In the Hot Seat Enfuce

Compliance IS sexy when it’s done right! Erik Howell of Flagship Advisory Partners and Donald Riddick of Featurespace discuss rebuilding trust after fintech f#ck ups, what the foundation of compliance done right looks like, how your KYC/KYB can make or break you, and the best way to treat a compliance department to stay lean and nimble.
 
Key Takeaways.
[0:00] Denise Johansson puts Donald Riddick, Company Secretary and Chief Legal Officer for Featurespace, and Erik Howell, Partner at Flagship Advisory Partners in the hot seat.
[2:17] New standards and new tech are often the start of compliance. PCI DSS anyone?
[4:55] Erik offers banks reassurance amidst compliance fuckups with methodical transparency.
[6:17] Independent third-party assessments are Donald’s fundamental health check to save banks the headache of uncertainty. He also offers that giving everyone time is key.
[8:17] OK, compliance IS sexy, Donald.
[9:05] Erik offers examples of transparency, and those more at risk of more opaque practices.
[9:54] Self-certifiers are more prone to disaster, Donald offers a prime U.S. example.
[12:26] With great liability for money laundering comes great KYC/KYB responsibility.
[14:18] Erik shares his thoughts on picking your style of vendor.
[15:10] Donald talks about dropped deals on the grounds of insufficient KYC/KYB. It is HUGELY important.
[17:18] Factors of trust involve your choice of tools.
[18:09] Evolving threat vectors mean adaptive processes. Donald talks about how to use machines to complement human weaknesses and vice versa.
[19:33] What’s your risk tolerance? Realistically, is it bank-level or gaming-level?
[22:59] You can do high risk, but do it right.
[23:51] Integrating compliance as a partner prevents it from slowing you down.
[26:42] Ignoring dirty laundry will only make it worse, the same goes for compliance! Do it now and do it right.
[29:00] Denise signs out until the next time she puts an industry leader in the hot seat.
 
People.
Guest Erik Howell, Partner at Flagship Advisory Partners, a payments & fintech advisory boutique. Guest Donald Riddick, Company Secretary and Chief Legal Officer at Featurespace, a world leader in Enterprise Financial Crime prevention for fraud and Anti-Money Laundering. Host Denise Johansson, co-CEO and co-Founder of Enfuce, a female-founded fintech helping drive business growth, solve customer challenges, and extend financial inclusion.  
Links.
Flagship Advisory Partners Featurespace Enfuce  
Guest Quotes.
For a bank, enterprise, or strategic buyer, the tolerance for compliance screw-ups is zero/nil because it’s such a latent risk. — Erik Howell, Flagship Advisory Partners, InTheHotSeat Because it links to the money, KYC is hugely critical. That's one of the first things I look at, and there's just no tolerance there if you’re looking to buy the company. — Erik Howell, Flagship Advisory Partners, InTheHotSeat If 1% of your portfolio is high-risk gaming pay-in and pay-out, and it's NOT driving value creation, don't do it. — Erik Howell, Flagship Advisory Partners, InTheHotSeat So many suppliers believe they're doing things right and they’ve certified their own controls but they only exist on paper. — Donald Riddick, Featurespace, InTheHotSeat Some organisations aren’t willing to slow down. There's a real danger in looking at acceleration without simultaneously looking at the dirty laundry. — Donald Riddick, Featurespace, InTheHotSeat On the vendor side, the core is that you can have these massive governmental penalties if you get it even a little bit wrong, or even if there's the appearance of getting wrong. — Donald Riddick, Featurespace, InTheHotSeat The value of your company decreases if you don't have sufficient KYC and KYB. — Donald Riddick, Featurespace, InTheHotSeat Whenever humans are involved in processes – we are wonderful as a species but sometimes we get things wrong: you have to reduce that.

Female founders get less than 2% of all VC funding. Svitlanka Sergiichuk Romaniuk of NeoFin and Alexia de Broglie of Your Juno each discuss with Denise why the numbers are so low, things women can do to bring them up (hint: it looks like therapy and sisterhood!) and how investing in building strong founder relationships will build stronger companies with better culture and communication.
 
