Fintech Garden

Igor Tomych & Dumitru Condrea

Fintech Garden is a weekly podcast hosted by industry experts. Each episode dives into the latest in finance, banking, technology, and payments.

  1. What MENA gets right about open finance, with Dr. Samer Soliman | FG Podcast 160

    4d ago

    What MENA gets right about open finance, with Dr. Samer Soliman | FG Podcast 160

    Meet Dr. Samer Soliman, Group CEO of Arab Financial Services (AFS) — Bahrain's largest digital payments and fintech enabler, regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain, owned by 37 banks and financial institutions, and serving more than 70 clients across over 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa. He joined AFS as CEO in January 2021 after serving as Managing Director for the Middle East at Network International. He brings more than 25 years of international experience across banking and payments, and currently sits on the boards of Diners Club Egypt and Levant, AUB Acquiring, and the advisory board of UnionPay International, representing the Middle East. In this episode, Dr. Samer walks host Igor Tomych through what is actually happening with open banking and open finance across the MENA region — where adoption is driven by the regulator rather than the market, why the UAE Open Finance License is reshaping the competitive landscape, and what the Uber-equivalent moment looks like for financial services. The conversation covers the three near-term commercial use cases (payment initiation, credit scoring, financial planning), the structural problem of "garbage in, garbage out" in open banking data, the layered infrastructure dominance argument (Google, Apple, Musk/Starlink) applied to financial services, and what the marriage of AI and open finance actually unlocks. Dr. Samer Soliman also shares concrete advice on how fintechs should position themselves relative to incumbents — drawn from his own decision to build AFS's open finance platform now, even before it is profitable. Subscribe to the Fintech Garden Newsletter 👉 https://fintech.garden Timestamps: 01:00 – Open finance in MENA — UAE, Bahrain, and the regulator-led model 03:00 – Open finance vs open banking — and why scope matters 05:28 – Three near-term use cases: payment initiation, credit scoring, financial planning 08:20 – Who owns the customer in an open finance world? 10:30 – From custodial bank to financial services vendor 14:30 – Launching the UAE's first digital bank — "my bank" in the early 2000s 17:00 – Resistance from incumbents, and the value of regulator deadlines 20:13 – AI + open finance: when you marry them, "boom" 25:00 – Whoever knows the data first wins: the Bezos / Musk infrastructure layer 27:17 – Closing advice for fintechs: collaborate, don't rebuild from scratch The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, founder of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes. Follow us: https://fintech.garden Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com Connect with our hosts Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/ Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/

    29 min
  2. 80% of organised crime hides in corporate structures, with Adam McLaughlin | FG Podcast 159

    Jun 15

    80% of organised crime hides in corporate structures, with Adam McLaughlin | FG Podcast 159

    Meet Adam McLaughlin, Director of Financial Crime Product at Fenergo and one of the most operationally grounded voices in AML and financial crime today. Adam brings nearly twenty years of experience across law enforcement, banking, and compliance technology. He spent close to a decade as a UK police detective, including managing a financial crime investigation team at City of London Police — the UK's national lead force for economic crime — and was an operational member of the UK's Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Taskforce (JMLIT). He went on to lead corporate and institutional banking financial crime compliance in EMEA at JP Morgan, then served as Global Director of Financial Crime Strategy at NICE Actimize before joining Fenergo in late 2025 to lead its financial crime product line. In this episode, host Dumitru Condrea and Adam unpack what has actually changed in AML and financial crime over the last three to four years — and what hasn't. The regulatory frame is moving from "technical compliance" (do you have the systems, are you generating alerts) to "outcome-based" (are you actually stopping crime).Banks are still working through the legacy of siloed KYC systems. Information-sharing legislation is finally moving in Europe, Canada, and the US. Sanctions still matter, but the battleground has shifted to evasion through neutral countries. AI is genuinely useful — but use-case driven, not a silver bullet. And the honest answer to the question "are the good guys winning?" turns out to be: we're holding the line. Adam's view on what the next decade looks like — shared KYC databases, collaborative monitoring, real-time pattern analysis — closes the conversation. Subscribe to the Fintech Garden Newsletter 👉 https://fintech.garden AI agents are changing payment security, with Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer | FG Podcast x MPE 2026: https://youtu.be/8X2D57pAeR4 AI vs Fraud: Inside Device Fingerprinting with Catherine Woneis | Fintech Garden Episode 135: https://youtu.be/TiPQQItHgQk Timestamps: 01:00 – AML compliance over the last 10–15 years 04:00 – Tick-box compliance to outcome-based regulation (FATF) 06:00 – "Do I understand my customer?" — the foundational question 08:58 – The real gap: data, not technology 12:30 – Do we still need a sanctions list? 17:39 – DNFBPs: the professional services network around organised crime 20:46 – The "Escobar Ltd" anecdote 21:00 – Where is AI overhyped? 23:56 – Crypto: easier and harder to investigate at the same time 24:30 – The travel rule problem with decentralised currency 27:33 – The 10-year vision: collaborative, real-time, expensive (for criminals) The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, founder of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes Follow us: https://fintech.garden Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com Connect with our hosts and the guest: Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/ Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/ Adam McLaughlin https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-mclaughlin-4a269031/

