FinTexcellent‪™‬ FinTexcellent

In Episode 9 of FinTexcellent™, Joakim Sjöblom, CEO & Founder @Minna Technologies discusses societies shift towards the "Subscription Economy". (22/10/20)

In this podcast Joakim joins us from Minna Technologies HQ in Gothenburg, Sweden, to share his passion for  the future of digital banking and how Minna are helping to enable Retail Banks to deliver the next generation of digital banking experiences, and increase the pace of digital transformation. 

Minna's technology suite currently reaches more than 20 million end users  (as at October 2020) through partnerships with major Tier 1 banks. Minna's mission is to bring power to the modern consumer by enabling effortless banking in a subscription economy. Where the subscription life cycle can be managed and controlled through 1 single convenient channel on your mobile.

Why did he start Minna?

Joakim has been running Tech ventures for the past 9 years and has been in Fintech for 6 years. Minna is the 3rd company that he has started, with the common thread being that he experienced personal consumer experience problems that he then has a habit of jumping to solutions.  

In the case of Minna, in 2013, he realised that he was starting to subscribe to a lot of different things e.g. Netflix and Spotify, or even diapers and razor blades - with subscriptions being the new normal. 

Whats different and unique about Minna?

A key difference at Minna is the amount of time, effort and investment they make in to finding the best talent to join the journey.  Minna's product mission is to take Insights in to Actions. e.g. it's quite easy to track and see what subscriptions you are paying for today through PSD2 Open Banking. But Minna's proposition adds layers on top of this such as cancelling your gym membership or your broadband contract for example, or even help to switch your telco/energy provider for you.  So its a seamless 1-click experience for you to save time and money. 

To find out more about what Joakim and Minna do, visit:

https://minnatechnologies.com/

In Episode 8 of FinTexcellent™, Rupert Barksfield, COO & Co-Founder of Pynk discusses from his "Man Shed" at the bottom of his garden during lockdown (11/09/20) how Pynk uses the power of AI and 'Crowd Wisdom' to beat the market on their social investment platform. Believed to be the worlds first Crowd Wisdom 0% fee managed portfolio.

A frank, humble and honest interview with Rupert, who always felt, even from a very young age at school when making deals with his school chums, that he was always destined to become an entrepreneur. Where he went on to take his first advertising agency client that nobody wanted at the time: Android from 0% to 62% market share.  

Whilst looking for something else, In early 2018, Rupert joined the Founder Institute where he went on to meet his Co-Founder at Pynk (Seth Ward). Seth had the core idea of Pynk, which is essentially taking the traditional Hedge Fund , and giving the power and control of that Hedge Fund back to the people. 

Pynk's principle idea is to combine all of the portfolio management ideas together of the crowd, and build a system to decide who to work with and who not to, so that everybody gets a portfolio that works "the best". 

Rupert shares his view where he believes we are now nearing the end of the Fintech Revolution and starting what he refers to as Fintech 2.0 

Where Fintech 1.0 is replicating an old existing system online, taking those archaic systems and bringing them up to date. e.g. a high street bank to a Revolut (which is a bit large a digital version of a traditional bricks and mortar bank). 

Now with Fintech 2.0, we have to change things up, we have to make it better and different disruptive products for people. Such as more niche banks that support you as an individual. For example going back to a community bank feel albeit with a more digital layout, for example a skills based bank community. Where specific products can be built through specialist understanding. 

Ruperts biggest piece of advice: "don't be satisfied". For example for too long we have been satisfied with whatever the high street banks have given us. Whereas there are tonnes of other options now so you don't need to just accept what you are given.

Visit: https://www.pynk.io/

Pynk is a Social Investment platform and is believed to be the Worlds first Crowd Wisdom 0% fee managed portfolio. Allowing contributors to grow their wealth, financial understanding and confidence. By using Crowd Wisdom and AI to beat the market and shape a fairer future for all.

See Pynks Award Winning FinTech PitchOff video: 

https://www.funderbeam.com/syndicate/pynk/

In Episode 7 of FinTexcellent™, Georg Ramstad, Head of Open Banking sales at Nets in Norway, discusses the opportunities to companies in Open Banking (recorded 4th Sep 2020, during the pandemic, from Georges cellar in Norway :) 

In 2016, Georg quickly realised the huge potential of Open Banking in the industry. Today he is responsible for international sales and business development for Nets Open Banking initiative. Georg sees open banking as a marathon, not a sprint, and could take the better part of 10 years before we really start to see  the BIG influence of open banking. 

Georg would say the biggest lesson in his career so far, would be to find something that you really enjoy and stick with it, and of course that it helps if its something with a global movement like open banking can help innovate services in the finance industry. Where the Nordics are one of the most progressive geographies in payments. Where collaboration across banks, and a compact population as helped to advance in this segment. 

Future trends:

For future trends, without realising, payments form part of almost everything we do, every day, so what can we do to make that experience as frictionless as possible. And that is something that will continue to drive us forwards. Combined with finding ways to use information of payment habits / payment history fore more than just advertising with say Google and Facebook. How can we make better decisions? How can we create better experiences? 

e.g., if saving with an account to buy a bicycle in the future, what if the bank actually knew that and could help nearer the time to help you to get the best deal at the time, e.g. best price, where to get it, checking out personal ads. (Proactive banking help, instead of reactive banking e.g. if you look like you are going to become overdrawn.

Georg's advice:

We are living in a "beta age", don't wait for perfection, go out there and test it. O start doing stuff otherwise somebody else will before you given the pace of new innovations.

More Info on Nets:

At Nets, they deliver great payments, a great network and great ideas, carried out by great people. As a Nordic FinTech company specialised in powering digital payments, Nets connect banks, businesses, the public sector and consumers via an international network facilitating digital payments.

