Fintech Insider By 11:fs

In this episode Jason Bates and David Brear interview Mariano Belinky,  Managing Partner of Santander InnoVentures and Shachar Bialick, CEO of Curve, following the announcement last week of Santander’s recent investment in Curve, in an expansion of their growing fintech portfolio. They discuss how InnoVentures fits into Santander’s digital approach, and what the investment of Curve and two other fintechs brings them, the longterm business plan of Curve and how Santander’s investment will help them achieve this. They also talk APIs, open banking and what our guests’ views on upcoming PSD2 directives are. Find out more about Santander InnoVentures here and Curve at imaginecurve.com Learn more about Mariano by connecting on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter, and you can also find Shachar on LinkedIn or on Twitter. We hope you’re enjoying FinTech Insider – don’t forget to tell a friend about us and please leave us a review on iTunes. The post Ep. 114. Interview – Mariano Belinky & Shachar Bialick ap

InsurTech Insider is a new show in the 11Media network, hosted by David Brear and co-host Nigel Walsh, of Deloitte, dedicated to all things insurtech. In Nigel’s words “there’s no better time to be in insurance” – and both he, David and their special guests will take you through the trends, changes and news stories, and the new startups, disruptors and technology in the insurance industry right now. Fittingly for our very first episode, the guys discuss exactly what is InsurTech? Is it just “fintech’s little brother” – or so much more than that? We find out the 101. They also discuss how much data is too much?; the importance of incumbent and insurtech relationships, the education of customers, and the overall shift in the industry from price and product to value and service. Guests: Nigel Walsh – partner at Deloitte, with focus on InsurTech, Technology Transformation and Digital Ben Green – Digital Director, Tock Insurance Freddy McNamara – CEO and Founder of Cuvva. Keep an eye out for Epi

In this episode In a fun packed episode, David is joined by regular guest Ghela Boskovich, alongside Edward Maslaveckas, Jeff Tijssen and Gabrielle Inzirillo, who made her Fintech Insider debut, having only just stepped off the Eurostar from Paris. The team discuss whether or not cash transactions are dying out in the UK thanks to the convenience of contactless payments – (1/3 of all card transactions are now contactless) – and the UK’s reduction in reliance on credit cards overall. Conversely, on the other side of the pond the US are now “hooked on credit”, is this the result of glamorous loyalty programmes or poor financial education? They also debate whether or not the UK cares about challenger banks; what the implications are of Stripe going after the Chinese market with integration of Alipay; US’s reluctance to adopt APIs; Revolut’s move to take on the Asian market following major investment; and how freaked out you’d be if your ATM started sending you handwritten messages, along with much more.

In this episode Jason Bates interviews Laurent le Moal, CEO of PayU, the leading online payments provider, dedicated to growth markets, at Money20/20 Europe in Copenhagen. PayU’s primary focus is to help merchants accept payments and they operate in a wide range countries around the world including India, Latin America, Turkey and Russia. Laurent tells us that PayU currently manage an incredible 250 different ways to accept payments – including globally recognised cards, regional payment schemes, bank based accounts, legacy systems based on cash. Their focus being on digital transactions and they process 60% of all e-commerce transactions in India alone. Laurent and Jason discuss PayU’s existing huge market share and their plans for expansion into further digital payment products to serve consumers based around credit scoring in less developed countries. They also debate fintech changes and developments worldwide and where the trends are coming from, and where to watch for future investment opportunitie

In this episode: We bring you the second roundup of  highlights from Money20/20 Europe in Copenhagen. We caught up with some fascinating guests, speakers and interviewees; starting with the founder of Moola and ITV’s resident Money Expert, Gemma Godfrey, who chatted to Simon about Moola – the online investment services she founded to help people invest their money easily and intuitively, and her time as an adviser to Arnold Schwarzernegger on The Celebrity Apprentice USA. Jason then catches up with Marko and Nigel from Solaris who give us an exclusive announcement of their new partnership; followed by Jaidev Janardana, the CEO of Zopa who discusses Zopa’s expansion from P2P lending to marketplace lending, and the company’s overall evolution since its launch in 2005. Jason also speaks to Jack Harris of Wirecard, a German-based company who collaborate with start ups and fintechs to empower them using Wirecard’s own banking licence; Jack tells Jason about their plans for future development and their global

