David Brear is one of the most prominent thinkers and doers in our industry. David is focused on addressing one of the biggest challenges in banking: driving technological innovation at large, incumbent organizations.
David is CEO and co-founder of 11:FS, a FinTech consultancy that helps banks become truly digital. He's also cohost of FinTech Insider, a blockbuster podcast about FinTech and financial services. Named among the Top 100 Most Influential FinTech Leaders of 2016, David is one of the most recognized and influential people in financial services. David worked at Lloyds Banking Group and Aviva on large-scale digital transformations and then led Gartner's Global Digital Banking practice before starting 11:FS.
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Thank you very much for joining us today. Please welcome, David Brear.
Two Queens of Fintech, Duena Blomstrom and Liz Lumley, join us today for an insightful conversation about bank-fintech collaboration, plus an exclusive announcement from Duena.
Duena headed sales for Meniga, a successful Icelandic fintech startup, from 2010-2015. Duena has been investing in and advising fintech startups since then, especially on commercial and go-to-market strategies.
Liz ran StartupBootcamp Fintech's 2015 London program and then led ecosystem development for the accelerator. She is currently Managing Director for Thought Leadership at Rainmaking, one of the parent companies of StartupBootcamp.
If you like today's show, reach out. Tweet at us @rebankpodcast or at me, your host, @will_beeson. Connect with us via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or our website www.bankingthefuture.com.
To find out more about Duena's exciting new endeavor, visit www.finwinners.com.
Eugene Danilkis is co-founder and CEO of Mambu, a banking technology provider based in Berlin.
Eugene is literally a rocket scientist: He led a software engineering team developing NASA-certified software for the International Space Station prior to founding Mambu.
Mambu is a cloud-based technology platform that enables banks and fintechs to rapidly address new market opportunities and reduce the high costs previously associated with software licenses, maintenance and in-house infrastructure. Mambu supports a range of customers all over the world, including OakNorth, a new UK bank we covered in Episode 12, when we sat down with their co-founder Joel Perlman. If OakNorth's early success is any indication, Mambu is a powerful platform. We've touched on core technology in a few episodes recently, which has been a conscious decision.
Even with all the coverage around fintech, it can be tough to get clear, comprehensive insight into one of the most important components of banking & fintech success: core technology.
Please enjoy today's episode with Eugene Danilkis.
Financial inclusion is a global issue. In fact, it's probably more global than most of us think. Even in developed markets like the UK, US and Western Europe, there are huge numbers of unbanked people.
Pockit, a UK-based neobank, is addressing that problem in the UK. Launched in 2014 and currently serving 123,000 customers, Pockit is making a profound impact on the lives of a huge number of financially underserved individuals.
Virraj Jatania, Founder and CEO of Pockit, joins us in Episode 21 to talk through the problem they're solving and the strategies they're employing to do so.
We get into the economics of "neobanks," non-bank fintechs that leverage third-party authorizations to offer bank-like products.
Let us know what you think on Twitter @rebankpodcast or @will_beeson.
Connect with us via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or www.bankingthefuture.com to continue the conversation.
We hope you enjoy today's episode.
Episode 19 is a special one. We're celebrating the year-end with a long-overdue dive into some of the key concepts that have found their way across multiple episodes to date.
We've interviewed some of the most noteworthy founders, investors, thinkers and doers in fintech & banking innovation over the past few months. Their insight and analysis will see us well into 2017 and beyond, so we're hunkering down over the holiday break to dig into it in detail.
In Part 1 of our exploration, we break down our conversations with:
Jeff Tijssen (@jefftijssen)
Skylar Lyon (@skyyhigh)
Jason Bates (@jasonbates)
Chris Skinner (@chris_skinner)
Faisal Khan (@babushka99)
Alex Tapscott (@alextapscott)
Slava Solodkiy (@slavasolodkiy)
Michael O'Connor
Duena Blomstrom (@duenablomstrom)
We couldn't be more thankful for the wonderful guests we've had on the show so far.
Word of caution: We dug out some of our earliest episodes, so please bear with us on the audio quality. We were still learning!
Let us know what you think @rebankpodcast @will_beeson.
Brett King (@brettking) is a bestselling author and was voted Innovator of the Year for 2012 by American Banker. Since 2010 Brett has released 5 Global Bestselling books, including Bank 2.0, Branch Today – Gone Tomorrow, Bank 3.0, Breaking Banks and his latest Augmented. His books have topped bestseller charts for banking in 18 countries and have been translated into 9 languages.
David Robson leads IBM's Watson business in the European financial services sector.
Perhaps the world's most recognizable AI system (after HAL 9000), IBM's Watson is live across multiple industries and is using artificial intelligence to solve hard, real world problems.
For the uninitiated: Watson is a cognitive computer that can read, understand, reason and engage with humans in support of a broad range of knowledge workers including medicine, banking and insurance.
