New York and ask to take money out or get electronic money, right. So, that's an interesting thing about that stuff.

Okay, so, we've had, we've had four previous guests on the podcast, and every single time we have an episode, I ask people, like, what questions should we ask the next guest? Given those two of you?

So our first guest, Rohit, he asked, What was your ‘Ohshit’ moment in your career? So I direct that at Michael. So that's basically a moment where like, you did stuff and then it basically went wrong, the whole thing went wrong. Do you have a time in your career when you can remember that happening?

Oh, interesting. I kind of understood that question very differently. Like you're sort of like oh s**t, epiphany moment. Let me think a time when

Well, I mean, as someone, I think anyone who works in, in financial models can attest to this, but I there was a like, four-month stretch where I thought my backup I my backup cloud function was downloading and refreshing all the models I was working in. And I mean, this sounds this is like a very nuanced example. But oh man, when I lost that computer, or that computer broke down, I had to switch to a new computer and realize that I hadn't saved any of that work. It was just about a breaking point for me when I was back, and this is back in sort of my investment fund days when you know as like an analyst or associate you're like sleeping in your car and I Um, so I would say it was an ohshit moment, both in terms of, oh s**t, I'm totally screwed. And you know, I'm gonna have to like work like crazy and whatever. But it was also an ohshit epiphany moment, in terms of I need to really get out of this industry. So I guess that's sort of a bit of a double entendre. It worked both ways. And it's probably a big part of the reason why I'm here today.

Yeah. I love that. I love how your ohshit also was kind of your eureka moment. And actually, yeah, that is also a question I've started to add into the podcast, like, When was your eureka moment? So like, I felt like that yours was both. And I feel like that's definitely something that we can all relate to whether it's like personal or work. I don't think anyone in the modern world has not had a time where they've not saved stuff. That's important. And then it will go wrong. I can definitely remember I did that with a phone once, and I just cried.

it's the absolute worst.

It is the absolute worst, but you learn your lesson after that. Like once that happens to you. I'm sorry. Like, you never do it again. Because it was so painful. I lost like two years. Because my phone just died. And I I was living recklessly. I never backed anything up. Yeah, I

I had my phone stolen a while ago. And I wasn't using Apple cloud. And as soon as I got a new phone I subscribed, I was like, whatever. I'd rather pay $3 A month than never get to see my old photos again.

Ray & Michael Interview each other (26.34)

We've started interviewing each other. So I asked Ray, if he wasn't doing this, what he would be doing. And he he said he probably either he'd be either farming or working in the hospitality industry. Because just to get you up to speed. Yeah, yeah, you

When Opareta is a big success, and we can we can settle down. I am very in on on opening up a lodge.

my god. You guys still haven't been to Lake Mutanda. Disappointing. I should go.

We need to do that. Next time. Next time. I'm in town.

Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

Well, do you want to ask me a question?

Okay. Let me look at the Rolodex of questions. And, okay, this one is deep. So prepare yourself. What's a philosophical question that you often dwell on?

Oh, man, you've opened up the can of worms, right? I mean, if you were to ask this of like, any of my closest friends would, they would have the answer immediately. But let's just say I'm not a believer necessarily in free will. So that's kind of a nihilist way of thinking. But it is the way that I think and I just use this example of Opareta. I mean, imagine if there's like, there's so many little things, right. But like, imagine if the pandemic hadn't happened. Imagine if, you know, someone had moved out from the compound during the pandemic, you know, like, both of those things, coincidentally, brought you right next door, and brought us together. I know. And neither of those things were in our control, right. But yet, the most impactful thing to happen to me in this year, obviously, was starting this company with you. And so it's these types of random coincidences that completely dictate the kind of direction that our lives take that. Yeah, sort of made me feel like we have no control, which I think some people view as a sort of, like sobering or defeatist perspective. But but in my case, I think it's actually quite the opposite. It's a way of just like living a bit more in the moment, and not worrying too much about the impact that all these decisions will have. Because ultimately, they're Yeah, they're not your decisions anyway.

Yeah. So you, you, you kind of believe in sort of like the butterfly effect, you know, it's just like a series of dominoes, and it's out of our control. Yeah, that that is all right, that complexity

is deep, dives deep. I don't know, right. Now, I'm thinking, you know, now I know I'm chewing on it, and I have, I have more questions, but then at the same time, you know, like, I don't know I, in many ways, I do not feel like that. I agree with you, but I also feel that I don't think life is that deterministic in a way. I think we don't have fates defined You can recreate them. Or we can like choose, okay, I don't like this. I'm going to change it to something else. But I don't know. I should I should show on that. You know, I think there's, as you said, infinite complexity. I think it could go either way. It could be deterministic. Or it could be non deterministic. I don't know. Something to think about.

Yeah, well, maybe you chew on that. What movie or TV show changed your life?

Whoo, whoo. That's a really good one. There's been quite a few. I thought, Well, I would say, you know, I can't really set up for one but Mr. Nobody was a quite a movie, you know, got me thinking about all of these things. And then Deus Ex Machina, as well. You know, like, got me thinking about what is sentience? You know, like, what does it mean to be human? Is intelligence, you know, a defining factor of humanity, or is it something else? And then another movie that really got me thinking about like the, you know, the power of perspective was alarmed. Was this Ethiopian movies, an indie movie about this boy in rural Ethiopia, who has a land then there's all these other social, economic, political factors happening all around him, his family, you know, the land and all this stuff. It's called land. It's very, very good. You should watch it. It got me thinking about, you know, the power of perspective.

Yeah, yeah. Mark,

in that regard.

Mark, and it looks like it's set in the semi.

Yeah, it's such a beautiful movie. It's so stunning. I was like, wow.

Quick Fire Round (32.09)

What mundane activity do you secretly take pride in?

Oh, I like pottery, and I like sailing.

Michael texting or talking.

Talking.

Ray from one to 10 How hot do you like your shower?

Michael arrived early or arrive late.

Definitely. late.

Ray, what's the best age?

I think the best age is 27

Michael. Would you rather drink ketchup through a straw or eat mayo with a spoon?

Oh my god catch up. I guess I don't know. Yuck.

Oh my god, that is terrible.

I hate both. Can I substitute like chili?

I was just substituting in chilli instead of ketchup or mayonnaise, both of which I despise. But sorry. Go ahead,

I'm not kidding you. Mike would drink a bottle of chili no joke, and

there's no right answer

Would you rather live in a country with a low cost of living but horrible weather? or live in a country with a high cost of living and amazing weather?

The latter high cost of living and amazing weather.

Yeah. Michael, would you rather be a chicken for one day or a cow for one day?

Chicken for one day

Ray, would you rather control the world's dreams for a night or control one's person's dreams forever? One person's dreams forever.

I think the latter one person's dreams forever.

Michael, would you ever lose the ability to lie or believe everything you're told?

lose the ability to lie

Ray, would you rather fight a mermaid or polar bear?

Ah, I think I'd rather fight the polar bear because the mermaids and Harry Potter were really scary. So yeah, a polar bear.

Michael dark chocolate on chocolate.

Dark chocolate.

Ray for a journal, paper or computer. Paper.

Michael, how many cups of coffee do you drink a day?

Oh, come on. I keep getting the bad questions. I don't know four. Maybe five a lot.

That's a lot.

Yeah, a lot of coffee. The coffee in East Africa is amazing. I blame Uganda.

Yeah, there's really good coffee here.

Ray, would you rather perform surgery without qualifications or fly a commercial plane without qualifications?

Oh my god. I think I would rather do the surgery. Because then I only kill one person instead of like 300 people, right? Oh,

Michael, at what age did you stop believing in Santa?

I don't know. Eight, maybe me seven, something like that.

Ray, would you rather have a portrait drawing or a portrait photograph?

I would rather have a portrait drawing.

Michael, would you rather work more hours a day but have longer weekends or work fewer hours a day with more workdays,

more hours longer weekends? Definitely.

And last but not least re spelling bee or maths bee?

Spelling Bee?

So as this is the fintech friends podcast, were keen to highlight other friends that maybe people dont know about - who is a friend of yours that we should highlight or stay on the look out for?

Olivia Johnson - Head of Analytics and Business Intelligence at Lendable

There's a really interesting platform called lendable. They do crowdsource lending for fintechs across emerging markets. And so I think as such, they have really good kind of, well, first of all, is a very interesting FinTech platform in and of itself, but secondly, they just have a great, they have great insight into the FinTech landscape across Africa, Asia, Latin America. And they just made this amazing. She also happens to be my partner. So I think obviously, the world of her name is Olivia. She's super knowledgeable on fintech. And, yeah, I think she'll do a great job for them and would be very interesting person to have on this podcast.

Yeah, I know of her as well. She is exceptional at what she does. I think she should definitely be on the podcast.

She sounds great. And I love that you highlighted your partner.

I was gonna say one last question. Just before we go question, which I forgot to answer is, how did you to me and like, you know, just give us you know, the love story of this bromance.

Like, tell us tell us

I mean, in terms of how we met is probably less interesting. Because, you know, we've somewhere along the way and Kampala you know, I don't know, right, you're probably like playing a DJ set or something. But in terms of how we like, maybe the romance or the, let's say the working relationship really started. It was we like to describe Opareta as a as a COVID baby. So I guess sort of coincidentally, during the pandemic, one of the people living in my compound moved out. And it just so happened that Ray was looking for a place and so I told them, hey, this place opened up it's perfect for you and your partner or you guys should check it out. And so they moved in. And at that time, right, it was like starting to kind of put walk around with Opareta. And so they moved in this very intense lockdown. Uganda had one of the most intense lockdowns, I think they were the last country in the world to open the schools back up. So like 7 pm curfew, no cars on the road, lots of things like that for quite some time. So we literally had no choice but to poke around on our credit together. So I was working another job at a time, but Ray was just sort of constantly popping over to my place and announcing everything I said, I think, in the most endearing way. And, yeah, we just had lots of time to just map this whole thing out. So I guess in some ways can be very thankful to the pandemic for bringing us together.

Yeah, Mike did not really have a choice in this matter. You know, he was my neighbor. And every evening, I'll just show up and be like, Yo, so I was thinking about this. And then I was thinking about that. And I was thinking about this. And I was just taking up so much of his time and so much headspace. And so he kind of got curious, and then he got involved. And then he was just like, okay, this sounds really interesting. I was like, wow, you know, I know you're now moving to Senegal, but you know, there's still operator, it's a thing. It's really interesting. And you might want to check it out. And yeah, eventually, I was able to win him over. And now we have the company, thanks to my insistence. And unannounced visits? Yeah.

Oh, that sounds so cute. I love how it started like that; see the bringing on together creating COVID babies and bromances like, I guess that was the upside of the pandemic. I think it's probably a good place to end there.

But thank you both so much for coming on the podcast,

Signals

If you like This Week in Fintech's newsletter and Hey Fintech Friends Podcast, you'll love the deep dive content we publish in our premium newsletter edition, Signals. In this latest Signals piece, Dez Fleming puts Yago Zavalia on the stand to testify to how Yago's company, Qanlex, is turning lawsuits into investable financial assets. Yago and Dez discuss litigation finance, how to think about cannibalizing your own business, the role that luck played in bringing Qanlex's founders together, and why it's actually better for most of the investors you'll pitch to think that your startup idea is crazy. I don't want to give away too many spoilers, so I'll rest my case here!

