We’re joined by a pair of fintech analysts, Max Friedrich of ARK Invest and Lex Sokolin of ConsenSys, to break down Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO.

Ant, a spinout from Alibaba and the parent of Alipay, one of China’s leading payments companies, filed papers to IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

In this conversation, Max, Lex and I break down Ant’s business, from the origins to today, discuss growth opportunities and potential headwinds and explore the multi-faceted relationships between Ant and other big tech companies and national governments.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin

Today, we’re joined by Lex Sokolin to talk through a few interesting developments in the world of fintech.

M&A is a continued trend in fintech, with the most recent candidates reported to be UBS and Credit Suisse, the latter of which is also in the news with a new digital bank. Will their effort somehow be different than the abortive attempts of their international peers, including JP Morgan Chase in the US and RBS in the UK?

Klarna raised $650 million at a $10.6 billion valuation, making it the most valuable private fintech in the world. Why is Klarna successful where OnDeck and, arguably, Kabbage weren’t?

Lastly, we venture into Lex’s realm of digital assets, with MasterCard’s fun new toolkit to help countries test Central Bank Digital Currencies and Kraken’s newly granted Wyoming bank charter.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

To subscribe to Lex’s amazing newsletter, please visit www.fintechblueprint.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Lex Sokolin.

Consumer behavior in China has captivated the West for years, and behavior around fintech and payments is no different.

Ant Group’s planned $200 billion upcoming IPO raises more questions than it answers in the minds of many in the West, who like me don't have direct experience with super apps and ubiquitous QR code based payments.

We recorded a breakdown of Ant Group’s upcoming IPO last week with Max Friedrich and Lex Sokolin, which is under compliance review and will be released soon.

Today’s conversation brings unique perspective to the exploration of fintech in China, told through the eyes and anecdotes of two Chinese tech entrepreneurs.

Linda Jiang is a deep tech founder and serial entrepreneur. In 2010, she co-founded Umeng, a mobile analytics and developer platform that grew to support 180,000 apps and become the largest platform of its kind in China before selling to Alibaba in 2015. She is now an advisor to Baidu Ventures, an early stage deep tech focused fund backed by Baidu, one of China’s tech giants.

Yi Luo is the founding Chief Strategy Officer of FreeUp, a company unlocking daily salary payment for workers. In 2019, FreeUp was acquired by Greensill, and then rebranded as Earnd, where Yi now leads strategy and expansion. Yi is also a keen angel investor.

This conversation was recorded in February 2020, pre-COVID and before I relocated to New York, which may explain some of our references.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Linda Jiang and Yi Luo.

Mike Massaro is the CEO of Flywire, a payments technology company fresh off a $120m Series E led by Goldman Sachs. Matt Harris is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures and one of the smartest fintech VCs on the planet.

Both Mike and Matt have been on Rebank before, in episodes I highly recommend everyone check out.

In this conversation, we dig into the embedded finance opportunity and Bain Capital Ventures’ prediction that we’re at the beginning of a platform shift that will be as big as the Internet, Cloud and Mobile.

The combination of Matt’s investor perspective and Mike’s insight at the helm of a leading payments company make this a fascinating discussion.

To subscribe to the Rebank newsletter, including insights, essays and written transcripts of all new episodes, please visit www.bankingthefuture.com.

Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, Mike Massaro and Matt Harris.