Tag Archives: Platforms

LFP170 – Three Major Indicators That Insurtech Is Making Demonstrable Progress Changing An Industry w/Andy Rear

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Andy Rear was until recently head of the innovative Digital Partners, MunichRe’s London subsidiary which pretty much invented Reinsurance (/Insurance) As A Service (which he covered way back in LFP074). In this episode he rejoins us to present evidence that Insurtech is actually changing an industry.

Andy himself is off to do Non-exec-ing and a PhD in Pensions behaviour and so this might well be his swansong podcast on the topic of Insurtech and as such an industry leading figure it’s a must-listen! Has Insurtech changed an industry – Andy lays out the evidence and you decide…

Topics discussed include: Continue reading →

LFP164 – A Deep Dive Into Ripplenet, A Key 21stC Global Payments Approach, with Marcus Treacher SVP Customer Success Ripple

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Payments are being revolutionised. One of the most fascinating examples is Ripplenet – Ripple’s approach to inverting the old model of slow large payments to super-fast, immediate, small payments (the general trend) which will change payments forever. Ripplenet “an internet of value” is used by over 300 Financial Institutions in more than 45 countries, as a next gen global payments infrastructure.

 Marcus has over 30 years of experience in transaction banking and payment technology, including 12 years at HSBC, being a member of the Global Board of SWIFT and an independent non-executive director of CHAPS Co, the UK’s RTGS clearing company.

In this show we start with the super-big picture of how payments have changed over the centuries, how the challenge is not simply tech but how people and organisations relate to this before spiraling in to a schematic overview of the three layers than amount to Ripple’s solution. Continue reading →

LFP162 – The Past and Future of Fintech w/Vinoth Jayakumar Partner Draper Esprit

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Draper Esprit are one of London’s longer-established VCs and with investments in the likes of Revolut, Transferwise, Thought Machine, Seedrs, Crowdcube and Freetrade might know a thing or two about Fintech. Draper Esprit, like Augmentum who we had on the show last year are also a listed AIM and thus also can offer finance not tied to the cycle of underlying funds – the so-called patient capital model.

Vinoth not only leads Fintech investments at Draper Esprit but has had a long running interest in the sector being at a Zopa Party in around 2007/2008 long before almost every firm now on the scene existed.

In this episode he picks out the key developments in Fintech over the past decade and a half, some of the takeaway lessons that all businesses can implement, some of the challenges and ends with his prospects for the upcoming decade.

Topics discussed on the show include: Continue reading →

LFP161 – Global B2B Payments & Multi-Rail Technology w/Marwan Forzley CEO Veem

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Marwan  joins us to discuss global payments for small businesses. He has been in payments for many years and was first a founder in 2002 so speaks from long experience of both. Veem is a global payments network used by small businesses around the world which allows them to pay their vendors, suppliers and contractors anytime, anywhere.They do payments to 110 countries in 50 plus currencies, and have about 200,000 B2B customers.

One important way that Veem manage such a long list of countries is to use a unique “multi-rail” technology – basically having wired up a bunch of different conduits from bank to bank transfers at one end through the likes of card payments to via crypto currencies at the other. This enables them to have a broader range of options for any particular transfer and for the end-users enables them to have a much richer range of payments destinations.

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LFP154 – Successful Partnering in Fintech w/Joanne Dewar CEO GPS

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One reason that as the Fintech revolution proceeds Fintechs can do more ambitious things is that there an increasing number of back-end service providers that they can plug into. In this episode Joanne Dewar, CEO of back-end payments services provider GPS – who work with 40 issuing banks globally, and operate programmes with 90+ APIs for over 100 clients (including Revolut, Starling Bank and Bo) in 60 countries in 150 currencies – joins us to share her experience of what drives  success in this sector for both the B2C front-end companies and the B2B back-end providers. GPS is furthermore a rare example of a profitable Fintech – which are always good to talk to.

Back-end providers have been with us for a long time – Currency Cloud, who executed most of Transferwise’s FX transactions for quite some time were back on the show years ago.

Time moves on though and by now we have plenty of data where partnering/outsourcing worked well and plenty where it did not.

What are the key factors of success? How is it done well and why is it done badly?

