Griffin Uncut | Fintech & Banking Podcast

Griffin Bank
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Business
  • Updated weekly

Behind the scenes at Griffin: casual conversations with fintech founders, operators, and builders shaping the future of banking and financial services. From embedded finance and API-first infrastructure to regulatory challenges and growth strategies, we talk to the people building financial products about what actually works (and what doesn't). Featuring Griffin team members, customers, partners, and founders we find really interesting. If you're building or scaling in fintech or just curious about how modern banking infrastructure gets built, this is the podcast for you.

  1. 1 Jul

    042: Co-CEOs of ANNA Money Boris Diakonov & Eduard Panteleev on building for small businesses

    Boris Diakonov and Eduard Panteleev built Tochka, a unicorn SME bank used by one in every five businesses in Russia. Then they moved to the UK and built ANNA Money. Before any of that, Eduard was a diplomat and Boris was a webmaster who accidentally landed a job at a bank. In this episode, Griffin's CEO David Jarvis sits down with the ANNA Money co-founders to talk about why small businesses fall between two worlds: too complex for consumer banking, too small for corporate banking. Nobody was building for them properly. So they did. They discuss the product journey from a broken MVP (payments sent in batches five times a day, nothing working on Saturdays or Sundays) to 50,000+ active monthly customers. The meowing card that got picked up by Wired. Why they chose Australia as their first international market. And what ANNA V3 looks like: an operating system for running a small business, not just another subscription. Plus: using AI to fight fraud by grilling cafe owners about coffee beans, why Boris deliberately ignores Eduard's competitor research messages, and the challenge of running a startup within a startup within a startup. What we cover: Eduard's journey from diplomat to fintech founder Boris accidentally landing a job at a bank (rejected by a telco) Why they kept coming back to SME over consumer or enterprise Building Tochka (a unicorn) with every fifth Russian business as a customer ANNA's MVP: The worst kind, but it had to start somewhere The meowing card that went viral on Wired Going from 3,000 to 50,000 active customers (no silver bullet) Building a startup within a startup within a startup Why forms make people die inside (and AI conversations don't) Using AI to detect fraud through business knowledge questions Why they chose Australia over France (the food argument) Advanced AI models not being available natively in Australia ANNA V3: An operating system for small businesses The savings account partnership with Griffin Why ANNA tested the Griffin relationship with savings before committing to more Griffin Uncut is Griffin's podcast featuring conversations with fintech founders and industry leaders building the future of financial services. Links: ANNA Money: https://anna.money Griffin: https://griffin.com Griffin Uncut: https://griffin.com/podcast Griffin Sandbox: https://app.griffin.com/register #SMEBanking #Fintech #GriffinUncut #ANNAMoney #SmallBusiness #EmbeddedBanking #StartupStory

    042: Co-CEOs of ANNA Money Boris Diakonov & Eduard Panteleev on building for small businesses

  2. 16 Jun

    041: Money20/20 Europe 2026 roundup with Oliver Smith, Head of Content

    Money 20/20 Europe 2026 is a wrap! One week after the fun in Amsterdam, Mo sits down with Oliver Smith (Olly), the Head of Content for Money 20/20, to get the behind-the-scenes debrief on where fintech is headed and how one of the world's biggest fintech shows actually comes together. If 2025 was all about the future-facing hype of AI and stablecoins, 2026 was the year the industry brought the receipts. In this episode, Mo and Olly unpack the major shifts from the show floor, how the megatrends of AI and stablecoins are moving into practical reality, and why "trust" remains the most important currency in finance. Here is what we dive into: - From hype to reality: how global rollouts from the likes of MoneyGram and Kraken proved that stablecoins and agentic AI are no longer just "word salad" buzzwords — they are foundational financial infrastructure. - The "festivalization" of business: why the traditional corporate conference is no more, and how intimate spaces like the new Money Lab stage are fostering peer-to-peer learning. - The 12-month playbook: Olly pulls back the curtain on how a small content team uses deep industry research and an open "Call for Content" to predict what will be on everyone's mind a year from now. - From City AM to the mainstage: Olly reflects on his 12 years in financial journalism, standing in Monzo's scrappy first office in 2015, and how the mobile movement has finally put financial control back into the hands of everyday users. Whether you were on the ground in Amsterdam or missed the announcements, this episode is your essential look at everything that happened at the 2026 Money20/20 in Europe.

    041: Money20/20 Europe 2026 roundup with Oliver Smith, Head of Content

  3. 3 Jun

    040: When competitors become community | Tony Craddock, Founder Payments Association

    Tony Craddock founded The Payments Association in 2012 (originally the Emerging Payments Association). Today it has 350+ members across UK, Europe, Asia, US, and Africa who collectively transact £5.2 trillion annually. In this episode, Tony shares his journey from selling gift cards to building one of the world's most influential payments communities. He explains how he pitched with a PowerPoint containing four logos (one real member, one small investor, one fabricated, one his lawyer), didn't earn money for years while building critical mass, and eventually created network effects so strong that members can't afford to leave. We discuss the art of catching waves (too early = quiet, too late = missed it), why stablecoins + AI + digital identity converging together matters more than any single technology, and how The Payments Association creates collaboration among direct competitors. Plus: getting defrauded for £250k by his CTO, the mentor who taught him to "leave a shadow," and why international trade friction costs 3-7% of the global economy. Tony also shares how the democratic pricing model works (everyone pays the same regardless of company size), the 200 volunteers shaping policy through working groups, the Nineteen Group partnership, and his new podcast "Out of the Blue."