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Available on Spotify, Apple, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro

‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Investment Platforms (1.25)

News (2.19)

Interview with Swati about her experience and current work at Propel(x) (5.47)

Quick Fire Questions with Swati and friendly questions(30.00)

Signals Q2’22: You mean a payment crossed this border? (40.20)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!

This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events. Oh, and now podcasting. And what's quite cool about this community is the creativity, the intelligence, and also understanding that those who work in the field are just regular people who've decided to devote themselves to solving a particular problem. And with that comes a unique mix of finance, technology, and fun, which is exactly what this podcast wants to explore. So expect this content to be informative? Yes. But we're also keen to get to know our founders and ask them questions you didn't know you needed answering.

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Then we're going to chat with this week's friend, which is Swati Chaturvedi

CEO of Propel(x)

And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest signal article. ‘Q2’22: You mean a payment crossed this border?’ written by Sophie Vo.

Fin-techionary

This weeks, ‘fintechtionary’ which is our dictionary definition of a fintechy word is:

Investment platform

According to which.co.uk, An investment platform, sometimes called a fund supermarket, allows investors to buy and hold a range of investments in one place online, and sometimes with a smartphone app.

Investment platforms often provide extensive research and information, such as investment news, historical and recent performance figures, and analysis of the investment styles adopted by fund managers.

The crucial point is that investment platforms are designed for people who are making their own investment decisions. This is referred to as ‘execution only’.

But first this week in Fintech

American Express launched a cross-border payments product for US businesses.

Asset manager Charles Schwab is launching a crypto-themed (...) ETF next week.

📰 Other News

Goldman Sachs continues to push into retail banking through new products and partnerships. Meanwhile, as travel becomes one of the largest and most important consumer spend purchase categories, banking giant JP Morgan is building a full-scale travel agency and software suite.

Blackrock is partnering with Coinbase Prime for institutional crypto access.

RBI, India’s central bank, continues to push to ban all cryptocurrencies in the world’s largest market. The CFPB in the US, meanwhile, is looking into big tech’s involvement in lending.

Japanese messaging superapp Viber launched Payments, a mobile digital wallet for paying bills and transferring money.

Up Bank, an Australian neobank, launched Maybuy, a savings alternative to buy-now-pay-later.

Crypto giant FTX launched stock trading, and will go into options trading next.

Warranty provider Extend launched shipping protection for purchases.

Binance launched its crypto card in Argentina.

Yapily launched a variable recurring payments product and signed Volume as its first customer.

Banking-as-a-service provider Synctera debuted a compliance suite.

A Chinese consortium launched a Swiss stock exchange connection.

In a continued escalation of the African regulatory pressure on large fintechs, the Central Bank of Kenya directed all banks to stop working with Chipper Cash and Flutterwave. The Bank of Ghana is probing Flutterwave as well.

Alloy expanded its fraud and risk decision platform to 40 countries across North America, EMEA, LatAm, and APAC. Revolut added trading in 22 new crypto tokens.

Investor Andreessen Horowitz wants to launch a wealth management service for the founders it backs.

Chinese billionaire Jack Ma will reportedly give up control of Ant Group, the multibillion financial firm he founded which has found itself in the crosshairs of the country’s regulators.

Italian payments giant Nexi will partner with Microsoft to build cloud-based payment services across Europe. Moov became a Discover issuer-processor and partnered with Metabank and Visa to become an acquirer-processor.

Brex will transition its small business customers to neobank Oxygen.

Cardless is building an AmEx card.

The founder of Paytm in India promised $1 billion in revenue. British small business neobank Redwood Bank posted its first full-year profit.

LendUp is quietly winding down its product, while it’s unclear what will happen with its neobank Ahead, which appears to have transferred users to Kinly.

Robinhood laid off almost a quarterof its workforce, months after a 9% staff cut. Clearco, the Canadian revenue-based financing provider, cut 125 jobs - 25% of its workforce.

Crypto firm Babel Finance lost over $280 million in customer funds from prop trading.

Zillow faces shareholder lawsuits due to its failed house-flipping business.

The New York Department of Financial Services fined Robinhood $30 million for crypto anti-money laundering failures.

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s friend, Swati

Swati Chaturvedi is the co-founder and CEO of Propel(x) – an investment platform that enables accredited investors worldwide to invest in startups and venture capital funds. Ms. Chaturvedi has a long history of working in the alternative investments space and is the founder of the MIT Alumni Angel Investors group. She founded and led the group from 2013–2015 and continues to be on the screening committee. Before starting Propel(x), Swati worked as an investment professional at a range of firms. She has also been a management consultant working across a variety of industries. Ms. Chaturvedi holds an MBA degree from MIT Sloan School of Management, an M.S. degree from MIT, an M.S. degree from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

Hope you enjoy our friendly chat!

[To listen to our guest interview please play the podcast]

Signals

Each Signals rounds up explores the news and dives into what’s been happening in fintech over the last quarter. Signals’ round-up for Q2 explores which concepts are getting funded, which firms are funding them, what products are being launched, and where exits and M&A are concentrating. The latest edition also takes a deep dive on one of the hottest areas seeing funding right now, but is still fundamentally broken: Cross-border payments. To read this please subscribe to the This Week in Fintech Newsletter. See you next time besties!

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Timestamps:

Intro

‘Fin-techionary’ of the Week: Cross Border Payments (1:36)

News (2:31)

Interview with Wiza about his experience and current work at Chipper Cash(4:54)

Quick Fire Questions with Wiza and friendly questions (27:46)

Signals: ‘Decimal’s Matt Tait on Fundraising During a Downturn’(35:51)

Transcript:

Intro

Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams, and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends!

So let's talk about the structure of this podcast.

First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck because this is the audio version.

Then we're going to chat with this week's friend, which is Wiza Jalakasi, VP of Global Developer Relations at Chipper Cash.

And lastly, I'll tell you a bit about the latest signal article. ‘Fintech Founders: Decimal’s Matt Tait on Fundraising During a Downturn’ written by Dez Flemming.

Oh, and one last thing before we start this interview, I should tell you that every episode, we're going to be dropping a ‘fin-techionary. The dictionary definition of a FinTech keyword, which we talked about on the podcast with our guest, and this week, it's:

cross-border payments

According to the Bank of England, Cross-border payments are financial transactions where the payer and the recipient are based in separate countries. They cover both wholesale and retail payments, including remittances.

Cross-border payments can be made in several different ways. Bank transfers, credit card payments, and alternative payment methods such as e-money wallets and mobile payments are currently the most prevalent ways of transferring funds across borders.

So hope you enjoy our friendly chat with this week's friend.

But first this week in FinTech….

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🚀 Product Launches

ING, NXP, and Samsung launched a mobile payment method that allows users to pay each other by pointing their phones at each other.

Mastercard partnered with a British woman to build and launch Sibstar, a card built for people with dementia.

📰 Other News

In what may be an extremely consequential move - India is now offering up many of its e-governance tools to other countries and providers as a service, including its real-time payments system, UPI. Many similar initiatives (such as Mojaloop) have tried to productize, standardize, and proselytize (sorry) shared financial systems architectures across countries, but based on the runaway success of India’s UPI - which boasts 150 million monthly active users - this may be the first real opportunity for that to happen.

Deutsche Bank is working on a white-label buy-now-pay-later product for merchants.

An outage in Canada’s Rogers network provider shut down the Interac money transfer service, banks, and ATMs.

Fidelity is opening its wealth management services to retail investors, with just $1 per stock minimum investment.

The CFPB in the US issued new guidance on how banks and fintech companies can use consumer data.

The Banque de France is stepping up its central bank digital currency efforts. The Bank of England is in the process of drafting sweeping crypto regulation. The US government is pushing to prevent crypto owners from being involved in crypto legislation to avoid conflicts of interest. And the Bank for International Settlements' Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published joint guidance on how stablecoins should be regulated.

💻 Fintech

🚀 Product Launches

Qori, a French app that allows users to pay in-store, online, or by phone using their bank or crypto wallets - all without downloading an app - launched this week.

Open banking platform Tink launched settlement accounts.

Payments provider Monneo launched an API for upcoming banking-as-a-service features.

UK neobank Starling launched a new budgeting tool for small businesses.

Sendsprint - a UK mobile transfer and gifting service for Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa for a flat $5 fee - was launched by a former Flutterwave exec.

Isle of Man-based fintech startup Blackfridge launched another GBP stablecoin.

Delio launched South Korea’s first crypto bank (in the wake of the Terra meltdown, also based in South Korea).

NBX and Enfuce are partnering to launch cashback payment cards.

📰 Other News

In the latest update to the Flutterwave saga, a Kenyan court froze $52 million in assets linked to the company as it undergoes an audit due to money-laundering claims leveled against it.

Defi giant Aave is now set to launch its own stablecoin, while fintech provider Banking Circle is adding USDC payment to its banking rails.

England and Wales’ water regulator, Ofwat, opened a £4m competition for fintech ideas to transform water services.

UnitPlus, Vodeno, and Aion partnered on direct payments for ETF investing.

Defi lending protocol Goldfinch passed 1 million loan recipients. Humane debt management facilitator TrueAccord passed 20 million customers served.

Brazilian secured lending platform Creditas bought a bank license. Enfuce, a female-owned Finnish embedded cards platform, opened in the UK.

Australian buy-now-pay-later app Zip closed down its money management app, Pocketmoney, to refocus on lending.

A group of fintech entrepreneurs collaborated to launch the Fintech & Payments Advisory Network.

That’s this week in Fintech

And now for our friendly chat with this week’s guest, Wiza…

Wiza is the VP of Global Developer Relations at Chipper Cash, a cross-border mobile money service with over 4 million users.

He is an international business development expert specialising in the setup and operations of high-performance technology startups across Africa, often sharing moments from his journey on Twitter @wizaj. His career experience spans 11 years and 16 African countries, founding and building tech startups across industry verticals in the B2B and B2C space.

Wiza holds an honors degree in Information Systems Technology from the United States International University.

He is a Venture Partner at two early-stage funds, Rally Cap Ventures, and Sherpa Africa Partners. He also scouts for two Africa-focused early-stage venture funds, Ventures Platform and Microtraction.

Okay, well, yeah, thank you, Wiza. Is that how you say your name?

You can kind of drag it out like Wisa wisa. Yeah. Where's that from?

You're from Malawi? Yeah. No, I'm Nigerian. I was born and raised in London. But yeah, I'm Nigerian by heritage and a little bit of Sierra Leone. Okay, awesome. Yeah. But yeah. So are you based full-time in Malawi?

No. I'm typically between countries, usually between South Africa and the UAE. Okay, we just came from Malawi for, some word docs and family stuff. Yeah.

So what is the best thing to do in Malawi? Like what would you recommend to people

go to the lake we have, we have a really nice freshwater lake. It's got the most diverse numbers of species of any freshwater body in the world. And yeah, it's like chill by the lake. Very, very calm, very serene. It's, it's again, it's generally not a busy country if you can. It's a great relaxation destination, and the lake has plenty to offer people.