    31 min
  3. Are banks becoming irrelevant in the AI era? With Theodora Lau | FG Podcast 158

    Jun 7

    Are banks becoming irrelevant in the AI era? With Theodora Lau | FG Podcast 158

    Meet Theodora Lau — founder of Unconventional Ventures, author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence (2025), co-author of The Metaverse Economy (2023) and Beyond Good (2021), and host of the One Vision podcast. Theo was named one of American Banker's Most Influential Women in FinTech, ranked No. 1 Women in Finance by Onalytica, and is a regular contributor to Forbes, FinTech Futures, BBC News, MIT Tech Review, and Harvard Business Review. Her work focuses on the intersection of financial services, technology, and humanity — particularly inclusion, longevity, and the populations that get left behind when industries restructure. In this episode, Theo and Igor unpack what the AI-native era actually means for digital banks. The conversation moves from Theo's own "iPhone moment" — buying the first-gen iPhone in 2007 and racking up $300 in roaming charges because she couldn't stop checking the weather app — to the harder, present-tense question: banks built their value around being the institution customers turn to. Today, 53% of US consumers consult AI tools for financial advice, and the entire conversation — user to frontier model — happens without the bank in the loop. What does an AI-native bank actually look like, what should banks do in the next two to three years, and what happens to the people the industry leaves behind? Episode with Brett King https://youtu.be/L_ghYX-whCg Customers now have all the tools, with Theodora Lau | FG x Finovate Europe 2026: https://youtu.be/u6EroRKGd1M Timestamps: 00:42 – Topic framing: digital banks in the AI-native era 04:00 – Intent and context: what banks know vs. what they need to know 06:58 – What banks should do in the next two to three years 09:00 – Data strategy, system updates, and organizational change 13:00 – Trust as guardrails: the highway analogy 13:25 – What does an AI-native bank actually look like? 15:00 – Where AI should not replace humans: wealth, credit, regulator-facing decisions 17:00 – The Wells Fargo phone-call culture and the "do I want to talk to a bot?" debate 19:37 – Why people call credit union call centers and it's not for answers 20:30 – The big shift: banks becoming irrelevant in AI conversations 22:00 – Who owns the new "street"? Apple, Anthropic, OpenAI? 23:32 – 53% of US consumers consult AI for financial advice (JD Power) 25:00 – From SEO to GEO: the wild west of AI-native discovery 27:00 – Who's getting left behind? 28:30 – Layoffs, shareholder value, and the human cost The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, founder of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes. Follow us: https://fintech.garden Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com Connect with our hosts and guest: Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/ Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/ Theodora Lau https://www.linkedin.com/in/theodoralau/

    29 min
  4. Why your next banker will be an AI, with Brett King | FG Podcast 157

    Jun 1

    Why your next banker will be an AI, with Brett King | FG Podcast 157

    Meet Brett King — futurist, four-time bestselling author of the Bank series (2.0 through 4.0, with Bank 5.0 coming in November), founder of Moven, and host of Breaking Banks, the longest-running and most-listened-to fintech podcast in the world. Brett was named #1 on Fintech Magazine's Fintech Influencer list this year; Fintech Garden host Igor Tomych came in at #9 on the same list. Brett also co-founded LumaBrush AI, an AI-powered smart toothbrush with an intraoral camera for at-home oral health monitoring, and recently published Branch Today, Gone Tomorrow, a new edition of his thesis on the disappearing bank branch. In this episode, the conversation looks ten years forward. The challenger bank revolution is largely over — the top 20 retail fintechs now have 4.1 billion customers between them, up 200% in five years, while the top 20 traditional retail banks grew just 3% in the same period. The next shift, Brett argues, is bigger: the banking app itself disappears. The primary interface to financial services becomes a personal AI. Products dissolve into contextual utility. Trust migrates from brand to utility. And by the 2040s, the role of money in its current form starts to decline. Timestamps: 01:27 – The challenger bank revolution: 4.1B customers and 200% growth 03:51 – Why digital banks won: CAC under $1, UX, and onboarding in minutes 06:48 – The next interface: your personal AI replaces the banking app 10:18 – Will OpenAI inherit the customer relationship from Apple and Google? 12:14 – Bank 1.0 through 5.0: Brett's framework for banking evolution 15:53 – Will we hit human-level AI in the next ten years? 20:42 – The payments future: real-time rails, stablecoins, and CBDCs 24:17 – Why trust has moved from brand to utility 27:30 – Data control as the next foundational layer 28:57 – Bank 5.0 (November) and LumaBrush AI The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, founder of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes. Follow us: https://fintech.garden Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com Connect with our hosts and guest: Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/ Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/ Brett King https://www.linkedin.com/in/brettking/

