Tag Archives: Incubators

LFP108 – A Deep Dive Into Credit Cards, Past, Present & Future w/Nick Kerigan MD Future Payments at Barclaycard

Nick leads innovation at Barclaycard who in 2017 processed some £250bn of payments. We go back to 1966 and the start of credit cards and continue the narrative through the present into the future.

Cards used to be perceived as bits of plastic that we all still recognise.

However as FS gets ever more digital and ever more virtual what “is” a card – especially when physical cards are likely to be less and less used over time?

What is a “card” when cards, at some point in the future are no longer produced?

What is a card now in fact? All these topics and many more are discussed including:  Continue reading

LFP094 – 2018 New Year Special! Fintech Tour d’Horizon, Report Card & Its Context

In this New Year Special I’ll survey the state of the art and present a report card for each of the main  Fintech sectors – P2P, Bitcoin, Blockchain, Money, App-only banks, Insuretech, Digital I.M., Regtech, Payments and a deeper dive into the leading AI of 2017. We also examine the broader context for Fintech – namely US Tech Giants who had a seismic shift in 2017.

No awards as such this year but plenty of honourable mentions and a host of goodies for those of you in search of new ideas.

Topics discussed include:  Continue reading

LFP089 – Dating and Mating with Fintechs Alexander Ball, Fintech Manager ING

The best post-“post crisis” banks have leaped ahead and are well on the way to leveraging Fintech to make themselves even stronger. Alexander Ball Fintech Manager at ING talks to us about a bank which has over 100 partnerships with Fintechs, the best known of which perhaps is Kabbage whereby ING clients can borrow up to €100,000 online within minutes.

All incumbents, all banks are absolutely not the same. Whilst the slowest and least well organised of the incumbents aren’t doing a great job adapting to the digital world the best organised are.

When a firm with 50,000 staff and €50bn of equity start to leverage new digital ideas and innovations doesn’t this start to leave disruptive Fintech far behind?

How does Alex and his team of scouts and analysts organise this?

How do they date and mate with the right Fintechs?

What are the challenges?

What are the opportunities?

How have they had to change to make all this happen?

All these topics and more are discussed on the show including: Continue reading

LFP077 – Capital Markets Fintech with Mark Beeston founder Illuminate Financial

Today we aim at the beating heart of FS – its IT systems. I am delighted to be joined by Mark Beeston founder of Illuminate Financial who has over two decades of hardcore FS experience trading derivatives, COO- and CEO-ing, to discuss Capital Markets Fintech.

A lot of Fintech is B2C, some is B2B but there is a whole chunk trading under the Fintech rubric which aims not to disrupt the provision of FS but rather enhance the incumbents. Disrupting existing IT vendors to FS not FS.

Illuminate Financial are Capital Markets VCs extraordinaire. Their claim is “we cross the chasm between enterprise Fintech and the Financial Institutions it should serve”. I can do no better than quote further re where this gulf comes from:

Regulation is increasing, the industry is deleveraging, and compliance is becoming ever stricter.

Financial institutions have been slow to adopt new technologies, while vendor management and procurement processes are focused on contracting multi-million dollar enterprise solutions from billion dollar corporations.

In doing so, they often overlook the innovative lower cost and highly scalable solutions offered by newer and more entrepreneurial suppliers.

Organisations know that the answers may lie in Fintech. Yet the ever-growing hype around the subject has made it more and more difficult to distil the signal from the noise.”

Topics discussed include:  Continue reading

LFP067 – Rethinking Banking: Marketplaces and App-Only Banks with Tom Blomfield CEO Monzo Bank

LFP Banner MonzoReformation or refactoring of banking is the Holy Grail of the Fintech Revolution. Do that and the revolution is a big deal. Get nowhere near and its all rather marginal. So-called challenger banks have ended up rather same-y. Will “App-only” banks end up going down the same route forced my micro-regulation and micro-supervision into the same tight mould. Or will they somehow remain within the constraints of the mould but somehow break it at the same time?

Its that paradox that faces Tom Blomfield CEO and founder of Monzo Bank. (and co-founder back in the day of GoCardless who were on the show in LFP046) A long way towards full authorisation as a bank will they become merely “me-too” or will they refactor banking as we know it?

Tom BlomfieldI have been an interested spectator on the sidelines for come time wondering which way the ball will bounce. At Lendit Europe 2016 I finally succumbed and took one of Tom’s pre-paid Mastercards – not least as which they offer wholesale exchange rates abroad and I was just off on holiday. It’s actually quite cool and more useful than expected. Certainly one gets a clear idea of what its like to feel like the business is really focusing on you as a customer-centric organisation with great design and service.

But back to the big picture – will Tom change the mould or will the mould change Tom?

Topics discussed include: Continue reading

LFP061 – InsureTech the 30,000 Feet Guide with Jonathan Howe UK Insurance Lead at PwC

PwC Banner_Orange_JGI am delighted to be joined today by Jonathan Howe UK Insurance lead at Price Waterhouse Coopers. As long time listeners will know I am very reluctant to give anyone a big picture topic on anything. Most folks are experts on one coalface and very few on the whole coal mine.

Jonathan HoweHowever Jonathan is a rara avis in the modern world in many ways. His linkedin career is perhaps the shortest I have read – one entry – 23 years at PwC. Now that’s the lifetime employment model that used to exist back in the day and exists for very few today. That’s also, compared to many butterflies in the modern world, an opportunity to dig a very deep well of experience and knowledge in a sector.