The lake sounds very different from Nigeria. Nigeria is in an incredible country. It's actually very stressful. Especially when Lagos Lagos is very stressful. You have to be like mentally prepared. You have to be like, today I am going here.

You have to pick your island days or your mainland. Exactly. And follow them very legit. Yeah,

it's definitely. Yeah, one way to live. So yeah. So I guess I guess we could start with, you know, maybe your experience and just telling me a bit about yourself, and what got you into the world of FinTech and what you actually do?

Yeah, sure. So I'm currently VP of global Developer Relations at Chipper Cash. We are a cross border, mobile money startup that's operating in a number of African countries, as well as the US and the UK. We enable about 6 million users to transact both domestically and internationally. Our flagship product is the cross-border remittance tool that covers about eight countries and quickly adding a few more. Yeah, so I look after basically all of our Merchant facing business, looking for businesses looking after businesses who want to integrate with us to do collections from our multi million user base across African countries. And yeah, I'm like a career techie. got started out pretty young, started writing code and in Malawi, built a few local startups wasn't really a big market, but it was a great like learning environment. And then I moved to Kenya to study, where I also co-founded a market research startup. In my final year, my classmates raised a little bit of venture, and it was a very interesting journey a, you know, sort of like learning the ropes regarding how the industry works. And then spent some time doing that. I decided to join another business that was starting to scale out into from Kenya into the rest of the African markets called Africans talking. And then yeah, I spent like three years there, running group business development and international expansion. And then got curious as always, like a mobile-first engineer, so kind of like got curious about the intersection of mobile and finance. Having seen mobile money, adoption explode in Kenya during my study was very fascinating to watch. And I was like, Oh, I would love to understand how the sausage is made. And started by picking up a few necessary skills to get a clearer picture of that. . And we're basically building infrastructure for smartphone users to embed USSD infrastructure in the back end of their apps. So USSD is the primary way mobile financial services are accessed on the continent. It's an offline first sort of interface for mobile phones to be able to access services, even though they're offline. And yeah, did a bit of that for about a year and a half. And then, you know, had a pretty close working relationship with the chipper founders. And then got started with chipper cash at the start of 2021.

Wow, like you have so much different experience, and you started coding at 16, as well, or started to get into this,it's quite impressive, like how many different things you've done and all the different spaces you've been? So if we would go back to like chipper cash, and like what you currently do now?

And I guess the question that I have is for your non-FinTech friends, how would you explain what you do? So like, for instance, if your mum was asking you, what do you do? How do you explain it to them?

Yeah, just like, basically help people move money around the world, in the cheapest and most efficient ways.

Yeah. And obviously, you primarily focus on Africa and and moving money around in Africa. What, challenges have you faced, and why do you think it's so important within the region?

I think the biggest thing is just cost. If you look this, like a global sustainable development goal to lower the cost of remittances, or what 3% Of the remittance transaction value, when you look at like, many African corridors, that is like moving money within the African continent, it typically costs as high as 20%, sometimes move, like $200, between two African countries. And you know, there's this quite a lot of friction there. A lot of it is because like the infrastructure in the global financial system was really designed for African currency pair exchange, a lot of like the Forex exchange is still basically like intermediated by the US dollar. So when you are trying to transfer money from South Africa to Rwanda, for example, you first have to convert it to US dollars, instead of just like transacting between the two pairs, there's a lot of friction, there's a legacy system that doesn't really work very well for like its target audience. And at the same time, there's also like, increased globalisation. African countries now trade with each other a lot more than they did 30 or 40 years ago. And there's demand for like that local exchange, but the infrastructure doesn't support it. So that's like the main pain point. And it's a pretty big one, we estimate anywhere between 50 and $100 billion of value every year that's transacted into Africa. And a lot of it is forced to go through informal channels, because like the infrastructure for you to do it properly, quote, unquote, doesn't exist.

Now, I think I think that's a really good point. And even growing up, I can remember, like my dad, or my mom trying to send money back to Nigeria. And it just being well, we used to have to get those little calling credit cards, I didn't know my mom would make me go to the shop, and buy these little scratch card things. And then there's such a massive transaction fee, whether you do it through Western Union, I think they used to have to call because I remember spending a lot of time doing the dial, scratch card code things for them. And yeah, like you said, it's just such a long jarring process. Yeah, actually,

like there's like, a lot of like African countries that actually like senders of remittances, which is kind of counterintuitive, because you think that like, maybe the reach that we're sending to the poor without having to like speak very generally and very broadly, but like a lot of African countries actually import more than they export. So as a result, they have to send more money out. And actually think that the demand for sending money out is way higher than it is for getting money. And I think that's like the more exciting but also a lot more challenging opportunity because many African countries also have exchange control. So pretty fun time,

even when you think about like things as simple as education, more and more people send their kids abroad, whether it starts at like you know, secondary school age or you know, sending your kids to boarding school abroad or sending your kids for university abroad. So you have We have so many people abroad who just need to send money for like, very different reasons. So like you said, it's people from the continent sending money to European countries and vice versa. So you're right, like the actual conversation and the way it's changed the way it's changed, or the way money has changed and where it's going between like Africa and Europe or Africa, and America has changed so much. And there's just no infrastructure for it. So I get that. Absolutely. And so yeah, I was wondering as well, like what kind of, I know I previously said, like,

do you have like a FinTech fact or stat that you've recently found out? Or? Or want to share? Sort of like thought leadership?

Yeah. Yeah, like I think one that blows my mind from last year's Chain analysis, geography of cryptocurrency report. And basically, according to their research, they found that over 100 billion dollars was transacted on chain across African addresses that aren't, you know, Blockchain addresses belonging to African individuals, African entities. And like, the majority of our traffic was like large tickets transfer is in excess of a million dollars that made up about like 50 to 60%. But that's pretty interesting. And like, there is like a massive crypto economy that is starting to pick up on the continent. And it's being primarily driven by businesses out of some of the largest markets like South Africa and Nigeria, where capital controls and foreign exchange controls are a little bit stringent. So I think that that's that whenever I think about it, it gets me very excited. And also very curious as to how things play out and how the regulation evolves to bring into its purview all of the value that has been transacted.

Yeah, I think that's really interesting, I think because, like, a lot of African countries have such a different infrastructure, or the way they're governed is not like other countries. It I think it means that people have to be more innovative when it comes to like finance or when it comes to their day-to-day lives. So when you say that fact, in some ways, it's not that surprising to me, just because I think there is this level of innovative innovation that has to come from being in places with which have which don't have like, traditional or which don't have infrastructures like other countries, do you get what I mean?

Yeah, for sure. Fragmentation is a big issue. And yeah, like, everyone is forced to sort of like adapt to their environment in very creative ways. In Nigeria, it's like the electricity issue. Everyone gets a generator. So I think like, that drives a lot of the adoption of new technologies because they solve a genuine problem in that doesn't exist for people in other parts of the world as concretely.

Yeah, no, I agree. Like some, I think it's a good thing and a bad thing. Because in many ways, like the state and the government, and all these, all these entities, it's there. It's, it should be them driving this infrastructure. But then equally, creating a society where it does come from the ground up means that people start to think about new ways, and different ways in which, you know, money has never been done, which I guess, is the whole sort of like bankers movement. So I think in the context of Africa and Nigeria, South Africa, all these places, it could be really interesting. Yeah.

So I was wondering, what is your biggest sort of dream or vision for fintech?

Yeah, I think it will be great to see all of the digital value stores made natively interoperable at some point in some way. And what I mean by that is, like, you know, if you're, you know, you're in the UK, and you may or may not have like a Monzo account, you should be able to send your Monzo directly to my chipper wallets, like in Nigeria as an example. I think like what's happening is that a lot of the digital finance solutions are being built effectively in silos, leading to fragmentation problem at scale. So like, you know, you need to have like different wallets when you travel to different places. And all of those wallets typically operate in like a sort of like closed loop so you can easily transfer money in and out of those wallets or those value stores. Add to other value stores. And I think this ultimately hurts the industry. So I feel like what is needed globally is like standards for native interoperability between these wallets because, you know, cash is pretty like interoperable US dollars a US dollar everywhere. Yes, there are like currencies and currency exchange that have to be facilitated. But like, it's a lot easier to move cash around than to move the Euro value around between wallets that aren't the same. And if the goal is to get to the ubiquity, or exceed the ubiquity of cash, at some point, then we have to at least match it in terms of that ease of use parity. And I think that's like a global problem that the industry has to get together to solve. And I think that the way that gets solved is through interoperability. And, you know, for like mobile money, and can more and more money, they're already doing it, these Gates Foundation initiative that aims to establish interoperability standards for mobile money. I think that's a great start. But like for fintechs, I don't think such a thing exists yet, and it's not existing can only lead to our detriment. We need that as soon as we reasonably can get it up.

I think you make a really good point. Even just on a simple level, I think if and if FinTech or like the world of banking is trying to be, you know, it's trying to bring everyone along, and not just people who are like working in the industry and really, really understand this stuff, then it does get quite confusing. Yeah, for sure. And yeah, so I'm gonna ask you some questions from our previous guests. So we've had two guests on.

So Rohit, our first guest, he asked, What was your ‘oh s**t’ moment in your career?

What does that mean? Is, like getting a weakening sort of like moment? Like a messed up sort of, like, I've had plenty, yeah.

So I guess, I guess it means a moment in which, yeah, it didn't go; well, you didn't do? You didn't do what you were meant to do? Or you did it wrong. And then you were like, Oh, s**t.

Oh, yeah. So there was this one time, when I was in Africa talking. And, you know, we were doing. It was like a major pricing change with one of our partners, which basically meant that for, like, people sending messages to I think it was Uganda, Eritrea, Uganda, through our platform, the cost of those messages was going to increase by like a factor of 10, or 15. And I thought that this was huge, like, pretty big, pretty big deal. And like, we should inform all of the affected people. And like, we had over 5000, plus businesses using us at the time. And like, I had just like, transitioned into the group business development role. And I was looking after all of these people. So I think it was out of ignorance. And maybe it's like an experience as well. I didn't query to find out like, exactly how many people were using that particular service that was about to like, effectively 10x in price, right? If I did, I would have learned that it was like, just like a handful of customers were affected. And I probably could have emailed all of them, personally. But because it was such a major increase, I thought, like, Hey, guys, it's just like, sent this communication to all of our users. And like, the wording wasn't very clear. So what happened was that we sent out this email. And because the wording wasn't very clear, many people who weren't affected thought that their costs would go up 10 times. So you know, this is just me, like, literally a few weeks into this role. And founders of the company out in Pari, and then all of a sudden, the CEO starts calling me and saying, like, Hey, why is that? Why are people calling me? And we realised after the fact that like miscommunication had not been reading correctly, and has gone out to all of our customers that have like 30 or 40, who are truly affected. And it took like weeks to contact key accounts, we sorted out the first day, but like, there were like, those weeks of cleaning up and re communicating to ensure that like, Hey, if you don't use the service and pricing, it doesn't affect you. But the lesson learned that was like it was embarrassing at the time, but like in retrospect it's like you know, stuff happens in the course of the industry. And now I've learned from it you only interact with the customer. That's the only like, give the information that's needed to the to the customer that's affected by it. At any one time, and anyone who's not affected, don't bother.