    31 min
  5. cVRP explained: open banking's challenge to cards and direct debit, with David Parker

    May 25

    cVRP explained: open banking's challenge to cards and direct debit, with David Parker

    Meet David Parker, founder and CEO of Polymath Consulting, Lead Ambassador to The Payments Association, co-founder of Konsentus, and one of the most active commentators on UK and global payments. With 20 years working across cards, e-money, prepaid, and emerging payments — and a reputation for asking the questions employed panelists are not allowed to ask — David brings a sharp, operator-level view of where open banking and recurring payments are actually heading. In this episode, the focus is on cVRP — Commercial Variable Recurring Payments — the UK scheme designed to compete with both card-on-file and direct debit. David walks through Phase 1 and Phase 2 economics, why utilities and charities are leading adoption, how cVRP's user controls structurally beat card-on-file, the integration reality for merchants, the open debate about which merchants count as "safe," and what's happening globally with Pix, Wero, and the next wave of alternative payments. CBDC: What you need you know? | Fintech Garden Podcast 155: https://youtu.be/H1MSjbLdlZ4 Why merchant leaders ignore 90% of fintech trends, with David Parker | FG Podcast x MPE 2026: https://youtu.be/XPebDDKS8ys Timestamps: 01:37 – From promise to performance: where cVRP sits today 06:22 – Push vs pull: why card networks didn't build these controls 07:55 – What merchants gain in Phase 1 13:00 – Customer experience: consent management inside the banking app 15:28 – Why utilities care: AIS pre-checks fix the broken 25% of direct debits 19:15 – Phase 2 and the "who counts as safe" debate 23:00 – Global view: Pix, Wero, and concentration vs fragmentation 24:36 – Why stablecoins remain a B2B story The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, founder of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes. Follow us: https://fintech.garden Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com Connect with our host: Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/ Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/

    27 min
  6. CBDC: What you need you know? | Fintech Garden Podcast 155

    May 18

    CBDC: What you need you know? | Fintech Garden Podcast 155

    In this episode of the Fintech Garden Podcast, hosts Igor Tomych and Dumitru Condrea unpack one of the most important — and most misunderstood — shifts coming to European money: Central Bank Digital Currencies. There is no guest this time. The episode is an explainer designed to give listeners a structured grounding in CBDCs before the topic dominates fintech conversations over the next two to three years. The conversation starts with a simple framing: €100 can already exist in five different forms — cash, retail bank balance, e-money institution balance, stablecoin, and CBDC — and each one operates under a completely different model of custody, regulation, and trust. From there, the hosts cover the wholesale vs retail CBDC distinction, the geopolitical context driving Europe's response to US stablecoin policy, the digital euro timeline, GDPR's role as Europe's differentiator, the implications for Visa and Mastercard, and the engineering challenge of making CBDC work offline. Timestamps: 01:06 – The five forms of €100, explained 04:27 – Five countries with live CBDCs, and the wholesale vs retail split 09:32 – The digital euro: timeline, geopolitics, and the US stablecoin pivot 13:00 – Why CBDC could disrupt Visa and Mastercard 17:07 – The hardest question: how CBDC works offline 19:50 – Device-to-device payments, cryptographic signing, and double-spend prevention 22:41 – The Diners Club parallel and what happens during a blackout The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, founder of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes. Follow us: https://fintech.garden Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com Connect with our hosts: Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/ Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/

    24 min
  7. European payments enter execution mode: PSD3, Wero, DORA, with Andréa Toucinho | FG Podcast 154

    May 11

    European payments enter execution mode: PSD3, Wero, DORA, with Andréa Toucinho | FG Podcast 154