Key Takeaways.
[0:00] Denise Johansson puts Svitlanka Sergiichuk Romaniuk, co-founder of NeoFin and Alexia de Broglie, co-founder of Your Juno, in the hot seat. [2:39] Wanting “more” is a through-thread for founders. [4:31] Female founders have it hard enough: Find the right partners and stick to your principles. [6:11] The U.S. is beginning to develop a good number of female foundership programs in FinTech. [8:51] Because there are so few, current female founders and leaders in FinTech need to shine bright to lead the way. [10:29] Stop with the imposter syndrome already! [11:17] Why helping to maintain a strong sisterhood of support will bring more women up into leadership positions. [19:38] You don’t have to leave your job and build the plane while you fly it, and founding a company isn’t a set path. [21:51] Investing in executive coaching with co-founders increases any venture’s stability. [25:17] Executive working relationships in startups will naturally build company culture. [26:30] Pre-seed funding is not so much about the product as it is about the founding team. [28:54] Founders need to pick investors just as much as the reverse, it is a long-term relationship. [30:49] Using the communication tools available should not be scary. Reach out (or answer the phone!). [33:19] Founders are subjected to a toxic idea of hustle culture. Having a family is possible, having it all is possible. [36:32] We do not all have the same 24 hours in a day. [38:58] Denise signs out until the next time she puts an industry leader in the hot seat.  
People.
Guest Svitlanka Sergiichuk Romaniuk, co-Founder of NeoFin, an intuitive SaaS that allows to fully automate all credit/loan operations. Guest Alexia de Broglie, co-Founder of Your Juno, giving women and non-binary people financial knowledge and confidence to build their wealth. Host Denise Johansson, co-CEO and co-Founder of Enfuce, a female-founded fintech helping drive business growth, solve customer challenges and extend financial inclusion.  
Links.
Enfuce  
Guest Quotes.
Being a female founder is not easy, and being a Ukrainian female founder doesn't make it easier. But the most important part of being a founder is sticking to your principles when choosing your business partners. — Svitlanka Sergiichuk Romaniuk, NeoFin, InTheHotSeat There are quite a lot of programs in the US that are embracing female foundership, especially in FinTech, that I'm happily going for! — Svitlanka Sergiichuk Romaniuk, NeoFin, InTheHotSeat Modern times provide so many opportunities for female founders. Keep going and keep growing. The opportunities are out there, they're just waiting for someone to pick them up. — Svitlanka Sergiichuk Romaniuk, NeoFin, InTheHotSeat People look at founding a company as binary: You quit your job and you're now on this massive journey of building a company. Just break down this task into manageable chunks where you don't have to sacrifice a lot to take the next step — Alexia de Broglie, Your Juno, InTheHotSeat We have actually gone through a lot of executive coaching and that's something that I would recommend to any founder relationship. I think the number one reason why startups fail is because founders fall apart. — Alexia de Broglie, Your Juno, InTheHotSeat With pre-seed funding, what they're backing is the founders. It's not how much traction you have, or your financial model. It's more about how much conviction do the founders have, how do they get along, what is their background? — Alexia de Broglie, Your Juno, InTheHotSeat One of the

From paying for music to morning coffees, embedded transactions power daily life. With Christoffer Malmer we examine where embedded finance can have the biggest strategic impact, how fintechs can build stronger compliance with speed, why banks need to pick up the pace if they want to compete, and how banks and fintech could work with each other.
 
Key Takeaways.
[0:00] Denise Johansson puts Christoffer Malmer, Head of SEB Embedded, in the hot seat.  [2:02] Earning customer trust has always been a brand thing. [4:08] While the embedded finance sector is still being defined, having a broad suite of products lets you customise customer solutions. [6:09] Finding the product you need is more about properly defining the problem to solve or the outcome desired. [7:13] Embedded finance is in the process of knitting banking into our lives in a more natural way. [8:28] Development and distribution are two areas in which fintech can play an exciting role. [10:40] Compliance doesn’t have to make you slow, but with some fintech having had multiple failures in that regard, it does mean having discussions with potential partners. [13:00] Working in partnership with your compliance department will serve your customers, make you more agile, and enable company-wide alignment. [14:22] After having changed music, transportation, and online shopping, the next big revolution may yet be financial services themselves! [17:02] For banks, the transition has been slow. They need to rethink what products they are providing and how they deliver them. [20:25] The future is staggeringly fast. Becoming more agile, learning as you iterate, and having the guts just to start may be the key to future-proof any large organization. [23:50] Christoffer shares his last thoughts on the exciting possibilities embedded finance and BaaS offers. [24:22] Denise signs out and teases the next episode: female founders in fintech.  
People.
Guest Christoffer Malmer, Head of SEB Embedded, an in-house startup dedicated to commercialising BaaS. Host Denise Johansson, co-CEO and co-Founder of Enfuce, a female-founded fintech helping drive business growth, solve customer challenges and extend financial inclusion.  
Links.
Enfuce SEB Embedded SEBx SEB group  
Guest Quotes.
Brands with strong market positions and strong relationships with their customers have earned the trust to say ‘Hey, I'm offering you financial service now, but I'm not a bank.’ — Christoffer Malmer, SEB Embedded, InTheHotSeat I see embedded payments as part of a subset of embedded finance. — Christoffer Malmer, SEB Embedded, InTheHotSeat Conversations might start somewhere but end up somewhere else. With a broad suite of financial services products at your disposal, you can really tailor the solution that the customer's looking for. — Christoffer Malmer, SEB Embedded, InTheHotSeat Shift the conversation from ‘I am buying this particular payment service’ to ‘What am I trying to solve for? What is the user experience I'm trying to get to?’ — Christoffer Malmer, SEB Embedded, InTheHotSeat The strategic shift will be that we are used to doing banking on one side and living our lives on the other: I want to buy a house, I need a bank for my mortgage, or I want to buy a car, and I need to find financing. — Christoffer Malmer, SEB Embedded, InTheHotSeat If you're building a FinTech, I would invest in compliance to make sure that that's part of your DNA. — Christoffer Malmer, SEB Embedded, InTheHotSeat Changes in the new world of finance are happening at an increasing pace and becoming more and more structural and fundamental. — Christoffer Malmer, SEB Embedded, InTheHotSeat When the product becomes all digital, it's software. And when you're providing software, you're building and launching software. As you would know @Enfuce, it's a different business, than providing a financial service. — Christoffer Malmer, SEB Embedded, InTheHotSeat SEB has been

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