Secondly Jonathan leads the UK insurance practice (over 1,000 employees) and is responsible for PwC’s services for the UK Insurance Industry across all their range including audit, regulatory compliance, actuarial, consulting, tax and deals.

Thirdly PwC have been involved in a series of reports on the sector. Now plenty of reports are out there the more cynical amongst you may say and quality varies. True. However in “InsureTech a force for good”  Jonathan and colleagues have gone more than an extra mile. Amazingly they and their report partners Startupbootcamp have surveyed over 1,300 insurance startups. Wow.

Add that to decades in the industry and we have another of the rarest birds in the real world – someone who really is an expert.

The subtitle of “InsurTech a force for good” is an interesting overview “How InsurTech can reconnect insurers with their customers while simultaneously boosting the bottom line”

I met Jonathan at an event recently. It wasn’t a game of Top Trumps but if it had been Jonathan would have won hands down … when you have a database of 1,300 startups that’s a hell of a lot of facts to bring into any debate.

Topics discussed include – Continue reading

LFP042 – Bumper Fun-Packed New Years Show On Fintech & Star Wars, Beer, Media, 2015 review & 2016!

source: focusrs.org

source: focusrs.org

This is London Fintech Podcast episode 42, the answer to life, the universe and everything. Well a bit of everything anyway. And I have the pleasure to be joined today by – er – myself.

In the now traditional (um – can doing something twice be a tradition?) first podcast of the year step away from diving into a topic with an esteemed guest and take a more top of the mountain view of the landscape.

As it’s a bumper funpack we will cover a whole range of topics all of which pertain to Fintech.

So we start today’s show with the relevance of Star Wars; move on to beer and deep dive into a topic that applies to Fintech and to the whole of our perception of the world, the media – mainstream and indie.

Next a review of key themes from 2015 UK Fintech and finally we wrap up with some thoughts about the future.

In the next episode I’ll be back to the far easier task of asking folks smarter than I the answer to life the universe and everything or at least what’s going on in their corner of the Fintech phenomenon

Share and enjoy!

Happy New Year to all 🙂

~~~

Links I reference are:

LFP040 – The 7 Strategies of Banks in Response to the Fintech Revolution with Anna Irrera Financial News

FN Fintech banner

In episode 40 it’s a good time to turn to the response of the banking sector (used here as a proxy for all FS incumbents) to the Fintech revolution – both Fintech’s #newFS and its #newTech/#newIT side.

anna irreracropI couldn’t think of anyone better to discuss this with than Anna Irrera who is perhaps the only full-time journalist working on Fintech in London. She spearheads the Fintech section of what is now the Financial News but was decades back when I recall getting the first edition the London Financial News, now owned by the Dow Jones Group.

FN also has a quarterly fintech-focused publication Fintech News, Specific areas of focus within fintech include: alternative finance, blockchain, big data, robot advisory, cyber security, trading platforms and digital payments systems.

Anna is well known in London FS on both the Fintech and #oldFS sides of the current divide and always talks from the perspective of speaking to the miners at the coalface rather than the warmth of the press office.

Topics we discuss include: Continue reading

LFP039 – A Deep Dive Into the World of Startup & Small Fintechs with Alexandre Gaillard CEO InvestGlass

greatstories

In this episode we are taking a break from talking to the biggest players in London Fintech and dive instead into the far more numerous, if lower profile, world of small Fintechs.

Given the outburst of tech and business creativity right now there have been plenty of new and young companies forming in this sector – both from the Fin side and the Tech side of the FinTech phenomenon.

It’s admirable that so many folks are foregoing the wage slavery and potential necessity to be a clone to fit into giant FS or IT firms and starting out on their own. Equally as all the stats show it’s a highly risky path with the vast majority falling by the wayside.

How do startup and small Fintechs alter the odds?

What is it like working at the smaller end of the Fintech ecosystem?

Alexandre Gaillard

I am delighted to be joined to discuss this topic by Alexandre Gaillard. He is uniquely qualified being the founder and CEO of a small Fintech Investglass and the Founder of the Swiss Fintech Meetup.

 

 

There’s plenty to talk about in this world and amongst the many topics we discuss are: Continue reading

LFP024 – Lessons from my 25yrs in Fintech, #oldFS, #newFS and VC with Nigel Verdon Founder of Currency Cloud

Currency Cloud

I am delighted to be joined on the show today by Nigel Verdon founder and Chairman of Currency Cloud (who have always been my “Fintech insiders” Fintech of choice and have now done over $10bn of business) and also partner at OGC Capital – Anglo-Dutch VCs.

NIgel VerdonOn LinkedIn Nigel modestly describes himself as:

“Broad range of experience from tech guy to trader guy with deep industry experience in capital markets, foreign exchange, international payments and technology.”

It’s both novel and refreshing to see modesty in the modern world and (as generally) it’s massively misplaced.  Nigel has been – on anyone’s measure – a colossus in both the #oldFS and #new FS worlds and has now moved into the VC world.

He wrote an excellent piece last year entitled So What Is Fintech? which I recall for having been clearly and deeply thought-through – as rare in s-called “social” (selfcast?) media as modesty.  Only having discussed his career journey on this episode with him do I realise what it has taken to achieve that degree of insight and understanding.

In this wide-ranging and deeply insightful conversation about the long roots of Fintech we cover a broad range of topics including: Continue reading