In this episode David and Simon are joined by regular Sarah Kocianski, and RFi and Sky News Australia’s Chloe James, who makes her Fintech Insider  debut, for this week’s news. First up, they discuss the pros and cons of “screen-scraping” – do banks only want open banking on their terms and to pick and choose the bits of it they want?; is it right that challengers only get one representative at the Open Banking Initiative- and is Atom really a challenger bank?;  and is a CIO title unnecessary?  You can’t innovate in a silo, it needs to go company wide, nor can one person or department “own” innovation, that only creates turf wars. There are also strong views on the ‘culture of harassment’ for women in tech as reported by the New York Times and how sad it is that this culture already permeates an industry that’s so young. The necessity of speaking up to shatter unconscious bias in the industry is paramount. They also take on Danske Bank’s pocket money app to allow parents the ability to digitise pocket

In this episode From last week’s magnificent Money20/20 Europe, Jason interviews Rita Liu, Head of Alipay (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), the world’s largest mobile and online payments platform since 2014, and Simon catches up with Edward Budd, Managing Director and Chief Digital Officer of Global Transaction Banking at Deutsche Bank. Rita tells us about the European expansion of Alipay, and the innovations in fintech coming from China and the Asian market; and some of the new, cool initiatives from Ant Financial and Alipay, including carbon saving monitoring, (e.g. paperless payments), resulting in Alipay planting trees once you reach a certain threshold. She also explains Alipay’s ethos in relation to testing and creating new products at scale, and partnerships with retailers to grow Alipay’s use and exposure in Europe. Edward Budd tells Simon about Deutsche Bank’s digital trade opportunities, opening up the market for new clients, and new market segments. Their particular focus currently is o

In this episode: We bring you the highlights from last week’s amazing event at Money20/20 Europe in beautiful Copenhagen. We caught up with some fascinating guests, speakers and interviewees including: Derek White from BBVA speaking to Simon about open platforms, APIs and customer input in development of new products; Jason interviews Andrew and Tac from JCB International; and Bill Gajda, SVP at VISA announcing their partnership with Klarna; and Simon catches up with Bianca Lopes, SVP of BioConnect, about data privacy, online identification and online reputation management. Next up, Simon chats to Aaron Phethean from Temenos about their software, marketplace partnerships and scalability with fintechs and incumbents; followed by Eugene Danilkis the CEO of Mambu, the SaaS banking software provider. David interviews Don Ginsel, the founder of Holland Fintech, ahead of Money20/2o Europe going to Amsterdam next year; and finally Meaghan talks to Lav Odorović, CEO of Penta. Guests: Derek White – Creatin

In this episode We bring you our first ever live podcast, recorded in front of a live audience at Money20/20 Europe, Copenhagen. With all four of our regular hosts, David Brear, Jason Bates, Simon Taylor and Chris Skinner, plus six fantastic guests from the world of fintech and banking (and previous podcasts), they discuss the latest news and stories with additional audience interaction, including: Goldman Sachs’ lending business hitting its first $1bn mark, is this a good thing or is it old news?, the pros and cons of card use and card readers vs smartphone points of sale – as pioneered by Jack Dorsey’s Square; and the merits of Will.i.am as an advisor to Atom Bank and personification of their market sector, which opens up discussion of who other banks would be if they were a pop star. We also hear Starling’s own Megan Cawood on their European expansion and Simon and Ajit lead the audience into a cryptocurrency Q&A explaining the Ethereum “flash crash” and what this means for Ethereum’s future, and c

In this episode David is joined by the multi-talented Jonathan Larsen, who is simultaneously CIO of Ping An, based in Hong Kong and CEO of their Global Voyager Fund. The Global Voyager Fund is a $1billion fund for investment in global fintech, and Jonathan and his team ensure that via this fund they have access to the best innovation around the globe and the best partnerships opportunities. He discusses the impact of financial innovation in China and the enormous opportunities for scalability that China offers, unlike anywhere else. Equally, he tells us about the international opportunities that have arisen from this, reversing the flow of technological advancement from China to the rest of the world whereas previously the flow was going in the opposite direction. The biggest opportunity in China is fintech for healthcare but this is also branching out worldwide with platforms sponsored by the Global Voyager Fund, such as gooddoctor.com the “uber of doctors”. Jonathan also shares with us his visions f