    040: When competitors become community | Tony Craddock, Founder Payments Association

  4. 20 May

    039: Making Tax heavenly (actually!) | Raunaq Bose, CEO TaxHeaven

    Raunaq Bose went from building AI for self-driving cars to creating TaxHeaven, a free Making Tax Digital platform for UK sole traders and landlords. He built it solo using AI coding agents - and now has 3000+ users. In this Griffin Uncut episode, Raunaq explains how he used Claude Code and Cursor to build HMRC-approved tax software, why test-driven development is critical when working with coding agents, and how he spent two days on cloud animations to make tax software that doesn't look vibe-coded. We discuss the acquisition of his first startup (Humanising Autonomy) and how he built TaxHeaven as a side project to solve his own tax problem. Plus: why "vibe-coded" feels like a slur when you've put real care into design, the difference between prototyping and production-grade code, and what's next for multimodal AI. Raunaq also shares his journey from mechanical engineering to AI, meeting co-founders at the Royal College of Art, and why future businesses won't even know what a UI looks like. What we cover: Building AI for self-driving cars (pre-ChatGPT era) Why Humanising Autonomy got acquired by Nextbase The 12-hour sleep recovery post-acquisition How Making Tax Digital (MTD) works and why it matters Building TaxHeaven solo with AI coding agents Why test-driven development is critical with AI Design systems vs vibe-coding (and why design builds trust) Getting HMRC approval for tax software 3,000+ users in under a year PRDs (Product Requirements Documents) for LLMs Why expertise still matters in the AI era Lovable for prototyping → Cursor/Claude Code for production What's next: Serving tradespeople and partnering with accountants The future of UX: Multimodal, gestural, conversational interfaces Griffin Uncut is Griffin's podcast featuring conversations with fintech founders, builders, and industry leaders shaping the future of financial services. Links: TaxHeaven: https://taxheaven.app Griffin: https://griffin.com Griffin Uncut: https://griffin.com/podcast #TaxHeaven #MakingTaxDigital #AI #CodingAgents #ClaudeCode #FinTech #GriffinUncut #AIEngineering #SelfDrivingCars #WorldModels #ProductDesign

    039: Making Tax heavenly (actually!) | Raunaq Bose, CEO TaxHeaven

  5. 11 May

    038: Building the trust layer for agentic payments | Ghali Bennani Laafiret, CEO Ralio

    Ghali and the team at Ralio are building the trust layer for agentic payments - solving the problem of how businesses can safely let AI agents initiate and execute payments without human oversight.In this episode, Ghali explains what agentic payments actually are (payments initiated by non-deterministic AI, not humans or configured software), why the timing matters, and how Ralio sits between agent builders and payment providers to abstract complexity on both sides.We discuss the three categories of agentic payments: - consumer (agent e-commerce), - agent-to-agent (microtransactions for tools and content) - business payments (invoice processing, payroll). Ghali shares why they're focused on business payments, how they discovered the problem, and why agents need different infrastructure than traditional software.Plus: the reality of AI agents going rogue (retrying payments 5 times to be helpful), why you can't just give Claude your bank account access, and why raising money just means 10x harder challenges ahead.Ghali also shares meeting his co-founder at Antler, why future businesses won't even know what a UI looks like, and the seasons of agentic payments evolution.

    038: Building the trust layer for agentic payments | Ghali Bennani Laafiret, CEO Ralio

  6. 21 Apr

    037: Building culture intentionally | David Jarvis, CEO & Jenna Baker, CPO at Griffin

    In this episode of Griffin Uncut, Jenna Baker, Griffin's Chief People Officer, joins David Jarvis to talk about how we're building Griffin's culture intentionally and why that matters more than most founders realise. We discuss why we codified our values before hiring our first employee, how remote-first culture works at scale (nearly 10 years in), and what it means to run a high-trust, high-autonomy organisation where people are treated like adults. This chat also covers face-to-face feedback circles, the keeper test for distinguishing good performance from transformative impact, what happens when you design a company you'd actually want to work for, and why "we're not here to fu*k spiders" (Australian for: we're here to do serious work). What we cover: What culture actually means (who we are + how we work)Why Griffin codified values before hiring anyone Designing culture deliberately vs. ending up with whatever you get Remote-first for 10 years: rituals, off-sites, and all-hands High autonomy, high trust: treating people like adults The expense card test (£2k/month, one rule: justify it) Performance culture: significant, solid, inconsistent, transformative Why transformative impact is nearly impossible to sustainFeedback circles: giving feedback face-to-face in the room Type X vs Type Y companies (distrust vs trust) Why personality hires can also be high performers Culture evolves as the business evolves The keeper test and high performance expectations Griffin Uncut is Griffin's podcast featuring conversations about building in fintech, from founder journeys to the messy reality of scaling regulated businesses. Book recommendations: Essentialism by Greg McKeown Powerful by Patty McCord Crucial conversations by Kerry Patterson et al. Unreasonable hospitality by Will Guidara Too big to fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin Links: Griffin: https://griffin.comGriffin Culture: https://griffin.com/cultureGriffin Careers: https://griffin.com/careers Griffin Uncut: https://griffin.com/podcast #Culture #RemoteWork #HighPerformance #StartupCulture #Griffin #GriffinUncut #PeopleOps #Leadership #FinTech #CompanyCulture