Oh my gosh, that sounds like such a big problem as well. It weeks to sort out as well.

Yeah, it was it wasn't it wasn't fun. It was just like it was just confusing for the consumer because they were like, Okay, why why? Why is my price going up? Do you use Airtel, Uganda? And okay,

yeah, 10 times? Like, I would be, I would add, no, if I got that email, I would be like, What is going on?

Yeah, right. It was, it was quite something

cool. And a question from our guests. Last week was what keeps you up at night, professionally and also personally.

And professionally, I would say like, just like, how you manage risk in financial services. So like, for example, yesterday, we had a spike in daily volume for one of the merchants that I look after, which was like three times their regular daily volume. And, you know, I panic, I'm like, oh, gosh, anytime you see, like a 3x increase, and you can't explain why. It's usually like a sign that someone is doing something that they shouldn't be doing. And you know, freaked out, called the merchant, okay, just giving you a heads up that we're seeing irregular activity. I got my T monastery investigated 9pm. And we found out that like, the merchant had just done like a promotion, and the promotion was working, right. Like, nothing was amiss, and everything was working fine. But like, I guess when you've been in the industry long enough, you just, you have a certain level of paranoia. So anytime you see like, a graph go up, and to the right, and in the way that startups typically romanticise in financial services. It was It isn't always for that really keeps me up at night like this, like, oh, gosh, are the numbers that we're seeing what we're expecting, and if there's any discrepancy, if I don't know what's causing it, that can be very anxiety-inducing, professionally, and personally, not much. I tried to maintain a very optimistic approach to life and most things. So I focus on what's going well, and when I can control. And yeah, I don't I don't think there's much that keeps me up at night personally, like a baby at night now.

That's great. Maybe it's because you're by the lake in Malawi. So I think maybe, because you might be up at night, just stressed out. To get to work. I want to ask you some serious questions on this podcast. And I feel like we've talked about your podcast, you, and you know what you're about. And yeah, so I wanted to do a quick fire round quickly. So I'm going to ask you a question and just tell me what comes to the top of your mind we've got 10 questions, and then after that, if we have time, we'll do a couple more like asking maybe a bit longer one so you ready? Yeah, sure. sunrise or sunset?

Quick Fire Round

Describe yourself in five words.

Curious. Patient, cautious, optimistic funny.

What was your nickname growing up?

Call me Ways or WizKid or some variation like you know, just like with an add your favorite appendix because my government name is Wisa and people think it's a nickname so they feel very free to remix it in very colorful ways. Much to my displeasure.

What does it mean?

It means he has arrived in Malawi

if you are fruit, what fruit would you be?

probably be an apple. I feel like apples are calm and collected fruits. You know, they don't try too hard. So just bear with me. They're like they're very consistent. Apples. Tastes like apples in most parts of the world that I've been to. So yeah, I kind of like that. The grapes are all over the place. You never really know what you're getting with a grape depending on where it's from. Apple

grapes all over the place. I didn't make wine out of grapes. Yeah.

What's the best excuse you've ever used for being late?

Yeah, we had like, almost like a coup style situation. In Malawi at some point like in I think it was 2013 where like, the president of the country time had died. And they the powers that be tried to like take over the country and like, not let the vice president cede power during an incident known as like the midnight six if you go home in late six Malawi, you can learn a little bit more about it. But anyway, I had like a meeting the next day with like an international client that I was I was doing some work with. And I couldn't make the call on time because I play my country had a coup last minute. I didn't know what that meant for my existence and my future. But like, yeah, so several like I'd actually missed the media. And then I emailed them later saying like, Hey guys, sorry but you know, we just survived a small coup , thankfully, there was your I mean,

yeah, I don't think anyone can ever talk that answer.

Yeah, it was fun time. Mala. Mala is a very interesting country.

Sorry, guys. I was late my country was having a

what would be the tagline to the sitcom of your life?

What made up word would you love to add to the dictionary?

Would you rather sleep in late or take a long nap midday?

Honestly, I would rather do both. A really big fan of sleeping in late and taking midday naps really fast. Choose between one and another sleeping late.

I think I'd take a long nap. That's just because I like to wake up

expensive presents or homemade presents,

homemade presents. I'm not too big on material.

What do you think is the key to living a good life?

I think like, acceptance is a very interesting, like philosophy to follow, not in the sense of life. So whatever happens to you, you don't fight back or you don't resist or try to design an outcome that you're looking for. But like when something is happening, not fighting the actual reality. It's like, okay, this is happening and like, how do I respond to it in a way that doesn't make things worse. And that's like, a very useful, practical way of dealing with things and it certainly works very well. For me. I'm pursuing a theme of equanimity this year, which my therapist describes as not letting the you're never as bad as they say you are, but you're never as good. So yeah, those themes are I'm finding them very useful for this phase in my life., equanimity. equanimity, equanimity.

So, got three more questions. What do you think is the most important thing you'll do in your career?

What is the most important thing I'll do my career hopefully just impacts people at scale. Hey, like, for the better. And you know, that can take many forms. I'm always excited to work on things that have got like millions of users, because pretty easy to then quantify the impact that you're making and objectively see its value. So yeah, I don't know what form that takes. I think it's still very early days. But as long as it did positively impact people at scale, I think I'll be very happy with any

positively impacts people.Just making it way more efficient and easy for people to move money back and forth. Yeah. So as this is the FinTech friends podcast, we're keen to highlight other friends that maybe, you know, people don't know about.

So who's a friend of yours that you think we should highlight? Or look out for?

Tebogo Mokwena

she runs a business called Akiba Digital and they do like risk modeling for credit decisions, in Africa. They do quite a bit of work with a large bank. I think she's super smart. One of the most capable FinTech founders I've had the pleasure of interacting with I think she'd make a great fit For the podcast,

Signals

Signals is our subscriber-only newsletter, focusing on deep dives, etc. -- Our latest Signals piece marks a This Week in Fintech debut for Dez Fleming, an investor at FirstMark Capital and author of the newsletter All Things Venture.

Dez interviews the CEO of Decimal, Matt Tait, on building accounting operations for small businesses, bootstrapping to profitability, growing a remote-first team, and the role that serendipity played in snagging Decimal some highly-coveted internet real estate.

To read the article, please subscribe to this week in fintech newsletter

See you next fortnight besties!

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Available on Spotify, Apple and anywhere else you listen to podcasts!

Timestamps:

Intro

News (2:30)

Interview with Pierre about his experience and current work at FS Vector (4:46)

Quick Fire Questions with Pierre and friendly questions (37:00)

Signals: The stock market's Secret Menu (47:30)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends. This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership, and events. Oh, and now podcasting. And what's quite cool about this community is the creativity, the intelligence, and also understanding that those who work in the field are just regular people who've decided to devote themselves to solving a particular problem. And with that comes a unique mix of finance, technology, and fun, which is exactly what this podcast wants to explore. So expect this content to be informative? Yes. But we're also keen to get to know our founders and ask them the questions that you didn't know you needed answering. So let's talk about the structure of this podcast. First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck, because this is the audio version. Then we're going to chat to this week's friend, which is Pierre Whately, principal at FS Vector a strategic consulting firm for financial services clients. And lastly, we'll go through the latest Signal article on the stock market’s Secret Menu written by Sophie Vo.

But first this week in fintech:

🚀 Product Launches

FIS launched its guaranteed payments feature to ensure e-commerce merchants payments guaranteed from chargebacks and fraud.

📰 Other News

It’s a big week for bank + fintech partnerships!

Goldman Sachs is reportedly raising $2 billion to buy the assets of distressed crypto lender Celsius (which filed for bankruptcy), and lost $1.2 billion (a drop in the bucket…) from its consumer banking push in the last year.

RBC made customer financial data for 17 million accounts available through Plaid.

Citibank partnered with Swiss crypto infra provider Metaco to make crypto investing available to its customers.

Canada’s banks are partnering with market infrastructure provider CanDeal to build a capital markets KYC offering.

Mastercard is adding fintech Spire’s Ingage financial wellbeing platform to its merchant services.

Deloitte and NYDIG are partnering on building a bitcoin banking practice.

Japanese bank Credit Saison is giving its Singapore headquarters the authority to lead its Southeast Asian card expansion.

India’s central bank continues to crack down on fintech and crypto companies, leading many to relocate their base of operations to HQs such as Singapore.

Mastercard started a female and non-binary web3 association and… debuted a music album featuring its ‘sonic brand.’

“Cocaine. Stashes of cash. A down-on-his-luck Bulgarian wrestler,” that’s how Credit Suisse’s money-laundering conviction story begins.

🚀 Product Launches

Tenet launched its fintech financing platform for electric vehicles and batteries.

Binance launched a platform for institutional and VIP investors and launched zero-fee bitcoin trading.

Revolut will roll out its Pay Later buy-now-pay-later product (which it touts as gauging affordability) across Europe.

Stitch * launched its Payouts feature to make it easier for African businesses to move money.

Bushel launched a digital payment network for US agriculture.

StellarFi launched its bill payment credit reporting tool.

PayPal launched its 2% cashback card for small businesses.

Instinet launched a digital private investment platform.

Somewhat-asset-backed stablecoin Tether plans to launch a £1 coin.

📰 Other News

Facebook Pay rebranded to Meta Pay, with plans to build a cross-metaverse wallet.

The FTC is suing Walmart for facilitating money transfer fraud (and UK Finance revealed a 39% uptick in authorized push payment fraud in the last year). Bitcoin asset manager Grayscale, meanwhile, is suing the SEC.

Morgan Creek is trying to counter FTX’s proposed lifeline to Blockfi, which would potentially wipe out the company’s equity holders.

Are sanctions a thing of the past? VTB Factoring conducted its first cash-backed crypto transaction in Russia.

Marqeta added 40 APIs and dashboard workflows to its card suite. European business neobank Banking Circle added a dynamic sender name field.

Embedded tax provider Untied partneredwith Virgin Money on freelancer taxes. Amdaris partnered with Stripe.

UK mobile bank Kroo secured a banking license. Airwallex came to New Zealand. LatAm open banking tool Belvo received authorization to build account-to-account payment tools in Mexico. Remittances provider Atlantic Money secured an EU license.

Latin American B2B payments platform Tribal * joined the Blockchain Association.

Austrian crypto exchange Bitpanda and digital banking infrastructure provider Amount are the latest to make job cuts.

Robinhood shares jumped 12% on rumors of a buyout by FTX.

Australian neobank Volt shut down after failing to secure funding. Meanwhile, US neobank Varo is fast running out of cash.

Telco MTN has taken 18 Nigerian banks to court over a ₦22.3 billion ($53.7 million) mobile money fraud.

The UK’s FCA launched a probe into the Wise founder for tax evasion. (Meanwhile, Wise posted 33% full-year revenue growth.)

Crypto brokerage Voyager Digital’s valuation plummeted 60% due to exposure to defunct investment firm 3AC.