    Meet Andréa Toucinho, Director of Studies, Prospective and Training at Partelya Consulting — one of Europe's most established voices on payments and innovative financial services. She is Country Ambassador for France at the European Women Payments Network (EWPN), France Representative of AEFI Spain and AFIP Portugal, and co-author of The PAYTech Book (Wiley, 2020). She publishes an annual whitepaper on European payments and regularly contributes to industry forums on regulation, instant payments, open banking, and European sovereignty. In this episode, Andréa maps where European payments are today: a market moving from accumulated legislation to operational execution, from political ambition to concrete infrastructure. The conversation covers three concurrent evolutions — technology, regulation, and sovereignty — and what each means for banks, fintechs, and operators building in the European ecosystem. Subscribe to the Fintech Garden Newsletter 👉 https://fintech.garden Digital euro is not crypto. It is digital cash, with Rainer Olt | Fintech Garden Podcast 145: https://youtu.be/nF3zZ1BCVMo Timestamps: 01:42 – Where European payments are today: three concurrent evolutions 06:00 – Why collaboration across stakeholders is now structural 11:00 – Beyond cards: instant payments as the "new normal" 14:00 – Wero, EuroPA, and the rise of European wallets 17:00 – SEPA Direct Debit and country-by-country trust differences 22:00 – Country-specific fraud patterns and the role of AI 25:00 – DORA and operational resilience 30:00 – PSD3, open banking harmonization, and the path to open finance 33:00 – Can Europe deliver? Sovereignty as execution The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, founder of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes. Follow us: https://fintech.garden Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com Connect with our hosts and guest: Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/ Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/ Andréa Toucinho https://www.linkedin.com/in/andr%C3%A9a-toucinho-95102597/

    35 min
  8. Why behavioral science is the missing layer in fintech, with Anna Nyvelt & Noemi Molnar | Fintech Garden Podcast 153

    May 4

    Why behavioral science is the missing layer in fintech, with Anna Nyvelt & Noemi Molnar | Fintech Garden Podcast 153

    Meet Anna Nyvelt and Noemi Molnar, who are the co-founders of BeHive, a company that integrates behavioral science, data, and AI to drive meaningful behavior change. Working with leading financial institutions, BeHive tackles complex challenges at the intersection of human decision-making and technology. As Forbes 30 Under 30 honorees, they are empowering the financial industry to better understand and influence how people engage with money in an increasingly digital world. In this episode, the conversation moves from the foundations of behavioral science to the specific reasons it has become decisive in fintech: digital money is more abstract, payment journeys are more frictionless, and the unconscious drivers behind 35,000 daily decisions now sit at the center of how products convert, retain, and either help or harm their users. Anna and Noemi unpack the perceived value framework, psychographic segmentation in banking, the COM-B model, the Save More Tomorrow program, the Monzo and Revolut case studies, and where embedded finance crosses from elegant design into dark pattern territory. If you build, fund, regulate, or market financial products, this is one of the most practical episodes we've recorded on what behavioral science actually changes inside a product team. Product vs Engineering: The Hidden Bottleneck in Fintech Teams | Fintech Garden Podcast 152: https://youtu.be/iUuqZkRpals Fintechs sell products. Banks absorb responsibility, with Ronel David | Fintech Garden Podcast 148: https://youtu.be/jq6QuFP7Az8 Timestamps: 01:07 – What behavioral science actually is, and why it matters now 05:12 – What traditional product thinking misses 11:27 – Why financial services is uniquely sensitive to behavioral influence 14:48 – Designing for the unconscious: Monzo, Save More Tomorrow, gamification 18:22 – Beyond demographics: the COM-B model and psychographic segmentation 20:59 – The Revolut case: control, perception, and translation 26:41 – Embedded finance and the pain of payment 29:26 – Strategic friction, dark patterns, and the regulatory lag 31:42 – Where product and engineering teams should start 33:19 – Closing thoughts on trust and long-term thinking The Fintech Garden is hosted by Igor Tomych, founder and CEO of DashDevs, and Dumitru Condrea, CEO of Novafin. All conversations revolve around the world of fintech, movers and shakers, and how decisions are made. Make sure to tune in to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to how the world of finance is evolving before our eyes. Follow us: https://fintech.garden Check out DashDevs: https://dashdevs.com Connect with our hosts: Igor Tomych https://www.linkedin.com/in/igortomych/ Dumitru Condrea https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcondrea/ Connect with our guests: Anna Nyvelt https://www.linkedin.com/in/annanyvelt/ Noemi Orsolya Molna https://www.linkedin.com/in/noemiorsolyamolnar/

    36 min
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About

Fintech Garden is a weekly podcast hosted by industry experts. Each episode dives into the latest in finance, banking, technology, and payments.

Information

  • Creator
    Igor Tomych & Dumitru Condrea
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    61
  • Show Website
    Fintech Garden