In this episode Simon interviews Ali Niknam, CEO of Bunq, who firstly, tells us all about where the name Bunq came from, what the brand name means and stands for, and how important that is to the company ethos and their overall mantra of being “the bank of the free”. Bunq is a small company with big ambitions for geographic expansion and scalability; Ali tells us that control and ownership is so important to them (they do not outsource their development); and he deliberately chose to run a small team to deliver the best quality products and experience for the end user. It is also part of Bunq’s USP that they take on user feedback when developing their products and are not afraid to experiment, for example they were first bank in the world to try face recognition software. Ali also explains Bunq’s target market and customer demographics, and the Bunq service-orientated business model, in essence: “not making money with money”. Want to know more? Check out Bunq.com, follow them on Twitter, or connect wi

In this episode We have a whole host of hosts as David, Jason, Simon and Aden are joined by Mariano Belinky and Jamie Campbell for the news. This week in a European-led section of the show the team discuss Swedish giant Klarna getting it’s official banking licence to begin delivering financial services, Spain’s first fully digital bank, European “robo advice”, and the European Central Bank demanding declaration of all cyber security breaches. It’s raining money in Durham as Atom gets a further £30 million investment from the government, and why did Will.i.am became an advisor to Atom – and does it work? Additionally, they also take on the Barclays execs’ fraud charges during the financial crisis in 2008, ahead of their hearing next week; and an equally political story on the other side of the pond: Elizabeth Warren’s attempts to remove 12 Wells Fargo board members. Finally, the guys also discuss whether PayPal are right to dismiss the Apple Pay challenge; and the impact of two thirds of the world’s

In this episode Simon interviews Nathan Bostock, CEO of Santander UK. Nathan explains how Santander is embracing the tech changes facing the banking industry, and the shifting customer behaviours in their interactions with the bank with the help of digital innovation. He also tells us that digital innovation evolves around good customer service so Santander tries maintain “customer-centricity” in all it does, to drive its customer experience forward, and that hiring strong digital talent is so important to them to help them achieve this. Nathan also tells us that the Santander company ethos and mindset is that of a challenger, not an incumbent, so they are always looking for opportunities for innovation that can challenge the status quo, while simultaneously taking customer data security very seriously. One key opportunity for innovation is that of partnership with fintech companies and Nathan explains the success of their partnership with small business lending company, Kabbage. Want to know more?

In this episode: We bring you the highlights from the RFI global banking summit where we were lucky enough to speak to a variety of different guests, on a range of topics. First up, Aden spoke with Louise Beaumont, Co-Chair at Open Bank Working Group, to talk about all things open banking, before he dived into a chat with regular FinTech Insider guest Ghela Boskovich. Later on he chats to Luis Rodriguez, VP Strands Lab and Ricky Knox, founder of Tandem. Later on, Simon Taylor takes the reigns as he chats with Mike Kelly, the Founder of Curl, Jesse McWaters of the World Economic Forum, Charles Green, CEO of RFi Group, the host of the event, and Yarrick, CEO of NBank. Guests: Louise Beaumont – Co chair, Open Bank Working Group Luis Rodriguez, VP Strands Labs Ghela Boskovich Ricky Knox – founder of Tandem Mike Kelly – Founder of Curl Jesse McWaters – Financial Innovation Lead, The World Economic Forum Charles Green – Founder and Group CEO RFi   Enjoying FinTech Insider? Tell a frien

In this episode David is back! He and Aden are joined by regulars Liz and Sarah for the news. This week the team take on The FCA’s cohort 3 and reveals cohort 2 for their sandbox; Amazon flexing it’s financial services muscles; and the “demise of a fintech darling” as Monetise is to be acquired by Fiserv for £70million, when it was previously valued at £2billion. They also ask “what the hell is Zelle?” – the instant transfer app taking the US by storm, a key rival of Venmo, a product of six banks working together with 86million instantly available customers, it looks set to make big waves. The team also tackle Uber upheavals, and the ongoing sexism disputes threatening to tear the company apart,  leaving it currently without a CEO, CTO or COO – is this the beginning of the end for them? Even if it’s not, being the “Uber of banking” may no longer be a thing to aspire to. They also discuss what is the future for the small town bank branches and is honesty the best policy?, as Monzo sends out open commun