Interview with Pierre

With over a decade of experience in financial services, serving as a senior policy advisor, consultant, and federal bank regulator, Pierre has advised senior federal financial regulatory officials and a wide range of finance to serve his clients, including the Board of Directors’ executive-level leadership at both the community and large global financial institutions as well as members of Congress in both the US and House of Representatives, Pierre is well versed in various aspects of financial services, including consumer protection, financial stability, housing, capital markets, small business tax, and trade and manufacturing matters. In addition, he readily examined legislative, regulatory, and judicial developments impacting the financial services industry. Hi, Pierre, is great to meet you today. You are our second guest, our second friend? So exactly cheer for that. So my first question, I guess is just like, where you base like, we'll start with the serious questions get to know, you can explain to us what you do. And, and like, you know, bridge the gap between like understanding all these very technical terms when that happened in FinTech and like, you know, everything else. So I guess the first question is just about you like, where are you based? How did you get into fintech? What do you actually do? Who are you?

Absolutely. Well, first, appreciate the invite. Super excited. Thank you for having me. Shout out to one thing that I wanted to stress is that it's great to see the diversity in this space. So shout out to you and your team for you know, your leadership in this space and elevating voices like mine who are involved in this space every day. So I appreciate that. So, a little bit about me, Look, I am pretty much if you can tell my personality is pretty big. I'm from a little small country town in Georgia called Newnan. Georgia, it's about 30 minutes south of Atlanta. So I rep it hard everywhere I go. I tell people I'm not from Atlanta. You know, I went in, I used to grow up on a farm and fishing ran horses, you know, all that good stuff. So the typical Georgia boy I am I want to stress that so. And, you know, I, you know, went to school, went to you know, after graduating high school and I play basketball I was involved in like student government. So public service has just always been a part of me, my family, who owned a funeral home back home in Newnan, Georgia. So that also kind of contributed to the kind of being selfless and acts of service things of that sort. I started doing that when I was 1213 years old. Shout out to Sellar Smith funeral home, where service is an everlasting memory.

And then, you know, I graduated high school and went to Howard University based in Washington, DC, the Mecca. Hu. And so it was, you know, there is where it kind of like just cultivated just, you know, the mecca of black excellence, being able to, you know, confidence to know that you're able and you can, you know, do all these amazing things and not be kind of, you go from being kind of, you know, the standout person in the, you know, the one person in the room to kind of being surrounded by people who look and think like you and that, that, that, that excellence, right, and it kind of breeds and, and cultivation. So I'm very appreciative of my time and Howard,, which, by the way, kind of led me down this path. You know, I grew up during the financial crisis. And Howard, you know, so we're talking about, oh, 809, you know, and back home in Georgia. For folks who don't know, Georgia was really, really adversely impacted by the recession, because of real estate, and housing. I believe Georgia suffered the second most bank closings in the country, if not the second, it was definitely certainly top three, during the financial crisis. So for me, being in DC and having my entire family back home in Georgia and seeing kind of the real-world impact of like, a financial crisis, you know, you open up your econ book, your app, you know, I'm in school at Howard, and I was an econ major at Howard. So you go through and you read these read about these concepts, and they're very like theoretical before and then you turn on the TV and it's like, they're talking about supply and demand failures. They have high-interest rates and you know, the Fed federal funds rate you know, all these things that people kind of every day for the last you know, prior To kind of like, what is this, whatever, it's boring, it's for nerdy, you know. So for me that kind of started it, and kind of saying how you know, and what really did it was, you know, I remember turning on the TV every morning and saying, like watching CNBC, you know, folks, you know, that's kind of the business Cable News Network channel, and they were covering kind of the financial crisis, and Lehman Brothers had just, they had just collapsed. And kind of, you know, the Fed and Ben Bernanke, and regulators were trying to respond that Treasury Secretary, and what stood out to me the most, and this is me, I believe, sophomore year, and how it the freshman-sophomore year was, no one in the room looked like me. No one, there was not a single African American slash black minority. I don't even remember, if there has been a woman in the room, I believe Sheila Bair was still there. So one woman, and so you're talking about a crisis that, you know, impacted everyone. So you know, not just the wealthy, not just, you know, rural, not just underbanked or minority. So the lack of diversity is something that stood out immediately. And I said, you know, when we're contemplating these policy responses, moving forward, I wanted to make sure that I was in the room moving forward if this ever was to happen again. And so that kind of motivated me to like get involved in financial services, policy and things of that sort, especially seeing the impact on housing and the banking sector and kind of the products and services that were being offered to consumers and customers around the world. So across the country. So that's, that's my kind of intro. And then luckily, when I was at out, I was fortunate to have an internship at the Securities and Exchange Commission, and under their leadership, I believe that Mary Shapiro, who was the first believe the first woman chair of the SEC, at the time she came over from the CFTC. And she was had, she had been at FINRA, I believe, and, and her leadership, you know, during that time was stellar. And then also kind of just again, the diversity piece of being heard Amplifying Voices. So that was my intro to kind of this world and very happy, very, very happy. And you know, Dodd-Frank came out of that and all these other things, which we can talk about it. Yeah,

that's really interesting. You touched on so much like from your childhood. I don't really know that much about Atlanta. Just like I mean, I do watch The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Oh, great. The seasons are great.

I'm old-school Real Housewives of Atlanta, like Season One, two, and three, like Phaedra. Do you know?

Yeah, she's back. Actually, she's on a girl’s trip and on the Real Housewives girl’s trip. But ya know, like, exactly the shades just not doing it as it used. They're trying, trying too hard. Now, I feel because they all need us, peach. So yeah, my concept of Georgia and Atlanta comes off that comes out of that. And so I have actually always wanted to like visit it and see it. So I can

talk about so many things related to fintech. You know, Atlanta is known for a lot of different things. Besides the good food. I'm sure you know, the music. You know, I don't know if it's appropriate to talk about strip clubs, but it's part of the culture and Atlanta. Hey, yeah,

I've had the strip clubs. I'm quite mad. That's what it's known for.

Atlanta is known for many other things, you know, that is much more important, like the civil rights era, Martin Luther King, but

we'll talk about checking things and strip clubs.

strip clubs, which by the way, happened wings. And strip clubs, which by the way, have a very neat FinTech, financial services angle, access to financial services. So we can always you know, spin this thing back. Make sure that I'm always for the people. I'm always for equal access to financial services.

Okay, well, looks like I should definitely come to Atlanta. I will. I'll put it on the list. Although Yeah, I'm not Yeah, yeah. America, Americans. It's a lot for me. And I but yeah, you also touched on like diversity playing this massive role as well within your career, and how it continues. How do you feel like diversity plays a role within like the FinTech space or like the lack of or what do you think it's changing like in your exp It's like in your career has that sort of move Fintech

is something that's relatively new. And, you know, it's, it's always, you know, with, you know, investors and startups and things within these unicorns, you know, more power to them. I think there's much work to be done still, as far as investments and, you know, venture capital and things of that sort putting those types of investments and to minority-owned and women-led FinTech firms. Because, to be honest, you know, is it's, it's, it's an issue that if you want to adequately serve everyone, then you're our companies, our financial services, and products have to be inclusive, and reflective of the customers or the consumers that you're serving. That's the only way I mean, there's a business case for doing that. And not only that, like your leadership has to, you know, be a shining example of that, because groupthink is real group creep thing, group. You know, it's hard for, just to be quite honest, you know, a room full of, you know, a board of, you know, 50 60-year-old white men want to talk about, you know, getting products and services to, you know, rural America, or to, you know, a city that's, you know, majority minorities, right? Yeah, that distribution, and that marketing, and those things are certainly going to be different. And there's a, there's gonna be a disconnect. And so I think, and I think, you know, as people are, you know, consumers and customers are becoming more savvy, the people who are getting these products and services, they're becoming much more politically aware, and socially aware of these type of discrepancies. And, you know, they want to see that in the marketplace. They want to see themselves in the marketplace. That may not have been the case 2030 years ago, maybe not even 10 years ago, I think. But I think with the rise of social media, you know, and things of that sort, and the internet and web three, and the metaverse and all these types of things. ESG. You know, I think people, you know, consumers are way smarter now are much smarter than and being socially aware of these types of issues. So, diversity, for me is very key, very important. That is just good business. It's just good business.

We've talked so much in this space, and you can obviously respond to like, what I think is maybe you have a different perspective on it. But I do realize, actually, we didn't actually talk about what you actually do. So I just want to circle back as well and just say, you know, to your non fintech friends, how do you explain what you do? So like, what do you say to your mom,

or your dad? It shouldn't be? What do I say to my grandma? Explain it. Yeah, no, I think, you know, for me, I tell folks, you know, back home and my grandparents, and my mother is like, hey, like, what did you do every day? And I'm like, Well, my job is to make fintechs and financial services companies better. And also, you know, so I go to Capitol Hill, to Congress, men, Congress, women, and to banking agencies, regulatory agencies into the executive branch, meaning White House and things of that sort. And I go in there and let them know and tell them all the great things that these companies are doing. And also, on the flip side, whatever, these companies are not doing great things, I still go in and tell that story and act as a kind of a partner liaison between the private sector and to Congress and to executive branch agencies. So basically, I'm the voice, I act as a voice for those entities. But also, what I take what I value the most is, is hell is partnering with these companies to help them do the right thing, and do better business. So for me, like, for example, you know, as I touched on earlier, diversity, fair lending, you know, making sure that these you know, when we talk about FinTech and algorithms, and credit outcomes, right, when you do an online application, that, that when you're getting that, you know, answer back getting denied, or like, you know, approved that those companies aren't telling you the reasons why and there and it's a fair outcome. And I want to make sure that people on the other side of that, ie policymakers and regulators know exactly the type of value that these companies are bringing, or if they need to improve their business practices. So I look at as as if I'm helping move the industry forward in the right direction.

yeah, because there's that, I guess, that there's that real element of financial literacy that is changing. I mean, that is so important, but also, it's so needed, because the financial system is changing so quickly. So you're kind of like the go between what people know, and you know, those creating the policies and kind of coordinating that and making sure everyone's kind of in the same boat? Would that be a way of explaining? Absolutely, I

get it? No, no, absolutely. I am. The for the formal title. You know, it's, it's, I'm a principal at a firm called Fs vector. It's lobbying and, you know, an advisory firm. So again, I'm on the government. I'm on the government relations side slash lobbying side,

that's great. I mean, it's that honestly, it sounds really interesting. I find this stuff I find, like the regulation of like FinTech and like how, how it's changing, and like, how different governments are trying to like, just be the best at it. Because it's, I don't know, chasing their tail a little bit, I find it so interesting because everyone's doing a different approach. But actually, everyone's also kind of doing the same approach. And being the person that's kind of shaping that seems like such an interesting thing to do. And so like, what sort of fact or stat Have you learned recently that you think is important within policy or finance? For me?