David has been working with Watson for two years, advising banks and insurance companies on how to deploy cognitive technology within their operations.
For more on Watson, follow them on Twitter @ibmwatson or visit www.ibm.com/watson.
Devie Mohan is a prominent fintech writer, speaker and commentator. Devie is the co-founder and CEO of Burnmark, a fintech research company established in partnership with Berlin-based FinLeap. She is also a market strategist and UK coordinator with FinLeap.
Throughout the course of her career, Devie has helped numerous banks, startups, innovation groups and investors understand the trends in fintech, helping them set their corporate, marketing and investment strategies. She is an adamant proponent of a fintech ecosystem in which banks and startups collaborate to drive innovation.
Devie is featured on several fintech influencer lists, including the CityAM FinTech Powerlist and the SWIFT-Innotribe Power Women in FinTech list, to name just two.
Oaknorth is a startup bank in the UK.
Joel Perlman, Oaknorth's co-founder, is a UK-based serial entrepreneur.
After starting his career at McKinsey, Joel eventually left to co-found Copal Partners, a financial research outsourcing company with his business partner, Rishi Khosla. Over a period of 12 years, they grew the business to almost 3,000 people before selling it to Moody's in 2014.
Subsequently, Joel and Rishi founded OakNorth, a new UK bank focused on lending to entrepreneurs and mid-sized growth companies. From an outsider's perspective, OakNorth seems to approach banking in a pragmatic, entrepreneurial way, seeking cost effective, non-traditional ways to deliver value for customers and outcompete incumbent banks.
Formally launched in 2015, OakNorth is to date the only completely new UK bank to break even, doing so in an amazing 11 months.
APIs and banking as a platform will revolutionize banking.
This week we’ve got a special two part edition, with two guests who represent arguably the future of banking and financial services technology.
Martin Häring is the Chief Marketing Officer of Misys (www.misys.com), a global core banking provider that recently opened its systems to third party development, in yet another sign that the industry is moving toward an API-connected, platform model.
I think Misys is doing revolutionary work, and it’s good to see an established organization–a stalwart of global banking systems–taking the lead with such an innovative move. I think it’s reflective of the way fintech is going, the way banking is going, the way financial services is going, and the way technology is going more broadly.
We’ve also got Myles Stephenson, CEO of Modulr (www.modulrfinance.com), a UK fintech building out a robust, plug-and-play payments platform to support corporates and fintechs looking to gain more efficient access to payment systems in the UK, above and beyond what’s offered by the banks. Myles has a really interesting take on where the industry is going in terms of systems architecture and platformification.
I think the two guests, the two interviews, support each other nicely and really reinforce this broad based push toward wholly new systems architecture.
As always, tweet at us @rebankpodcast and tweet at me directly @will_beeson to share your thoughts and continue the conversation.
Duena Blomstrom is an independent digital banking consultant, entrepreneur, VC, speaker and, in her words, "uncomfortably opinionated blogger."
For the past 18 years, Duena has worked across Telco and Finance on strategy and consulting for sales and marketing, including a 5-year stint as Head of Sales and Marketing for Meniga. During her time at Meniga, the company went from being a tiny Icelandic start-up to a market leader in customer engagement.
Duena works at the intersection of technology and behavioral science. She's passionate about helping banks transition from thinking product set to thinking customer needs. She's a regular guest on blogs and podcasts including Breaking Banks, and we're lucky to have her with us today.
Michael O’Connor is a fintech & banking advisor and investor with extensive experience analyzing, structuring and investing in banking and financial services deals.
Before going independent earlier this year, Michael was a portfolio manager looking at credit and banking transactions for Arrowgrass Capital Partners, a prominent, London-based, financial services-focused alternative investment fund. Prior to Arrowgrass, Michael was a founding partner at Portman Capital Partners, where he advised UKFI and HM Treasury on alternative disposal strategies for UK government-owned banking assets. Michael has also worked in various senior roles at GLG Partners, Polygon Investment Partners, Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro.
Michael is a superbly sharp, thoughtful guy with keen insight into where banking and fintech are going and why.
Slava Solodkiy founded Life.SREDA, a fintech-focused VC fund, in 2012 and has been running it ever since. Life.SREDA 1, which was focused on A-rounds in the US and Europe, invested $40m in 13 companies including Fidor, Moven, Simple, Anthemis, SumUp and Rocketbank.
In November 2014, Life.SREDA launched its second fund, a $100m fund focused on B-rounds in Asia. So far, fund 2 has invested in companies including Fastacash, Mobikon, Lenddo, Ayannah and SoftPay. Life.SREDA also runs a $100m global blockchain fund.
Slava and his team at Life.SREDA also regularly produce amazing fintech reports, including Money of the Future, which I'd highly recommend anyone with an interest in the space check out.