To find out more visit here:  http://www.nets.eu

Twitter: @netsgroup

Contact Georg:

You can find Georg and more of his content here:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgolavramstad/

Gerog's videos: https://vimeo.com/fintalk

In Episode 6 of FinTexcellent™, Katharina Lueth, VP Europe at Raisin (and Chairwoman of Raisin UK) discusses how she transitioned from a classical financial services consulting background from McKinsey and took the plunge in to what was a less well known Fintech world at the time, just 6 months in to Raisin's formation. 

As she knew there was a 1st class management team in place and because she was truly convinced of the idea of what Raisin was about, in making better savings and investment products accessible to people across Europe and beyond.

Katharina is an advocate of Resilience and a certain degree of internal optimism as key characteristics to her success. As in life, (and certainly in startup life) things rarely ever really go the way you plan them to. So you need to make the best of the things that are thrown at you.

Raisin means ("Raise Your Interest") which summaries exactly what Raisin are about, to provide savings and investment products to clients without barriers, and across borders. e.g. why would it be difficult (in a European Union) for a German saver to open a Savings account in Italy if that account offers you better interest rates. 

Making what is a legal possibility, much more practical and less difficult. (e.g., overcoming language barriers and difficulties of meeting in person). And now even extended to the US and across the world.

Two Big Customer Trends currently (Sep 2020):

1) due to covid/lockdown, has accelerated digital across the board to a whole new segment of new clients now banking online. And have continued to use this convenience even after restrictions have fallen. 

2. Extra Push in innovation - Willingness from Banks and Regulators to have fully online processes, getting rid of paperwork in a few short months, quicker than in the last 6 years before

Katharina's role so far:

Raisin VP Europe Katharina Lueth has overseen the deposit marketplace’s successful expansion beyond Germany into the rest of the European Union since 2014, with country platforms launched in Spain, France, Ireland, and the Netherlands along with a dot com platform covering all other EU markets. 

To date (September 2020) Raisin has brokered 25.5 billion euro for 275,000 customers all over Europe, to nearly 100 partner banks in 25+ EEA countries, earning those customers competitive yields despite sustained low interest rates in much of Europe. Katharina also directed Raisin’s distribution partnerships – with financial institutions and platforms that integrate the marketplace – as Raisin grew from a new startup through the end of 2018. For more visit: https://www.raisin.com/about-raisin/

Twitter: @raisin_en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/join-raisin/about/

In Episode 5 of FinTexcellent™, Yoav Dror, the CEO & Co-Founder of PumaPay Decentralised Vision, discusses with us how he entered the Fintech industry, as well as some more controversial challenges such as payments in the higher risk online industries such as the "Adult Entertainment Industry", Casino's etc.

You can visit PumaPay and find out more about the first ever comprehensive crypto payment solution for businesses here: https://pumapay.io

PumaPays pull technology reverses the standard crypto payment transaction of pushing funds from the sender to the receiver. Instead with the pull payment technology, PumaPay reverses this relationship and allows the receiver to ask for authorisation from the sender, and has the receiver initiating the transaction.

This technology opens the door to transactions that are common in our daily lives, and especially online, like recurring payments, top-ups, one click and direct debit etc etc.

Enabling payment methodologies that were not possible on the blockchain before.

Simply put, the essence of crypto is "who is controlling the funds".

The biggest revolution that crypto blockchain brings, is giving full control to people over their own funds, without restriction.

To find out more visit:

https://pumapay.io

Twitter: @PumaPay

Joao Cardoso De Jesus - Co-Founder & CEO of Lovys - Re-Imagining Insurance, Episode 4 of FinTexcellent™ (recorded 31/8/20)

Based in Paris, Visit Lovys here: https://www.lovys.fr/

At Lovys (Techstars Paris '17),  they are creating a new concept of all-in-one-insurance, enabling people to a have simple interface for all their protection needs from onboarding to claims and to pay a single monthly subscription instead of today's cumbersome mix of policies.

Joao speaks about his career so far, where he left London to go to Brazil where he disrupted the industry and started the first comparison website for insurance products. Talking about his role today as CEO and Founder of Lovys, he describes his main objective of the role as unlocking the full potential of the people of the team, and to really make sure that Lovys as a company, gives employees a platform to shine. Similar to that of a coach in a football team.

Biggest career lesson: when you are a startup and a CEO your role really changes from maximising your performance, to maximising the performance of a team. You are no longer just concerned about your output. 

#1 Unique point about Lovys: "our culture = our brand" - "why we as a team are bigger than the sum of its parts"

The Future of the industry - it used to be about seeing new tech and gadgets, now innovation is quite different.  e.g. the growth Tech companies like Uber and Airbnb, the tech is not truly disruptive as it was already there. Instead the innovation came more from their entrepreneurs leveraging existing technologies and creating new business models that until then were not possible or difficult to execute before.

At Lovys, similarly, they are leveraging existing technology, to re-invent insurance in this new language. Deploying a subscription model to this "Protection" category in your life. i.e. a Single provider through a single App, which is 'magical' for us as users. And that is the transition that Lovys want to make. 

#1 Message: we have an inherent problem as human beings where we tend to see this status quo as a permanent situation. I.e. need to look at and ask ourselves what is next, e.g. what does covid mean in 6 months time or 1 years time. 

And how Chris Martin in the Cold Play documentary before they became huge, summarises how they feel at Lovys today, to achieve great things in the future. But importantly to enjoy the journey and ride today as opposed to just achieving the end destination and goal. Lovys is a combined dream, not just Joao's dream, which is what makes it so much fun for everyone.