You know, I think, you know, I think there's been a lot of, you know, not only in the United States, but globally, you know, around cryptocurrency, right digital assets. Right? And, you know, I think for folks who don't know this, in some, you know, some may or may not, but, you know, the majority of folks who are in the crypto space, retail, crypto space, or, you know, black and brown people,

right, I didn't know that. So,

you know, when we think about crypto being this, you know, you know, slip which it is, but this sliver of only, you know, super smart people are getting involved in and are engaged in it, and only, you know, no one can touch in itself, you know, you have to be elitist, and all of these things that, that some people brand with traditional financial services and products or, or traditional finance, if you will, crypto is being used in, you know, adopted by black and brown communities to most at the fastest rate. Now, what that means also is, you know, there's so many public policy questions that we can ask about that is why of course, is that, and what do the protections look like? And why are traditionally historically underrepresented populations, you know, running towards crypto. And we can talk about many reasons for that, because we can talk about historical discrimination within traditional finance the wealth generation opportunity. So we talked about the financial inclusion, benefits of crypto, being able to enter, enter, you know, into a space where you don't have to have, you know, that you can troll it yourself, and the outcomes and things of that sort of transparency around it. These are all things that are benefits to you know, I think some of the reasons why black and brown people are running towards crypto. But it's in the same vein for me, because I operate in this space, it's equally important that for all those benefits, that we have the right, you know, policy framework and the protections in place to protect the same people who have been underrepresented, and who traditionally are the first people who are the most vulnerable, who are at the front lines, who are at the front line when something goes bad. And they suffered the most. So we want to make sure that, you know, I'm working diligently and kind of making sure that those protections and that balance is, you know, in place as we think about what this crypto policy and regulation looks like 510 years from now.

Just a quick question on that actually. And I just wanna get your thoughts do you think because like, and this business just just just thinking about as you speak, but do you think because there's like a lack of trust of institutions like historically from certain communities than the idea of like crypto? Yeah, absolutely.

I tell you Look, I tell people all the time, you know, my grandmother, who's not, you know, she's not super old or anything my grandmother is in, you know, her 60s, right? My grandmother just opened a bank account, maybe two years ago. Think about Yeah, right. And the reason is, my grandmother grew up in the 50s. And in listening to her mother, and taught who grew up during the Great Depression, and talking about, you know, never putting your money in banks, because banks, you know, they're terrible, and, you know, ain't good for nothing in the way they treat folks. And, you know, when you look, I'll tell, you know, my grandma, you know, older, but, you know, they watch news all day, every day, you know, think about over the years, how many, you know, financial or related crises, you know, the savings and loan crisis, the recession, you know, the looking on TV and seeing kind of customers being, you know, taken advantage of home appraisals, right, that, you know, discrimination in that market, and kind of the valuation of our homes and kind of the role that, you know, traditional financial institutions have played. Now, they've also played, they've done amazing, great things as well, not bank bashing or anything. But what I'm saying is that the lore of crypto is, this is something that has not have a preconceived historical base here, there's something that, that that that that looks at at edits, you know, you know, as we kind of dive into it, I have an opportunity for an ecosystem to be all inclusive. Diverse, so I say I'd say yes, it there, there comes a fear of and I have friends my age who don't want to open up a bank account at a traditional financial institution, they would rather go with a FinTech because they feel as though what if I go bank with one of the top 20 banks? So you know, community bank, that somehow that they're going to do me wrong? Why? Yeah, why? I don't know, because of you know, hey, we look on TV, we hear about these things, we hear about overdraft fees, we hear about all these things. And again, the most vulnerable people typically are bearing the brunt of this. And so crypto currency serves as kind of this, this, you know, digital assets serve this kind of saving grace, like to say, hey, you know, I can, you know, I can really take advantage of my own kind of financial life, a new asset class to build wealth and opportunity. And I know that it's transparent, and things of that sort. So those are the kind of the benefits and I think people see, that just makes them attractive.

Yeah, of course, like, you know, when people think of like, crypto and stuff, it's more of a flat structure and like, you know, but like, historically, banking institutions have more of a, like, you know, what is the opposite of flat? Sort of pyramid structure? And I think it's, I think it's like, I think it's small things as well, like, because my sister recently, she got her first like, sort of signed up to our first sort of like FinTech bank. And but she said, a question she had was like, how do they like, it's weird that you don't speak to anyone about it. Because I mean, a day when you used to open a bank, you go in and you tell them your whole, like war and peace, you tell them your whole life, just open a bank accounts. And the difference is, like, when you talk about that kind of like, you know, the historical nature, especially within the American context, it's like, if you if like, literally just to open a bank account, you just need to like send a picture of your face and your driving license or whatever. So you don't really have that human interaction, which, to a large extent, people feel like the human interaction is not always great sometimes, and people feel judged, or people feel like, why am I telling this person my whole life? Just open a bank account? And like, I guess, crypto but the FinTech industry, in general, kind of, like, alleviates that historical stuff. So absolutely. Yeah. Because, like microaggressions, I guess is the word.

That's right. That's right. And another benefit? I think it's, you know, you know, I have family,, I think we all do we all know, someone who's been, you know,

you know, involved in the criminal justice system. And, you know, that's another issue that, you know, traditional finance that you know, to open up a bank account. Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever been, you know, for something that maybe 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you know, some banks choose not to open a bank account because you're deemed high risk or whatever the case aces may be, and you know that that's another issue And so I know, you know, banks have moved are moving to trend away from that. But crypto and fintech also serve as a bridge for folks who are coming out of the criminal justice system, as well. So I think that's another huge opportunity for fintechs to kind of go after that market population as well. So yeah, that's, that's, that's, those are all the exciting things that, you know, that make me you know, keep me up every day, you know, tomorrow going to work every day to be like, you know, let's do it.

issue that, you know, traditional finance and open up a bank account. Have you ever been arrested and you've ever been, you know, for something that maybe 10 years ago, 20 years ago, you know, some banks choose not to overlook bank account because you're deemed high risk or whatever the cases may be. And you know, that that's another issue. And so I know, you know, banks have moved are moving trending away from that, but crypto and fintech also serve as a bridge for folks who are coming out of the criminal justice system, as well. So I think that's another huge opportunity for for fintechs to kind of go after that market population as well. So yeah, that's, that's that those are all the exciting things that, you know, that made me you know, keep me up every day, you know, tomorrow going to work every day to be like, you know, let's do it.

No, it's really interesting. You say that, like, because, sorry, another reality TV reference. But I watched love after lockup, again, it's an American show. It's basically one person I watched. One person is in prison, the other one's not in prison. And then it follows their relationship. It's like the one in prison comes out. But a massive thing that those couples have an issue with is like housing, because like, in America, they don't like allow people to rent houses, if not everywhere, but a lot of places can say, like, can discriminate against that, but I'm not, I don't think we have I don't think that's a thing in the UK, but just things like that. There are obviously so many barriers to people just based on like, this used to be bad, so we're just going to continue it to be bad. So like Fintech is no different. This was actually a question that Rohit, our guests from episode one gave, but what was your sort of like, oh, s**t moment in your career. So, you know, a lot of the time when people are building or creating or like, you know, just throughout their career, they have all these things happening, and then things go wrong. What was that for

you? Things go wrong, like when I like was sitting down in the office one day, I was like, Oh, s**t, like, this is major, like, I'm just wow, are both which one you will?

Next? I was thinking more when you made a mistake.

I'm not going to make a mistake at work on a podcast. No. No, you know what, I think I'm

probably working on the Hill for Maxine Waters. And I, you know, she was getting ready to, you know, meet with a bunch of CEOs and things of that sort. And I, you know, we have briefing, memos, and things of that sort, we're getting prepared. And I accidentally gave her the wrong memo. And it was related to like, I think it was like a housing memo for housing CEO like Fannie and Freddie she's meeting with, so she's like, in the room. And, you know, she glanced and she's looking at, like, she's reading down. And, you know, this is on the heels of like, getting ready for, you know, in the United States. Congress, we we have troops traditionally annually brought up for the last couple of years, the CEOs of the, you know, five largest banks, seven largest banks, the G sibs. And so we were getting ready for that. And I accidentally gave her the wrong memo. So, you know, that wasn't very well. And if anybody knows the Chairwoman, you have to, you know, dot your i's and cross all your T's. So that would, that was my best shot in my way. It was like, Oh, that was my oh s**t moment as in, like, the severity and how serious and how important where, where I sit every day, not to take that, you know, for granted and kind of how, you know, like, you should come every day prepared and pay attention to detail and, and things of that sort. So all those things that everyone knows, you know, as being a professional or going to work or being an adult, all those things, but, you know, when you really sit down and think about it, how those little things are what separates kind of, you know, people who are at the top and kind of that mid-tier so for me, that was kind of my ocean moment. Like peer gets, you know, stay on top of your game all the time every time 24/7

Gosh, if that's your st moment, then like you're great because like, but that was nothing need. I mean, obviously, it was something but I mean that in the sense of like, I don't know, like, you seem you seem like you're pretty. You're pretty. I don't know. I feel like I'm like oh st moments every day. Even setting up the recording,

I'll tell you now I mean, look, I, I take a lot of pride in, you know, my work product and being kind of in this space, I mean, I'm gonna tell you that I mean, I know every time when I walk into a room or get on a zoom, or in pot, or you know, or video that I'm probably walking into a row where no one else looks like me that I'm going to be the only black guy, I'm going to be the youngest guy in the room. There are preconceived notions, misconceptions already, you know, I'm on a podcast with a gold chain, you know, little things like that. And so I know for me, that I have to come prepared and bring my A game every time, every time. And so when you asked me the question, and kind of oh, st moment, it's, I prepare, you know, you know, that was a real moment that I just mentioned, but my oh st moments, I prepare not to have oh, st moments, because, unfortunately, within the financial services space, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, you, you, you, you, you walk a fine line and you walk in, you know, you know, unfortunately, you know, there's not a lot of room for error. And that's just real. So, I don't say that to say like, oh, yeah, like, that's not really it's just like, I prepared not to have oh, st moment because I can't afford to

know I get I get you and I think, you know, I feel like, you know, I'm, I know what you're going through because I definitely feel that same way. Especially in like my old jobs. Like, of course, I was the only one who looks like me. But do you know what it was? Like? People are gonna look at me anyway. So it doesn't really matter what I wear if I put on without whether I have like massive big braids, or if I if I you know, have straight hair. I'm gonna be looked at anyway, so it really does not matter. I'm just like, I'm just prolonging the inevitable but yeah, well, I'm in cranial environment for that but I also want to create the environment to ask you like questions that literally mean nothing

These are excellent questions, by the way. Excellent.

Oh, thank you. Some of them I just came off the top of my head but um, yeah, we're going to do quick-fire session. So I was doing questions and just like what stretching for this answer what comes to your head so

Okay, let's go lead a normal life from here onwards or start again reborn with all your memories

that you live from your own remote office?

Have unlimited money or be the best at five things of your choice.

Spicy or sweet? Spicy?

Know the world's biggest secret but not be able to tell anyone or everyone else knows the secret but you're the only one in the world that does

the first one know The world's biggest secret and I tell them I want to know I want to know can you tell me how to cheat

Learn by watching or learn by doing. Learn by Doing so

What was your last Google search?

Search? Oh? Ric Flair his last match. Ric Flair The Wrestler his last match. It's coming in July 31 Ric Flair I'm a huge wrestling fan.