In this episode Jason interviews Daphne de Kluis, CEO of commercial banking at ABN AMRO, the Dutch banking giant. Speaking at the Beyond Banking event in Amsterdam, Daphne and Jason discuss the importance of the event to enhance co-creation between partners, external clients, and customers to shape the future of banking and products. She believes in the importance of asking clients for their feedback and what they want from their bank to create more collaborative development that allows ABN AMRO to reach beyond the boundaries of the traditional bank and offer better customer service. They discuss the value of entrepreneurship and ABN AMRO’s ongoing efforts to change the company culture to challenge their employees to think outside the box and work more like entrepreneurs, no small feat in such a giant organisation! Jason also asks her for her views on fintech and challenger banks – does she see them as a threat? They also discuss her thoughts on digitisation in banking – is it almost complete or barely

In this episode Simon and Aden are joined by regulars Ghela and Sarah for the news. This week we discuss all things politics on both sides of the pond, especially THAT Dodd Frank legislation repeal proposed by Trump, that seems to have flown slightly under the radar while we were all looking the other way, watching Comey’s testimony- and what this would mean for banks and their customers if it happens. Also on the table is the UK election result and the potential “Brexit dilemma”: other European fintech hubs could take the talent and budget away from London – will London fight back? They also tackle whether it’s possible for incumbents to ever truly become fintech firms, or will innovation always get bogged down in middle management? On the flipside is Coinbase, who has just achieved unicorn status with their latest valuation – is it a game-changer to have a cryptocurrency firm inducted into unicornland? The team also debate whether it’s a big deal that Apple have announced a peer-to-peer payment serv

In this episode Jason and Simon catch up with ABN AMRO’s Freek de Steenwinkel & Roland Booijen, and Ali Niknam, CEO of Dutch challenger bank, Bunq to discuss traditional banking vs challenger banks and fintech in the Netherlands. Are fintechs competing with incumbents or assisting incumbents? They find out how our guests feel about hackathons, hiring developer talent, APIs and the up-coming PSD2 directive. They also discuss regulations, compliance and new product development, in particular ABN AMRO’s Tikkie – an easy-to-use payment management tool, allowing peer to peer transfers via WhatsApp. Freek, Roland and Ali also give their predictions on the future of the Dutch fintech market as a whole, and its impact on existing banks and financial products. Guests Freek de Steenwinkel – Lead Product owner Tikkie (ABN AMRO) Roland Booijen –  Director of Digital Strategy & Innovation – ABN AMRO Ali Niknam – CEO of Bunq Enjoying FinTech Insider? Tell a friend about us and please leave us a revie

In this episode David interviews Paul Lipman, CEO of Bullguard, the consumer cyber security experts. Following very topical compromises of ransomware around the world, Paul explains how Bullguard are always fighting a constant battle with the “bad guys” to stay ahead of cyber threats to protect their customers across all their devices. We learn how institutions are still too reliant on old software, exposing their vulnerability and that “patching up” fixes are not enough. Paul reminds us that any software can be hacked and that cyber security education across all businesses and industries is paramount as often it’s us humans that let the side down, no matter how secure the internal systems are! Paul also discusses his new product, Dojo by Bullguard, a smart home security solution that is designed to protect all your smart devices in the home from being compromised and inadvertently sharing your data to unwanted third parties; and the Dojo Pebble, a notification device that updates you on the data secur

In this episode In the third of our three part Blockchain Special, Simon and Colin are joined by some very special guests to discuss EEA, ZCash and the potential similarities between blockchain and the rise of cryptocurrencies and the dot-com bubble in the 90s, and asks the question: “Why should we be paying attention?”. They also debate the anonymity of blockchain and user privacy; and centralisation vs decentralisation in blockchain APIs – do we still need the middle man? In the second half they discuss highly topical news stories such as the EU’s pledge to invest in blockchain research and Theresa May’s proposal for greater internet security and access to public data – is she asking for the impossible?  Like what you heard? Look out for Blockchain Insider – a dedicated podcast to all things blockchain, coming soon! Guests Jack Gavigan – COO at Z-Cash (The Zerocoin Electric Coin Company) Alex Batlin – Co-Founder at Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and Global Head of Emerging Business & Technology