Leaders In Payments and FinTech - The EDC Podcast EDC

This week we speak with Hazal Muhtar, Director of Product Analytics at Wise.

Wise probably needs no introduction. Launched in 2011 under its original name TransferWise, it is one of the world’s fastest growing, profitable fintech companies and has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 2021.

Hazal heads up a rapidly growing data analytics team at Wise, and in our conversation, we discuss various topics including the role of data analytics in product innovation in a highly regulated industry, the challenge of building data and technology teams around strategic business priorities, and key considerations when scaling teams.

This week we are meeting with Edy Bruinooge, CCO at IBANXS. The company was founded in 2019 in The Hague and has grown to become the leading Open Banking provider in the Netherlands. The company independent PSD2 platform connects clients with over 2,500 banks across Europe for Payments and/or Account Information. Clients live on the platform range from Payment Service Providers to Accounting Software companies to Lending and Factoring companies. Edy and his team have done an incredible job to both integrate with so many banks across Europe. The APIs all vary and the ongoing effort to maintain all these connections and deliver a consistent quality of services is not to be underestimated. We have a frank and honest discussion about the state of PSD2, PSD3 and Open Banking across Europe. Edy talks openly about the iBANXS journey and explains why he continues to be optimistic about the future of Open Banking in the EU.

This week we meet Shiraz Ritwik Head of Banking, Payments, Insurance sectors at LatentView Analytics. LatentView Analytics Ltd. is a fast-growing digital analytics firms that helps companies combine digital and traditional data to drive digital transformation and gain a competitive advantage. In our conversation we discuss how organisations can build and optimize their data strategies to unlock the full potential of their data, and how to define a data roadmap based on an organisation’s operational maturity. Shiraz shares some insightful case studies on how advanced analytics and AI can be used to streamline financial processes, prevent fraudulent transactions & gain a connected view of data from marketing campaigns. Some great tips and insights so I do hope you enjoy this conversation with Shiraz Ritwik from LatentView Analytics.

This week, we meet up with Sergio Fogel who calls in from Uruguay’s capital city Montevideo. Sergio is co-founder co president and chief strategy officer of dLocal, which is Uruguay’s leading FinTech. dLocal provides cross border payments, infrastructure, connecting global merchants to customers in emerging markets in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Establish in 2016, dLocal has become Uruguay’s first fintech unicorn, and only the second Uruguayan company to list on wall street, which it did in June 21. In our conversation, we discussed dLocal’s startup journey, Sergio explains how dLocal continues to grow and impact the lives of many in the emerging market that it connects.  He also shares his view on the current market, and a lot more besides, so I do hope you enjoy this episode with Sergio Fogel from dLocal.

This week we are digging into low code technology with Dave Wyatt, Snr staff engineer at TJX Europe. Dave is an expert Microsoft Power Platform Developer. The Power Platform is a fascinating and evolving platform. It’s a Azure cloud based platform that integrates Microsoft’s low-code solutions – Power BI, Power Automate, Power Apps, Power Pages - with Microsoft365 and Dynamics 365. It’s also where Microsoft’s co-pilot AI lives. It sounds and I think is a massive deal. I think its highly relevant to payments particularly when you think about digital transformation and finance automation. Automating the multitude of manual back-offices processes and replacing or at least upgrading the industry’s dependency on Excel. So, a lot to pay attention to in this podcast with David Wyatt. In our conversation we discuss how David got into engineering and low code software development via early experience in project management &implementation of bespoke IT solutions for business processes using SharePoint,Power Apps, Power Automate and Excel VBA. We discuss a lot besides, so I do hope you enjoy this conversation with David.

This week, we meet up with Caleb Avery, founder of Tilled which is a US based Payfac-as-a-Service provider. The company enables its customers to enjoy all the benefits of a fully registered payment facilitator program without the upfront cost, hassle, or liability. This model allows companies like software vendors, marketplaces, and SaaS providers to generate new revenue from accepting credit cards. In our conversation, we cover Caleb’s start up journey and discuss the state of the payment market and the increasing growth of the Payfac model and how it differs in the US and Europe