Okay, last one tell your past self one thing I'll tell you your future self one thing

I would tell futures to just do it. Just do it. You can just just go do it. Just go do it. Oh, you do a bunch of research you try to do

what do you say? You said I would tell

my future self to just do it like just go and do it don't do you know you can do too much research. You can do too much second-guessing you can do too much kind of planning and you know all this stuff that the end of the day. It means nothing because it's only going to you know there's no such time as a right time or a perfect time to do anything. So just go

just go do it. You saw that off Naik. So, just go and

so yeah, which is what I do. I Kind of, yeah, just go do it when doing this, you know, I went in this stuff, you know, if I wasn't doing what I do now for the last, you know, 13 Since I was 19, basically so I think we're at 13 years now. I think I would like be doing like basketball, I would be coaching basketball or be involved in, you know, helping kids with like basketball or something like that. And so when I say go and do it, like that's something that I still want to go and do, and I'm gonna go do it when I don't know. But I'm gonna do it that's, that's on my bucket list.

Nice. Yeah. I mean, I don't think it's beyond Endo. I think you can you can do policy and be

one quick. Well, I know we've probably about to wrap so I got a shout-out. I got a shout-out to my son,. This is the Fourth of July. Weekend. He's coming up here in DC. So if anybody has any recommendations, let me know. For a 15-year-old come to DC because as we all know, DC is never full of bars and happy hour, and 15 you have a 15-year-old? Oh, wow. Yes. Happy

Visiting so I'm getting ready for that this weekend here in DC so it should be fun. So

I mean, if he was in the UK, don't you have three years.

He comes up regularly during the summer but you know, this was a little bit more meaningful, you know that you're 15 now and you're gonna have to get your learner's license and stuff. For anyway, that's what I'm dealing with in my personal life.

Ya know, I still drive and I'm waiting to see, I don't know why that. I know. I'll be honest with you, though. Like my neighbor shout out to my neighbor. Whilst we're doing shoutouts he actually gave me my first ever driving license. Like, the other day, he was like he was he took me to a car park. And she just took me to a car park and we weren't around back in the day. Like it's just honestly not on like my top, like the list of things to do. That's the problem of growing up in a city like like London, you don't learn. Like, it's not that I don't want to do it. It's just like, there's never a time where I'm like, I need to learn to drive because I don't know, I've always lived in a city. So at some point, maybe when I turned 60 or something I didn't know. I made it for the passenger life and I'm just going with that. Yeah, I just what I bring is charisma, and, and, and good songs, you know, and just that's, that's what I contribute to the drive. And I'm okay with that. You know, other people might not? Yeah, yeah, one thing I learned one day, and yeah, okay, just quick wrap-up questions. So as this is the FinTech friends podcast, we're keen to highlight other friends that maybe don't know that people don't know about. So who is a friend of yours that you think we should highlight or look out?

For a few you know, this is what I got a few I think, shout out to:

Charla Ouertatani, Staff Director, U.S. House Committee on Financial Services (Majority Staff)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlaouertatani

Alexandra (Alex) Barrage, Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine, Former FDIC Executive

https://www.dwt.com/people/b/barrage-alexandra

Perianne Boring, Founder & CEO, Chamber of Digital Commerce (oldest, largest trade association comprising the entire digital assets ecosystem)

https://digitalchamber.org/about/

Avy Mallik, Director of Fintech Policy, U.S. House Committee on Financial Services (Majority Staff)

https://www.linkedin.com/in/avy-mallik-8684a449

Raj Date, Co-Founder, Fenway Summer & FS Vector, Former Deputy Director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

https://fsvector.com/raj-date/

And so I think those you know, those are my FinTech friends who I think could have some add some valuable insights and perspectives to the space.

Awesome, nice friends, please. Actually When we finish, please send me their links as well so that we can actually follow up with our extra friends that we're going to create. And last question. What is a question? You think we should ask that

question? Well, first of all, you should have asked me you should ask me. You know, my music, my preferences, we gotta get off this FinTech because, you know, it's all about the culture. Know what the first thing you want to ask them is kind of what keeps them up every day? What keeps them up every day? What's their biggest that day that like they go to sleep? They're like, what if like, what's with this is what, you know, keeps me up at night? Like, that's an interesting question, especially within everything that's going on now with market volatility and inflation. You know, we've seen kind of the activities that are happening in the digital asset space, crypto space. So I think, you know, your, your next guest is what keeps you up at night cybersecurity hackers. You know, I'd be interested in hearing that and I would be interested in hearing

Yeah. I kind of want to know what keeps them up at night in their personal life.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And a personal

question. Okay. The answer your own questions through the roof. What? What keeps you up at night? I'm joking. What keeps you up at night? The first thing I say? Go on. Yeah. Going on.

I have to come back to you on that. I am single. If you know any future. If you hear me, FinTech, female. I'm open and dating. We can talk crypto and fintech over a nice glass of wine.

Amazing. Thank you so much for this one week in FinTech is having a FinTech formal. And obviously, I think that's great to fight. You know, I'm just saying, there we go. This is perfect. But yeah, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you again, for the conversation and the invitation, and all the best to you. But your podcast I mean, this is just amazing. Keep thriving, keep elevating voices and you know voices that need to be heard. To help move you know, this space for appreciate everything that you guys are doing.

Signals

Let’s say you want to buy 5 shares of Hooli ($HOOL). Your broker, Robinhood, will execute the trade without charging you a commission. Instead, a market maker will pay Robinhood for the privilege of filling the order, otherwise known as payment for order flow.

Payment for order flow is already banned in the UK and the SEC is reviewing its role in US markets, but fans argue that without PFOF, retail investors would have to pay fees to brokers to execute their orders. And if retail investors pay less to trade, doesn't this make them better off?

The short answer: It's nuanced!

Let's dive into payment for order flow.

Robinhood goes shopping

As your broker, Robinhood has to fill your order at the best price available in the market as quoted by the National Best Bid and Offer– in Europe, the European Best Bid and Offer. The NBBO/EBBO reflects a security's highest bid (selling) price and lowest ask (buying) price offered across exchanges at any point in the day. Robinhood can also offer you ✨price improvement✨ by filling your buy order at a price below the NBBO.

That was The stock market's Secret Menu by Sophie Vo read the rest of this article please subscribe to the This Week In Fintech newsletter

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Timestamps:

News (1:40)

Interview with Rohit about Kanmon and his experience (2:46)

Quick Fire Questions with Rohit and friendly questions (12:50)

Signals: Give Alternative Assets to the people (22:07)

Transcript:

Hey FinTech friends. Hey FinTech friends. My name is Helen Femi Williams and I'm your host of this new podcast. Hey FinTech friends. This podcast is brought to you by This Week in FinTech, which is on the front page of global FinTech news, fostering the largest FinTech community through newsletters, thought leadership and events. Oh, and now podcasting. And what's quite cool about this community is the creativity, the intelligence, and also understanding that those who work in the field are just regular people who've decided to devote themselves to solving a particular problem. And with that comes a unique mix of finance, technology, and fun, which is exactly what this podcast wants to explore. So expect this content to be informative? Yes. But we're also keen to get to know our founders and ask them the questions that you didn't know you needed answering. So let's talk about the structure of this podcast. First, we're gonna go through the news. And if you're a subscriber to this week in FinTech newsletter, you're in luck, because this is the audio version. Then we're going to chat to this week's friend, which is Rohit Sharma, co-founder of Kanmon and an embedded lending infrastructure startup based in the San Francisco Bay Area. And lastly, we'll go through the latest Signal article on alternative assets written by Guest writer Giorgio Giuliani

But first this week in FinTech.

Spain’s CaixaBank launched its online real-time currency trading platform, FXNow, in Morocco.

The SEC announced a proposed plan to overhaul the plumbing of US stock trading.

Singapore’s banks are introducing features like customer kill switches to thwart a rise in financial scammers.

The UK’s Investing and Saving Alliance (formed by a conglomerate of banks) is trialing a new digital ID for financial services.

Metro Bank is being sued by software provider Arkeyo for leaking its technology to a rival firm.

Apple launched its own buy-now-pay-later product, letting customers make payments in four installments with no interest

China’s Ant Group launched a digital SMB neobank in Singapore. Separately, SMB neobank Green Link Digital Bank also launched in Singapore.

Checkout.comlaunched a stablecoin payments feature.

That's This Week in FinTech.

And now for our chat with this week's friend, Rohit Sharma. Hey FinTech friends. So I'd like to introduce you to the first friend of the show. Rohit. Rohit is currently a co-founder at Kanmon, an embedded lending infrastructure and startup based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Cannon enables any b2b software company to offer lending products to its customers via simple API integration, and launch lending products in weeks, not months. Prior to Canon, Rohit has held a lot of product and engineering leadership roles, including plastic Qi funding circle DNB, and DELL INC. He received a master's in computer science from Northern Carolina state and an MBA from the University of Texas in Austin. So I guess my first question, Rohit is like, could you like, just tell me a bit about yourself and your experience?

Yeah, so I'm, I'm an immigrant to the states. So India, Bombay, came to the US to study computer science, and really, always been kind of interested in finance, as kind of just a personal kind of hobby obsession, but also kind of with a technology background kind of fell, didn't want to work for like a big bank or a hedge fund. So FinTech kind of felt like into my lap, but really started my career more in engineering, my personal career in engineering, and over the years, got to move into product management. So it started getting smaller and smaller, company-wise, started at a big company, Dell then went to a smaller company, went to an even smaller company called Angel seed-stage startup, where I actually met Nick, so they can actually work together for a long time. So we've been in the trenches together, and then that became the funding circle. So that was a great experience. I spent nine years there. In the end, I was the leading the product. And then, like startups, so went to another startup called plastic again in the FinTech space. And then finally, like Okay, I'm gonna give this a go myself. So now, along with my co-founder, we've been doing it for so long and a lot of white hair, but we still continue to kind of explore opportunities in lending. So that's what I'm doing currently as a co-founder, we're building embedded lending infrastructure to kind of enable the next generation of commercial lending.

You just talked about turning on and like embedded lending, but like, what does that actually mean? So, you know, to your non-FinTech friends, what does that mean? What does embedded lending mean? Like what do all these terms mean?