    037: Building culture intentionally | David Jarvis, CEO & Jenna Baker, CPO at Griffin

  7. 14 Apr

    036: CEO Round Treasury, Pac O'Shea on fixing treasury management with AI agents

    Pac O'Shea went from selling Vita Coco out of a van (and drinking all the samples) to building Round Treasury, the AI-powered finance operations platform automating treasury management for businesses. In this episode, Pac explains why treasury management is fundamentally broken: CFOs rank yield as a 2 out of 5 priority, but ensuring cash is in the right place for payroll? That's a 5. Missing a drawdown deadline means being four days late for payroll or paying £10k for early release. Round automates all of it. We talk about AI agents that don't hallucinate your finances (deterministic execution for money movement), why 95% of investor advice is bad, and how Pac built 100+ customers with a team of 11 by obsessively talking to customers before writing a single line of code. Plus: dropping out of university with the Provost's written permission, turning down Switzerland because chicken fillets were too expensive, pivoting two weeks before demo day, and why 10% of Round's customers are also investors in the business. What we cover: Why treasury management keeps CFOs up on Sunday nights How Round's AI agents automate liquidity management without hallucinations The Vita Coco van origin story (employee #1 in Ireland) Why deterministic execution matters for finance automation Building with 5-10 customers before launch Getting regulated through creative rev-share deals 95% of investor advice is bad (and why Pac ignored it) Interviewing 180 developers to hire 3 Why customers became investors (10%+ ownership) Expanding to the US and targeting public companies Griffin Uncut is Griffin's podcast featuring conversations with the Griffin team, fintech founders and industry leaders building the future of financial services. Links: Griffin: https://griffin.com Griffin Uncut: https://griffin.com/podcast Griffin Sandbox: https://app.griffin.com/register #TreasuryManagement #AIAgents #FinTech #RoundTreasury #Griffin #Payroll #CFO #GriffinUncut #FinanceAutomation #StartupStories

    036: CEO Round Treasury, Pac O'Shea on fixing treasury management with AI agents

  8. 12 Mar

    035: No closing time with stablecoins | Mouloukou Sanoh, CEO Mansa

    On this episode of Griffin Uncut, Griffin's fintech and banking podcast, we sit down with Mouloukou Sanoh, founder of Mansa, the stablecoin payments company transforming cross-border money transfers. Mansa has processed over $400 million in stablecoin payments across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, making international transfers instant. Mouloukou explains how stablecoins solve the capital problem in cross-border payments and why he raised $100 million in credit facilities to keep liquidity always-on. We discuss the "stablecoin sandwich" (GBP → USDT → local currency), why payments is a capital game, and how Mansa uses stablecoin infrastructure to cut fees from 10% to a fraction. Plus: building during the crypto bear market, getting 100+ VC rejections before Tether invested, and why stablecoins should be called "digital dollars." Mouloukou shares his journey from crypto investment banking in Hong Kong to running a $100 million Web3 fund (AIDAverse) to founding Mansa with co-founder Nkiru, who previously worked at Swift. What we cover: How stablecoins fix broken cross-border payments The stablecoin sandwich: Converting GBP → USDT → local currencies Why Mansa has processed $400M+ across emerging markets The capital problem in international payments explained Stablecoin compliance and AML challenges 100+ VC rejections before Tether backing Why Kenya's M-Pesa beats UK payment systems Digital dollars vs stablecoins: The branding problem Interoperability between stablecoins and local payment rails About Griffin Uncut: Griffin Uncut is the podcast from Griffin, the UK bank for fintechs and platforms. We feature conversations with fintech founders, payments innovators, industry leaders and members of our team as we build the future of financial services. Griffin: https://griffin.com Mansa: https://www.mansafinance.co/ Griffin Uncut podcast: https://griffin.com/podcast #Stablecoins #Mansa #CrossBorderPayments #GriffinUncut #GriffinBank #FinTech #Remittance #USDT #Tether #EmergingMarkets #Payments #BlockchainPayments #DigitalDollars #FintechPodcast #EmbeddedFinance

    035: No closing time with stablecoins | Mouloukou Sanoh, CEO Mansa
See All (45)

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Behind the scenes at Griffin: casual conversations with fintech founders, operators, and builders shaping the future of banking and financial services. From embedded finance and API-first infrastructure to regulatory challenges and growth strategies, we talk to the people building financial products about what actually works (and what doesn't). Featuring Griffin team members, customers, partners, and founders we find really interesting. If you're building or scaling in fintech or just curious about how modern banking infrastructure gets built, this is the podcast for you.

Information