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LFP144 – Convergence: The Innovative Combination of Different Silos w/Sam O’Connor CEO Coconut

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So far Fintech has lionised technologies – APIs, Open Banking, AI/ML and so forth. But from a different perspective these are just glues to connect things that haven’t been connected before to make new propositions not previously possible. Although this has been touched on so far – marketplaces aren’t the best example – after all marketplaces are tens of thousands of years old.

In this episode we are joined by serial entrepreneur Sam O’Connor, CEO of Coconut to discuss convergence – the gluing together of components which were previously seen as different things.

Our smartphones glue together things we would have historically done in different places using different devices – camera, mp3 player, and emails for example, In the same way Coconut are focusing on micro-businesses into which all of us indies seem to need to fold ourselves these days and combining banking, accounting and tax in one place – items which historically would have been seen as different propositions.

Topics discussed include: Continue reading →

LFP139 – A Fintech That Is Globally The Largest Non-Bank In Its Sector – Global Trade & Supply Chain Finance w/ Peter Cook PrimeRevenue

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Not many Fintechs dominate their sector let alone in one of the biggest markets in the world. PrimeRevenue was formed in 2003 and is the largest non-bank supplied of Supply Chain Finance in the world (working capital finance for global trade). They facilitate more than $200bn of payments per annum for 20,000 clients. In this show we dive into what it is that such a Fintech does. What can other Fintechs learn from one of the global best in Fintech?

Peter Cook who is head of all non-US sales talks us through how global trade actually works and the staggering sums of money that can be released from working capital using the appropriate techniques and how this can be win:win for vendor and buyer.

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LFP132 Property Project Finance & Is P2P Becoming Asset Securitisation For Institutions?

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Britain needs both megabuilds but also a specialised SME property project finance market. Mike Bristow CEO of CrowdProperty a P2P based in Birmingham offers (to both sides) development finance loans and improves risk-returns by disintermediating the SME property finance market. We also debate whether P2P itself is morphing into asset securitisation for institutions (and to an extent retail funds as most folks are too busy/uninformed to second-guess experts by attempting to cherry-pick.)

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LFP130 – Equity Crowdfunding – Past, Present and Future Innovations w/Jeff Lynn Exec Chairman Seedrs

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Ten years ago Jeff and his co-founder came up with the idea for Equity Crowdfunding and seven years ago Seedrs became the UK’s (world’s?) first regulated Equity Crowdfunder. In this episode we revisit the origins of the concept, what it was thought to be then and how it has evolved with the person who can surely lay claim to be the father of UK equity crowdfunding.

As often everything takes time to evolve and build out. But ten years in much has been achieved – and not only much for Seedrs but importantly for the hundreds of companies who have raised vital capital on the platform. In the world of the now much forgotten “supply-side reforms” there is arguably nothing better that can be done for SmallCos than to have such an effective conduit to raising funds.

One thing that has taken time to evolve is for the rest of the world to catch-up with the UK’s lead. However as we shall hear there are promises that Equity Crowdfunding will finally become a Thing across Europe so plenty of exciting times ahead as well as behind.

These topics and much more are discussed in the show: Continue reading →

LFP129 – IPO-ing & Patient VC Capital Via Closed-End Funds? w/Tim Levene CEO Augmentum

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Today we merge two fascinating topics – the Gold Medal for a startup – the Public Listing and innovating in Venture Capital to provide more patient capital. Our guest who connects these two is super-serial entrepreneur Tim Levene who listed Augmentum last year and is a real Fintech insider being on the Boards of Iwoca, Zopa, Seedrs, amongst others.

Tim’s career is most impressive, as we shall hear in the show – did you know he founded London’s juice bars called Crussh.

Before we turn to weaving in the Augmentum model of venture capital provided not from a limited lifetime fund but from a “permanent capital” closed-end investment trust let’s turn to listing which is something Augmentum have been through themselves

When you are a NewCo or Startup it seems inconceivable (even if you go round proclaiming the opposite) that one day you might be listed on the LSE. It can seem like starting some sport tomorrow and ending up being selected to run for your country. So there is quite some sense of achievement for the founder in doing so.

However wiser older owls realise that listing is no nirvana – ask Funding Circle who listed at 440p at the end of September and were trading seven months later at little over half this price at 250p.

Topics discussed on the show include: Continue reading →