I always Fintech is such a broad word. So I always kind of try to start at the end, like zoom out and confuse my friends, even more, this explanation for FinTech I started with like, hey, anything that's kind of in the intersection of technology and money is really anytime you are touching money and utilise technology, it's fintech. If you follow that argument, pretty much everything in the world today is fintech. So that's kind of the broad definition specifically for embedded lending. The thesis and what we have is, that we know that lending money, especially in the commercial space is going to be more of a commodity is almost like a feature that other platforms that already serve these customers will tack on to their value offerings to kind of broaden their value offering and really solve all the problems of their customer base. So in the past, I would say 10 years, you've seen an explosion in what we call b2b SaaS, or software that is exclusively focused on solving problems for businesses, of all sizes, from small business to medium to large, but really focusing on like a product particular vertical and trying to be really best at serving that niche audience. And by serving that niche audience, they gradually can expand the TAM of that audience as well. And anytime you serve kind of a business customer, you kind of solve their core problems. So if you're building software for solving problems for architects, you build software that can manage their practice, etc. But you always kind of in a business context end up at some point where access to capital becomes a really important piece for the business. So our kind of pieces for embedded lending is that we want to build software that enables these other b2b platforms that are serving these customers to offer commercial credit products to their customers, without trying to become a lender or an online lender themselves and kind of understanding the complexity of lending. for them. It's just a simple API integration, and within a week, products to their end customers. So we abstract away all that lending process, the application, the credit, etc, behind the API. So we truly embedded into that b2b platform, software. And it looks like at home is really offering them that service. So from a platform perspective, they're like, Okay, we kind of give you software to run your business. But now you have access to capital as well. Because you already trust us with running your business. There's a trust already developed enough, we can actually know all your problems, including access to capital. They use more offers, it's a win-win for both the platform, as well as the end. So

just to kind of like expand on that, like with green stick on the series questions for now, when it comes to where you were kind of sits within the sort of FinTech space, like, what is like where do you see it going? And like, what do you see? It's like, do you have like a fact or stat that you want to kind of highlight within this space? Yeah, so

the macro stat that I really like to anchor and really think about the opportunity. So if you look at if assuming success, and Kanmon succeeds and becomes this connective tissue that enabled software companies to offer lending to their end customers, what it enables really is access to capital for all these businesses the in the world that need to succeed because small businesses and medium-sized businesses are really the engines of growth for the economy, we've kind of known that in developed economies and developing economies, and this kind of product that we want to build really enabled getting them access to capital in a really simple, easy way, in a place that they already transact day. So they can spend time really building their businesses than worrying about financing and how do I get access to capital? So really, it's about enabling that business formation and access to capital and growth in the business in the economy, which what excites us every day to really come work on the company. And then from a macro perspective, the reason we believe that this opportunity exists is there's also just in the last two years if you've noticed, this is specific The US debt. And I'm probably sure the same in other countries as well. But there has been a tremendous kind of increase in liquidity in the system. So if you just look at commercial banking, deposits in the US, pre-pandemic, they were about 12 trillion, and it's about 17 trillion right now. They're kind of two trends that are coming together that really makes us excited about this opportunity. One is that, hey, small businesses need to grow. That's always going to be a key growth driver of the economy. But there's also an immense amount of capital that is sitting in the system that is looking for a home. So we want to be that enabling layer that enables that capital to actually connect to the small businesses and start this flywheel effect that really increases the day.

Awesome. I love that. It's kind of like bringing all these different elements together in one and connecting it in a global way, but also kind of like positioning itself as part of a massive ecosystem. And going back to what you said earlier, it's like Fintech is kind of everything when you think like anyway, like yesterday, I was speaking to some gal, and she was saying, like, I was telling her about, like how I do a lot of FinTech stuff. And she was saying, oh, isn't that quite boring? But I'm just like, actually, do you have a car? Do you have a lending thing? Like, within what, within whatever you do, you're gonna be part of this massive ecosystem, and you're just kind of making it better?

Exactly. Right. So I mean, it's a cord that I have not, it's not my original cord, but I really like it as like, money is the original social network. And Fintech is really connected to money. So you are, you're solving a basic human need, and the economic system that we have really runs on that. So it's, it's really core to what we do as a human species today.

I love that money is that original social network. And it does kind of make sense, especially when you look at how we're changing. Like, even when you look at crypto and you think about like how we're changing what money is, is like, well, before people just use materials, people just use like different things. So we're just like, reinventing that same thing. So that's, I like that. You should just say it's your quote, and just like take that. But that sounds good. All right. We're gonna move on to like unserious questions because there are a lot of podcasts which are going to ask you serious questions, but to a large extent, we have a set we want to know who Rohit is beyond the fintech. So the first thing I want to do is just ask you a quick-fire question. So just like let's go answer, what comes first? You ready? Okay,

Android, or Apple,

Apple, tablet or laptop or laptop, city or country see live for country life, city, hotel, Airbnb. I've gone back and forth, I'd say hotel now. We used to be Airbnb. But now I think I'm back to hotels, there's somewhat of a predictability with hotels, I know what I'm getting

Free and travel or free meals out. So if you could forever have free air travel or free meals out, which?

I think free meals and not because I'll like food more, I just don't like travelling or taking flights,

you probably going to eat more than you're going to travel. Although if it was free, maybe they'll get on set it's definitely

that's a good economic way to say it as well. Like you spend probably a lot more on food. So that's actually the Battle of rational choice to

See through walls or see through lies. So like, either see-through like you can always see through any wall. Or if someone's saying a lie, you will always know that they're lying?

I'm going to see through walls purely again from the fact that she through lies and I'm worried my brain will not be able to handle it. There's too much truth there. Sometimes you should be shooting away from the truth. So I'll take the walls out of fear of the other one not because I like walls.

Yeah, ignorance is bliss, but then equally, like I do get insane. But then I'm like, if I can see through the wounds,

but I can at least like control. They're like, don't look there. Don't look here. Like they can come from anywhere.

Good point, has a daily word limit of 20 or daily step limits. 20?

Oh, word limit any day steps are for good.

Yeah, yeah, you need to do this steps. That makes sense. And okay, this is my last one. Be 18 Your whole life will be 35 your whole life.

Oh, 35 I was dumb when I was 18. So 35 is definitely the way to go. What were the dumb things you were doing? Oh, no doubt. You think you know everything. And you think that you have everything figured out as you get older? You realise that that's not true at all. and pretty much everything is everybody is making it up as they go along all the time, including yourself. So that I think only comes with, at least for me has only come with age.

Yeah, I think that's a good point, actually. But when you're 18, you have this like level of confidence that you're just like, oh, the world is mine. Oh, maybe 20 ones about one for that question. But I totally, I totally get what you need. We have a couple of other questions and like, you can take your time because like that was our rapid-fire, but then actually, it's quite good that you expanded on them anyway.

What is the craziest idea for a company you've had a FinTech one or non-fintech? Either one is either would be interesting to know, I have

a crazy idea, which I think I still will execute one day. And I don't know if it's a company idea or not, I don't know if I can ever make money out of it. But I really like electronic music, and like obsessively collecting vinyl. So I wanted to buy like a vinyl distributor, just so that I could skim a copy of everything that comes in, and then try to kind of sell the rest. But that's definitely a crazy idea for me, my wife has said, You're never going to do it ever, ever.

Vinyl distributor. So you

Yeah, so we're in the kind of electronic music scene, if you're, if you're putting our vinyl is there's a record label that really creates signs the artist and takes the masters and actually creates like has the publishing rights. And then maybe we'll contract with a vinyl factory to actually create the test the presence, but then they all go to a distributor, who then farms it out to record shops. So the record shops are actually selling the vinyl and are actually interfacing with a distributor who collects who's going to facilitate the sale of the wine all across all these record labels. So the distributor has the widest access to all the record labels and all the music that gets put out. So if you can be at that distribution point and actually skim or even pay, I don't mind paying to skim every record that comes through that instantly. Makes my collection much bigger than it is today.

Yeah, that's sick. So yeah, you can diversify like electronic music makes sense. With embedded lending, you just gotta

have. Unfortunately, club punters don't like to pay a lot of money. So there's not a lot of revenue opportunity in the electronic music space. Unless you're throwing big festival or you own a club-like fabric. Yeah. But going back to

what you said Money is the original social network. So you just got to find a way to make it work. sticking on the money question. If money was no option, what would you do?

Again, you'll kind of see a trend here like I would like via electronic attack at a music club, running the length of music tech, or being a DJ but I have no talent to be a DJ. So something related to electronic music if money was no no, not an object, I don't have to make money that that will be like a dream come true. Like I love in London like my favourite favourite favourite club venue in the world is Fabric in Farringdon. And like, we made a club ticket at fabric would be a dream come true. Like that sound system is amazing.

That's so funny. When was the last time you went to fabric?

Oh, pre-pandemic. I think it's September 2018. There's this really favourite DJ of mine Sasha. And he plays an all-nighter, like, open the clothes. I think every year. In fact, he just announced he's gonna pay in September again. This year. I'm gonna make a trip just for that. So I have flown to London just for two days just to go-to Fabric. Catch him and then come back. Wow.

Okay, I haven't been to fabric actually. So well. Yeah. So a very, very long time. But I feel like we've,

I don't mind electronic music but I have to like, for me, it's like I have to be in the mood. And like my friends have to be like, we are doing this tonight. And then I'll commit like, I'll commit to the night and like, this is what we're doing. But yeah, Fabric is a very interesting place. For a while I think it's like closing down,

they closed down. Then they're back open. Their sound system is just like, for me, it's really about the sound and the music. So the sound system is definitely immense in room one.

And I mean, this is the FinTech fan podcast, and we want to highlight other FinTech friends. So, who do you think is a friend that you know a friend of FinTech that we should be highlighting,

my kind of Shout Out is a Amol Walvekar he's at Amol Walvekar on Twitter. He's a super-sharp payments guy used to work wepay, he was like early bolt and now kind of doing something new. I really enjoyed talking to him like a super smart guy. And he does He doesn't advertise himself a lot. So I'm giving him a shout-out. So you should definitely get them on the show.

Awesome. And what is it question we should be asking our future friends of the show?

I thought about this. So I think like this actually, you can ask every FinTech guest since fintechs deals with deal with money and, etc. The kind of instance we're building software, there's always some b**t issues that happen, that seems very catastrophic when they happen. It could be like unintended consequences, or like hilarious user actions, but like in hindsight, like, are very, very funny. So it's almost like, what's the funniest FinTech story that you've experienced personally, would be an interesting kind of view into the kind of problems that we face while we're building software with a humorous element to it. The one that has happened to me, which I laugh at today, but at the time was extremely painful, is when we had switched deposits and withdrawals for customers. So when a customer wanted to deposit, we actually withdrew money. And when they wanted to withdraw, that sounds like such a mess, it was definitely a mess. And the team rallied together, we fixed it really quickly. But the point is, for those 15 minutes, I definitely thought he was gonna get fired, but we found it really quickly. And before it actually went into production and affected real customers. But that could have been an interesting day and these types of issues happen with software. So that'd be an interesting question to ask folks like, well, it's something that at that time seemed catastrophic, but now in hindsight, it seems funny to you.

I love that. All right. Well, yeah, it's been great speaking to you. No worries. Thank

you. Super awesome. Thanks for having me.

Well, you'll say shows like Where can people find more about kind of what you do? Yeah,

I'm on Twitter at RNSharma. I don't tweet a lot. I write some funny memes sometimes. But Google, and always happy to chat fintech so drop me a DM

Signals is a subscriber-only newsletter focusing on deep dives thought leadership and so much more. Here's a quick snippet from our latest one.

Alternative assets are exploding in popularity among retail investors, who are gaining unprecedented access to this historically cost-prohibitive asset class. The alternative asset boom creates a major opportunity for consumer-facing fintechs and infrastructure providers to challenge incumbents in a creative and more defensible way.

Alternative assets are investments that don’t fall in the conventional investment categories of stocks, bonds and cash. These typically include private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, real estate, commodities, art, antiques and collectables.

The Alternative AUM more than doubled in the last 10 years and, based on an estimation by Preqin, this growth will continue at a very high pace in the future decade.

Traditionally only high-net and ultra-high net worth individuals have had access to these asset classes, but the Internet is relentlessly inverting the trend and opening up alternative assets to new socio-demographic groups.

Get full access to This Week in Fintech at thisweekinfintech.substack.com/subscribe

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