FINTECH UNPLUGGED FintechUnplugged

Robert and Suresh play host to podcast royalty as David Brear, CEO and co-founder, 11FS, joins them to discuss topics ranging from the origins of the business, his father’s career advice, when the challenger banks might start making any money and how to run a proper podcast.

Scott Abrahams, Group Head Acceptance and Emerging Payments, Mastercard, joins Robert and Suresh to discuss topic including how to spot a bad fintech idea, Facebook’s Libra, the environmental impact of cards, payments in China and advice for entrepreneurs looking to sell their businesses to a major payment scheme for a few billion.

Robert and Suresh are discussing the film Social Network and the history behind the Winklevoss twins. The boys decide to give Julian Sawyer a call to invite him onto Fintech Unplugged.

Julian discusses why his new role with Gemini, the crypto venture back by the Winklevoss twins, makes sense after Starling Bank. Julian reveals whether he has ever purchased anything with crypto currency, discusses stable coin and whether wall street has been ‘asleep at the wheel’ when it comes to crypto currency. We also find out why asking closed questions doesn’t make for good podcast conversation.

Robert and Suresh are off to the North West of England to catch a Stone Roses show. However, on their way they end up coming across an even bigger queue. They find out that the queue is made of 100s of students trying to get an appointment to open a bank account. The boys run into Muhammad Asim from Arro Money where he explains more about the situation.

Topics covered:
- How Asim started Arro Money and the lessons he's learnt
- The Fintech industry we are in today
- The struggles of opening up a bank account
- An exclusive announcement on Fintech Unplugged from Arro Money

Please note: This episode was recorded prior to the announcement by N26 that it intends exit the UK market.

In this special episode, Robert and Suresh are LIVE at Fintech Connect 2019 and managed to trick Georgina Smallwood, Chief Product Officer at N26, to talk about payments, the orgins of the N26 name and what the future holds to a jam packed audience.

Topics covered:
- Dispelling the N26 naming myths
- What the future holds for N26
- How and why trust is important for the banking industry, especially for challenger banks
- Product vs Marketing
- And much more

As Suresh educates Robert about cloud infrastructures and data centres, they happen to run into Neira Jones, Payments Advisor and International Speaker. The boys take the opportunity to talk to Neira about data breaches, cyber security and regulation.

Topics covered:
- Her career as one of the early female professionals in the payments and cyber security industry
- Data breaches and cyber security in the media
- Where regulation and compliance is heading
- What is dirty data and the opportunties it holds
- Cloud storage, fraud prevention and much more